When I was 13 my mom took the two of us to Kauai to visit a friend. She always says about that trip, “My parenting license should have been revoked.”

She’s reflecting on how we embarked on a couple different adventures, which, looking back, were admittedly kinda crazy for a young teen girl and her mom to tackle. We saw the famous Na Pali Coast from sea kayak and by foot. The hike itself is a bucket list kind of ordeal, as it stretches 11 miles along Kauai’s untouched northwest shore where there are no roads, but only towering cliffs and waterfalls and valleys.

At mile 7 is the infamous “crawler’s ledge,” which is about as narrow as one human body, with cliff walls extending both upwards and downwards from the foot path. My mom and I had camped on the trail and had backpacks with us. So when we got to crawler’s ledge we had to remove our packs and hold them out in front of us so we wouldn’t accidentally bump them and fall hundreds of feet to our deaths. We both cried. But we made it.

My growing up years are marked by several adventures like this one and contrary to my mom’s joke about her parenting license being revoked, I think they are the very thing that qualify her as one of the best. What a gift to stare down hard things and have no option but to push through. As a single mom I know she scrimped and saved and sacrificed to make those adventures happen and I am so grateful. They still empower me.

And her generous (and scrimping and saving!—IYKYK) spirit remains today. She lavishly shared the Na Pali Coast again with me and this time also Mark and our girls. She’s almost 80, so our adventures were from the relative safety of a sailboat and helicopter this time. It was a blast to look at that coast and tell the girls, “Grandma Bee and I hiked that.”

Thank you, Mom, for a lifetime of adventures. And thank you for an unforgettable visit to Kauai!