Who would've thought this was why I left Kauai

Hey! I have new photos up on the link if your interested check em out.
The heat was getting to us. It was the end of the day and after 10 hours of cycling out of the mountains and onto some level ground we were ready for the kick back part of the day. After heading south for the past 10 days the road started north again and the light headwind was getting annoying. Then after getting lost on smaller and smaller roads we were suddenly found. The dam appeared around a bend and we were almost to the guest house. Then out of nowhere it appeared. The road just shot up at an angle I hadn't seen since Thailand. One thing about Laos roads...they may be never-ending and damn steep but they were engineered with the idea of people actually using them...unlike Thai roads of which I've complained enough! But my legs were now jello after the long day and had nothing left, at all. We were both surly but I just lost it and started cussing and yelling at that hillside like it gave a damn. It didn't and around the next bend got even steeper. The spewing vitriolic hate that I let forth was powerful and started pulling me up the hill. Alisa was fighting her own battle and couldn't deal with my tantrum and told me to shut the hell up. I stood up and pedaled harder and with each stroke of my legs the cussing became more nasty and creative. I was out of earshot of Alisa now and having the big tantrum of this trip. My legs had re-developed the heat rash of southern Thailand and I was red-faced, soaked and mean looking when we came across two guys sitting at the side of the road. They smiled and pointed up the road when we asked if we were going in the right direction toward Na Nam. Normally this would have been encouraging but today everyone had the same response with differing estimates of distances. Ten kilometers back someone said, "Yes, Na Nam this way...maybeee 5 kilometers". Normally this kind of thing happens all the time here as people want to be friendly and polite and make you feel good. Normally this is an awesome trait that I love about SE Asia...friendly, smiling, and helpful strangers. These two pointed straight up the hill and said "Yes, maybe 2 kilometers". Normally I would have said thank you but it was good that I was panting so heavily or I might have started screaming at them to shut the hell up. As it was I rode off yelling at the road again and revelling in my hate fest. The power of anger is amazing and I tore up the hill using most of the little energy I had left. Turns out it was about a kilometer as the hill topped out around the next twist. And 2 hours later, I was feeling great and drinking a cold beer lao with the owner of a restaurant who used to work for the American secret airforce. ( Aside Alert! You know, the CIA funded nightmare called Air America that bombed most of Laos to hell trying to stop Ho Chi Minh as well as the communist insurgents in Laos. The airforce that ran more sorties in Laos than were run in Viet Nam! The secret airforce that dropped over 1000 pounds of ordinance for every citizen in Laos causing untold pain and death. Why didn't I learn about this crap in school, dammit?!) He still loved America and Americans and was so warm and sweet to us. With rotting teeth (some moving disturbingly as he talked) and love in his eyes he told of us repairing airplanes for the Americans. He didn't seem to care about the politics but he sure liked working with all the Americans. That was after his 9 year career of being a monk. In the morning he performed a ceremony and, putting a cloth bracelet on my wrist, blessed me and my family and wished me a safe and happy journey. It was a touching and wonderful connection in which two strangers from opposite ends of the world are sharing something bigger than each of them. But lets get back to my pain and infantile behavior for a minute.
The reason I began todays blog with my tantrum is that I realized something about myself in that rant. I can be a total whiner. I can be weak, or a crybaby. I can moan about the littlest things and I can be a real ass sometimes. In the past I always wanted to improve and change and "better" myself thinking that those traits made me unlovable. I got it, out here on the back roads of Laos, that nothing needs to change but the rediculous voice in my head that thinks I'm somehow incomplete! Ever! Somehow I came to understand (blame the heat) this week that those annoying traits make me human, not anything else. Sometimes they can even be assets. I don't have to be a certain way or have to change anything to be lovable. I've come to love myself on this trip. AND THAT IS WORTH LEAVING KAUAI FOR!! Having that realization has given me a feeling of completion and I'm ready to come home. I'm homesick for family and for my love, Sheryl and for a sense of groundedness that travelling often doesn't afford.