Blue, White and Red: A Tale of Three Jeeps

Eight years ago, my hubby and I went to Maui for our honeymoon. While my hubby was planning our trip he learned that 4-wheel drive vehicles were recommended for some of the roads. Since he wanted to drive around the island coastline, which would require us to drive on one of these roads, he rented a jeep.

Our jeep was blue with one small problem...it didn't come with zip in windows. After one day of sight seeing on the island, we decided to exchange the blue jeep for a different jeep as driving at highway speeds was drying my contacts out and making a frizzy mess of my hair. As I waited in the blue jeep for my hubby to come back with the keys to a different jeep, one of the rental company employees backed a van up into the blue jeep...scratching and denting the back driver's side.

Our second jeep was white and came with zip in windows. We took this jeep on our "road to Hana" excursion. A coastline road that is 45 miles long and contains 54 one-lane bridges and over 600 hairpin turns. A drive where I was constantly reminding my hubby to slow down (he was driving too fast because there were alot of places he wanted to see) and to keep his eyes on the road (he would cross the middle line when he lingered too long looking at the scenery). The drive was beautiful and breathtaking and we saw some amazing waterfalls, a black sand beach, and hiked through a bamboo forest.

Hana is about half way around the right side of the island and instead of returning home on the same route, my hubby decided we should complete the loop around the right side of the island, driving on one of the "4-wheel drive" recommended roads. This route was not a well travelled route and we were very happy to finally reach a real road again. By this time it was dark out and the road was quite hilly and barely lit. As we crested the top of one of the hills I saw something ahead and yelled "Slow Down!" for the millionth time that day. "There's something on the road!". My hubby had not seen what I saw and asked "Where?" as we crested the top of the next hill. There in front of us the dark images were easily recognizable. Three large dark cows in the middle of the road. Slamming the brakes on, we missed two of the cows and hit the third one in the shoulder...tenderizing him I'm sure. The cows ran off and we drove away, a little shaken but very thankful for God's protection and that we and the cows were not harmed seriously.

The accident caused about $1000 damage to the jeep. The next day we exchanged the white jeep for a red jeep. The red jeep survived the remainder of the trip.