“A Supposedly Fun Thing I Will Never Do Again”
So the post name is a title of a book by David Foster Wallace that Laurie had read a couple months back about his experience on a cruise. While the sentiment does not quite relate to our time in Hawaii I could not help myself from using it. That said I am not going to complain about a Hawaiian vacation we really had a good time but the experience did reinforce what we already knew which is that we are neither beach nor resort people, especially me since I can not sit still that long and just relax. Resorts have there perks but I for one do not like the Hotel California; island unto itself, once you enter you can never leave feel of the places and as for beaches we are far to pale, or transluecent as I like to say, to spend to much time there.
Now onto the highlights, good and bad, of the trip:
We arrived in Honolulu late Monday morning so when we got to the Hotel Renew in Waikiki the room was not ready but since it is just a couple blocks from the beach we changed clothes, went for a run then out into the water to cool off. As the cool refreshing waves washed up over my legs I realized that my cellphone was still in my pocket and pulled it out just in time to watch the screen spastically flash on and off before it went dead for good. I cracked open the back to see the damage and for the all of ten seconds that it was in the water it was extensive with all the metal componants turned either black or green with a crusty white shell. Salt water plus electric current is really not good for copper contacts.
The next day we got up early and went to Pearl Harbor to visit the Arizona Memorial which if you can look past the noisy and disrespectful throngs of tourist it could serve its stated purpose of being a memorial to the men who died. The National Park Service takes too many people over and when you arrive the memorial is full of the people waiting to leave from the previous tour. Unless it is something you just have to check off your list like many of the people there I would suggest against going. We also watched a movie on what led Japan to attack us at Pearl Harbor, best exhibit there, and went through the USS Bowfin with its accompanying museum.
The best site we saw while in Honolulu was hands down the Ioloni Palace which has an amazingly beautiful interior but unfortunately I only could take photos of the exterior. In the picture that you see below you can see the windows but it is hard to judge the size, they are three panel windows that are at least nine feet tall where you could walk through them as if they were doors if you put up the lower two sashes. That really is just a side note to the true artistry of the interior wood working, done in a local wood and unlike anything I have ever seen before. 
Laurie and I normally stay together during our adventures in foreign lands but when I wanted to go out in a catamaran and do some snorkeling so we split ways since she is most definitely a land lover. The catamaran I was on was the Maita’i and the crew was really great, plus the equipment we used for snorkeling was well maintained and of good quality. The trip out to go snorkeling was definitely one of those instances that going in the off season really paid off since the catamaran could handle 30 people but there were only six of us which meant you could get up and move about the boat a little bit more and when in the water you could feel like it was just you and the sea creatures in the great big ocean. There is a family of sea turtles at the reef that they took us to and swimming along side them is really fantastic and a little unnerving at the same time. At one point a sea turtle came from underneath a coral shelf and started to surface from right below me, I did not see it at first since with the mask you get tunnel vision. When I finally saw him coming at me I really had to scurry to get out of the way in time, you are not suppose to touch the turtles for one and I did not want to find out how he would react upon a collision.
After the snorkeling was done we sailed up and down the cost a bit while having lunch and it is great being underway with just the wind propelling you along. Catamarans can really pick up speed if you take them at the right angle to the wind and the crew did hit that sweet spot a couple times but like on all sailboats when doing it right you are going to get bounced around and a little wet so they held back for the most part and just took us for a smooth ride.
While I was out on the open water getting a solid red “tan”, even with SPF 50, Laurie was having an adventure herself trying to get around via the bus to some more out of the way locations. We tend to forgo getting a car if at all possible while traveling because of the added cost and hassle and usually its works out fine, mostly because we typically travel to urban areas with good mass transit. In Honolulu they have a pretty extensive bus system which for getting to most places that a local or tourist is most likely to go it is great and inexpensive. The further away from the coast you go the less frequent the buses which can make for some long and annoying waits. Laurie went up to The Contemporary Art Museum specifically to see a David Hockney exhibit, which ended up being closed suspiciously for building maintenance but getting there took two buses. When she exited the first bus and went to locate the stop for the second the bus she wanted went flying past. After some searching she still could not find the bus stop so she called the transit authority only to be told another bus would not be coming by for another hour at which point she hailed a cab.
After her misadventure up in the hills of Honolulu and my swimming with the fishes we meet at the Bishop Museum. Now remember I no longer have a cell because of the earlier mishap so we had to specify a time and hope everything worked, so dependent on those little electronic gadgets we are. Makes me wonder how anything got done before there were telephones in every house and business.
The Bishop Museum is combination astronomy, science, Oceania and Hawaiian history Museum. The science museum is a whole lot of fun for the kid in all of us but the room that blew them all away is the Hawaiian Hall which is a three story atrium filled with artifacts from Hawaii’s past, natural and historic. This is also where we learned a little bit more about the Hawaiian Sovereignty Movement. Yes, that is correct some Hawaiians want to cut ties with the US which however misguided, their economy is to strongly dependent on tourist from the mainland, is completely understandable since Sanford B. Dole, yes as in Dole Pineapple, overthrew a sovereign government in the 1890′s. If you want to know more go to Wikipedia and look up the Hawaiian Sovereignty Movement.
The second part of our trip was spent on the island of Hawai’i, more commonly known as the Big Island which is very much an apt description. Landing at Kona International Airport is like landing on a different planet or maybe what one might imagine a post-apocalyptic earth would look like with its black wasteland spreading out for miles. The eastside of the island where we stayed would be barren even if it was not covered in lava rock since the climate is that of a desert.
Though in this desert some resorts have imposed their will and created green oases with golf courses, waterfalls and lagoons out along the coast for us travelers. We stayed at Hilton Waikoloa Village which was just over the top and not in a good way with its tram and gondola system that ran between the not that far apart buildings and its 70′seque decor throughout. For the most part a hotel is just where I sleep and in this case use the pool to cool off after a morning run but what really galled me about this place was the morning breakfast buffet. Laurie really wanted to get macadamia nut pancakes with coconut syrup, which along with tropical fruit galore were suppose to be unavoidably everywhere which we did not find to be the case. We had sat down and ordered coffee while we perused the menu just to find that they do not have what we want and that the prices are just outrageous at $28/per person for the buffet. The kicker was that if you put one item, even cereal or friking oatmeal, plus a drink you easily surpass the cost of the buffet. So we finished our coffee, $18, and started out our day in hopes that we could pick something up in Waimea which is 40 minutes away. Through the isolation of the resort from all other humanity they have made it so that you will spend most if not all your time and money without leaving the compound. I knew that is how it was going to be, I am not sure why I was still so caught of guard. The lucky thing was that after leaving we had a great breakfast complete with pan-fried spam and Portuguese sausage served over rice at Hawaiian Style Cafe, which we later found out from our ATV guides that it was the place to eat like a local.
Speaking of the ATV guides they were really great and informative about what we were seeing plus the tour we took through RidetheRim went through a Eucalyptus forest, stopped off for us to have a swim below a waterfall and had some great vistas of the Waipi’o valley which no other ATV tour has rights to at the moment. It seems to be a small operation which is great because you will never have to feel crowded during the tour. I realize a couple times here the text has read like an advertisement but I just what the businesses/organizations/locations that I really enjoyed patronizing deserve nothing less then my praise. The picture below is of the 1,200 foot tall Hi’ilawe Falls which is at the rear of the valley and just a stunning sight even at this distance.
Something I had skipped over was Pololu Beach which we visited on the day that we arrived on the Big Island. It can be accessed by driving to the end of 270, which comes to an end little abruptly, and then hiking down a steep trail to the beach. Not sure I would swim there since there is a substantial undertow and every wave comes in carrying some large stones but it is worth it to be on a beautiful black sand beach all by yourself. Supposedly, the trail continues on to an even more remote beach which is more swimming friendly but that was up and over a very daunting mountain. Maybe if we had more time but we had reservations at Roy’s and that was a meal we were not going to miss. I have a thing about going back and eating at the same place two days in a row but Roy’s is that good, plus they change their menu daily on the Big Island location and weekly at the Honolulu one.
The last full day we had in Hawaii was spent going around to the other side of the island to Hilo and then up to Hawaiian Volcanoes National Park. In Hilo we went to the weekly farmers market and picked up some treats to eat while hiking including; lychees and poi tamales (not sure what they are actually called). After gathering our supplies we headed up to the park which again I completely forgot to account for the change in temperature because of elevation so we were under dressed especially when walking in the shade. Knowing once I get moving I would be fine I gave Laurie my jacket so that she would not be chilled and we headed off on a loop around the rim of the Kilauea Iki Crater and then back through the basin. From the picture it is hard to judge scale but the trail across the middle of the crater is 2.4 miles long, so it is like walking loops around the largest mall parking lot. While it may look smooth and most of it was the first mile was through very jagged and sharp lava stones jutting up at all angles. It is something else to be walking on top of an active volcano which is still cooling off from its 1959 eruption evidenced by the steam jets and smoldering piles of debris you pass along the way.
While we did not see active lava at the bottom of Kilauea Iki Crater we did see some later that evening from the end of HI-130 or rather where the mountain had reclaimed the land, houses and roads as its own once again. We had to wait till it got dark to really see much because the glow of the molten lava is hard if not impossible to see during the light of day. Even before the sun went done you could tell what you were seeing from the plumes of smoke coming off the land and spire of steam coming out of the ocean, neither of which they will let you get that close. One thing I was not expecting to see was the crazy people who have decided to build on top of this lava field that is only a decade or two old, living out past where the road ends.
Even with my choice of post title I think I would go again or at least go for another vacation in an island location and overall it was a really good vacation.
