I got a phone call from one of the co-chairs of the National Testing Committee in late September. I had been dodging her calls and texts for a few weeks because I had been asked to be the incoming co-chair of the committee and had decided not to accept the position but was feeling too guilty to confess my decision yet. I listened to the voicemail that she left and she assured me that she wasn’t calling to harrass me just about that, but that they needed an examiner to go do a Dressage C3 and HB certification in Hawaii in early November. Was I interested? I immediately called her back and said heck yes (and sheepishly divulged to her that I was declining the role of co-chair). I immediately started plotting the feasibility of Scott coming along and us turning it into a serendipitous vacation. I talked to the organizer of the testings and she asked if I would be willing to stay on after the certifications to do some teaching- also yes! The region agreed to house us and provide us a car so Scott was on board and we booked our flights for our 10 day trip to Oahu and began one of our favorite things to do which is trip research.
Up until recently we had been using the world’s most elaborate and quite impressive spreadsheet for trip research and planning. Scott recently upped our game by introducing Google My Maps which allows you to create a custom map of locations of interest. He had been using it already for our upcoming Thailand trip (January of ‘25) planning but this was the first trip we would actually get to implement it. It makes it easy to visualize where your personal points of interest are in relation to each other and draws on the power of Google maps. By the time we were done with our Hawaiian internet surfing and YouTubing our map of Oahu was positively covered with icons of things to do and see on the island and we started counting down the days until embarkation.
I’ve heard that the peak satisfaction with a vacation actually occurs prior to the vacation itself in the lead up to it and I can see how that might be the case, especially in the day and age of YouTube because it is exciting to see and think about all the places you’ll get to experience. It’s been said that you experience a trip in three phases: the planning phase, the actual trip, and the reliving of the trip after the fact. We enjoy the planning and the research that goes into it and spent many nights watching videos and finding neat things to do in Oahu- many of which were off the beaten path (or as far off the beaten path as you can get in 2024 with so many travel vloggers documenting every inch of the globe).
Finally it was trip time and we were off! We were scheduled to have a rather tight connection in Detroit but that ended up being a non-issue because instead we actually had a three hour delay. Delays are better than cancellations and we toodled around the Detroit airport to kill time before finally boarding the 10 hour flight to Honolulu. I considered it practice for our Thailand trip where we will have two 10 hour flights. At least on the long haul flights they still wine you and dine you and Scott always gives me his wine rations.
We landed right after dark and rendezvoused with my co-examiner, Karen Marcotte, who was waiting at our gate to greet us. Karen is from New Hampshire, just outside of Boston, and has been a National Examiner as long as I have. In fact, she was one of my co-examiners at one of my very first C3 testings I ever was an examiner for (circa 2008) and we have been on panels together multiple times since. She has been a mentor for me and I always enjoy testing with her because she is down to earth and has a respectful and professional way of relating with candidates even when it is necessary to deliver bad news to unsuccessful candidates which can be very challenging and is never enjoyable.
Bleary from the long haul flight, we found our way to the rental car desk, signed the necessary paperwork 1, found our car and hit the road in search of our Airbnb. Actually, it wasn’t that simple. 2 We took in as many sights as we could on the drive there considering it was already dark out. The highway that we took from Honolulu to Kailua where we would be based, the scenic Pali Highway, was perplexing to Scott because it was a 6 lane divided highway, yet it had speed bumps and a 35 mph speed limit. I am fairly sure it was designed with Scott in mind…
Scott and I had a unit to ourselves and Karen’s housing was right across the street which was convenient. We dropped Karen off and went to unpack and get settled in. A few moments later the Airbnb owner checked in to familiarize us with the apartment. She was a horse owner and member of the local Pony Club and kept her horses at the facility where we were holding the certifications. Scott told her our plan for the morning which was to get up before sunrise and hike the Mount Olomana trail, also known as Three Peaks. Her eyes widened and she looked at him like he had two heads. She warned him that it was a highly challenging and notoriously dangerous hike and advised him to be careful, and under no circumstances should we attempt the third peak as it is the most dangerous and people have to be rescued via helicopter from it periodically.
Once she left we revisited and revised our plans for the morning and decided to do a more sedate and much safer walk to the local beach instead and to observe the sunrise that way. (I was shocked, pleasantly surprised, and thankful that Scott actually heeded her warning!) Scott decided he would do the Three Peaks hike on one of the days I was testing. We set the alarm for 5:45 and immediately crashed, exhausted from the long day of travel but excited about the upcoming days of exploration that lay ahead.
Our 2024 Oahu Hawaii Google My Map
An entertaining aside about the rental car… One of the plays in Scotty B’s Adventure Playbook is to upgrade his insurance coverage prior to a major trip because the circumstances are wildly different compared to daily driving, and in regards to a rental car it’s more economical to use private insurance coverage rather than paying the exorbitant fees through the rental company. Having recently changed insurance companies, when he called to do this two days prior to our trip, he was informed that changes took five days to take effect with this company. So with this news we decided to use my insurance. Janna (me) then revealed to Scott that he was actually specifically excluded from being a covered driver on my policy. This came as news to Scott who aside from Janna, is the only other driver of the 4Runner. When Scott (rightfully) said “what the hell??” Janna tried valiantly to explain how the insurance agent she spoke to when procuring coverage tricked her into admitting that there would be other drivers, and somehow explicitly excluding Scott. Thankfully we managed to sort out the situation and Scott was added successfully to Janna’s policy (and it added a whopping $0.09/month). We have now come to refer to this as The Rumpelstiltskin Event. ↩︎
Remember how we said we were exhausted after our long flight? Well, when we got up to the rental car desk we promptly declared Scott the primary driver, and when we went to add Janna as an additional driver, the daily price skyrocketed. Playing it cool and all, we huddled and came back to the agent and declared that ONLY Scott would be driving. Proud of ourselves for saving a few hundred bucks, we took the keys and marched out toward the car corral. Then all of a sudden it dawned on us that we were back to square one, realizing that since Scott paid for it and was listed as the driver, we wouldn’t have the necessary coverage. We aboutfaced, marched back into the office and announced that Janna would be the only driver. We then had to go through the whole paperwork rigamarole again. Then, finally properly covered we hoofed it to the corral in search of our rental car. ↩︎
