This is the post in which I reveal why Da Mystery Road Trip got named that. I will tell you of the plans, the excitement, the happiness, and the aloha. I will show you all the photos of the who, the what, the where, and the why. I’m glad you’re coming along for the ride! It’s a really long post, so hold on!

Da Mystery Road Trip Advencha began ‘way back in October, 2009. When Nolemana and I first made plans to go see my auntie in Montana, my friend Linda suggested that on the way home we stop by Yellowstone, which was a fabulous idea. That way we could come home through Idaho and see our friends B and G and see all our old haunts from when we used to live there.

But that wasn’t the mystery! No indeedy! I was talking with another friend, and we cooked up a plan that would make for an even funner journey. Funner? Is that a word? If not, I just made it one. So there.

The original plan had been to post photos everyday for the six days we knew we’d be gone, photos without any identifying marks so that peeps could guess where we were. Great idea, yeah? Only thing was that by the time each day ended, I was too stinkin’ tired to do anything but shower and hit the sack. So when we got back home again, I talked with my mystery friend, and here’s the scheme we cooked up: I’d make blog post along with the photos I’d planned to post while we were actually on the trip first, one installment at a time; then when we finally made it to where we got back home again in the saga, I would begin all over again, this time revealing where we really had been. ‘Round and ’round she goes, where she stops, nobody knows….

Sounds like a plan, yeah? And my mystery friend and Nolemana, my friend Julie (who was taking care of da farm), Linda, and one other person were the only ones who knew the whole story. I had absolutely no idea that it was going to take me so long to finish!

First came “Da Mystery Road Trip”, which starts here. That was fun. Lots of people tried to guess where we were, and everyone had some great guesses. But my lips were sealed!

Then after my last post for “Da Mystery Road Trip”, I started Da Mystery Road Trip Revealed, Part One, on January 8th, 2010, and we’re still not to the end yet! A year later! Sheesh. But in this post, you get to meet my mystery friend as well as finding out why this trip continued to be so special to me.

Here we are, crossing the Snake River, somewhere in the middle of Idaho between Twin Falls and Boise.

All of southern Idaho is dry, but you can be sure that near the Snake, it’s a guarantee that you will see green. Twin Falls is called The Magic Valley because of how beautiful it is because of the water from the Snake River, which s the largest and longest tributary of the Columbia River.

There was also plenny sagebrush. We did not stuff some in our trunk! For one thing, get nomo room!

Train tracks, but no train. I wondered what it’d be like to be an engineer travelling through this country all the time.

In the distance, the snowy peaks reminded us that winter was coming.

This is Exit 90, near Mountain Home. Mountain Home used to be a post office at Rattlesnake Station, a stagecoach stop on the Overland Stage Line. Can you imagine travelling the roads in a stagecoach? Oh my gosh. Here we were, driving along in comfort with no dust getting into our noses and between our teeth. It must’ve been a pretty arduous trip, to say the least.

Mountain Home Air Force Base is just southwest of the city. We didn’t see any planes flying overhead, though. But did salute the brave men and women who help to keep our skies safe.

I had Nolemana take a photo of these power lines stretching out across the desert. I love the way they line up against the sky and desert.

To the north, the sky stretched out far and wide.

Musubi was starting to get really excited. He was the only other “person” who knew where we were headed next, why this was called “Da Mystery Road Trip Revealed”, and he began to jump up and down. We are just coming into Boise.

Boise, next 6 exits. We’re not going there. But check out da speed limit! In Oregon that would be unheard of near a city! Actually anywhere in the state, for that matter!

We are now off the freeway, and about five minutes from our mystery friend’s hale. Musubi was beside himself! I kept having to tell him to settle down. I must admit that I had butterflies in my ʻōpū; I was even kinda wai maka at the thought of our next stop.

We pull right up to my friend’s hale, thanks to TryLook, who took us right here. Musubi practically flew out of Nolemana’s hand!

Now I’m going to digress for a minute. You know how I’m always talking about Musubi and how special he is to me. He was sent to me by a very special friend from back home whom I’d never even met in person. Ever since she’d made him and sent him to me, we’d emailed fairly often, and she began following along on our road trip adventures. And she and I were the ones who cooked up the whole Mystery Road Trip idea. For weeks, then months, we talked about what fun it’d be for me to post a series of blog posts about how we finally got to meet in person, never revealing anything until “the moment” when we got to her house. And now, here we were! This is the moment! The mystery of the Mystery Road Trip will now be revealed! Let’s see… how long has it been? October 2009? And it’s now January 2011? Maybe I’m gonna get some kind of award for having the longest drawn out advencha in the world!

Oh. U like see who was? Okay. Musubi leaped out of Nolemana’s hands and landed in the arms of….

(♪ ♫ Jeopardy theme playing….♫ ♪ ♫). Shuddup Mokihana! Just tell us anden!

Clare!!

There were joyful hugs all around. Clare and I hugged. Nolemana and Clare hugged. Musubi and Clare hugged and hugged and hugged; he’d thought he would never see her again.

Inside the house, we got to meet Clare’s husband and her two boys. And their pōpoki, who kept wanting to chew on the TV wires. Our timing was perfect, as Clare dem were just about to head out to the boys’ football game in just a little while. We gave Clare dem the box of omiyage we’d brought, and B hit the arare right away!

The first thing Clare did was to give Musubi his new travelling cape that she’d made for him, knowing that we were coming. She said to him as she tied it on, “All super-heroes should have a cape to wear!”

Here you can see Musubi wearing his special new cape. We are now at Clare and Sean’s real house, which had been almost completely destroyed by a fire several months before. In the fire, they lost their beloved pōpoki Emily, whose meows woke them up and got them all of of the house safely. When Clare asked if I’d like to see what the house now looked like, of course I said yes. She’d previously posted photos of the destruction and I was eager to see the rebuild.

We walked all through the house, marvelling at how good it looked. It was hard to picture the previous destruction, not until we walked out into the back yard and saw where shrubbery and the patio had been. I was just so grateful that Clare and her ʻohana were alive, yet couldn’t help but get teary about brave Emily.

And here we are, two titas who’d never met before in the real world, talking and laughing as though we’d known each other forever.

B wanted to get into the photo too, so Nolemana took another one. I will treasure these moments forever.

And if you’d like to read the story of how Musubi came to live with me, you can find it here.

All too soon it was time to part; Clare and B to the game, Nolemana and I off to our motel. The visit had been all too brief, yet Clare and I packed a whole lot of memories into that short time. Imagine us… two wāhine from Hawaiʻi, never having met except online. Yet Alohaworld brought us together, and now we were ʻohana in real life as well as in the cyber world.

What an incredible journey we were on. First getting to see my auntie, then my cousins, and now Clare dem. All in just the course of five days!

The mystery has now been solved, but during this past year or so Clare and I have had a lot of laughs about what fun it was to surprise everyone.

Nolemana and I got back in our car; Musubi loved his new cape. I programmed TryLook to get us to our motel, and off we went.

It was about 5:30 or so, and our motel was in Ontario, Oregon. In just a little bit we’d be back in our home state.

Leaving Meridian. Leaving Clare dem. Wai maka time.

Heading to the freeway.

Ontario. 26 miles. We’re almost there.

But first we have to get out into the desert again.

And we saw some pīpī for AFK! Kinda blurry but.

Heading makai. Towards the sea. Towards home. Travelling through the wide open Idaho sky.

We see more fields of sugar beets.

And catch another glance of the Snake River.

And more sugar beets, which will probably be dug pretty quick.

Ontario. 3 more miles. And we were good and ready to stop for the night. It had been a long, emotional day. But a good one.

The shadows were beginning to lengthen, and I began to feel a little sad at leaving Idaho, even though I was glad we were almost in Oregon.

Dried cornstalks along the way. This would’ve been gorgeous when the corn was tasseling.

We cross the Snake River yet again. It’s not named the Snake for nothing!

And here we are! In Oregon again! This part of Oregon is still on Mountain Time though, so we didn’t change our clocks.

Almost there!

And so ends this chapter of our road trip. Clare, I am so glad we got to meet in person, glad I got to meet your boys, and am so grateful for your friendship. We have both been through such grief during the past couple of years, and your friendship means the world to me. Thank you for that, for Musubi, and for making it possible for us to meet in person.

The mystery is over, but not our journey. There are plenny adventures left, so I hope you’ll stick around!