BLOGGED, BUT NOT ALONG THE WAY: PART V

 It was my birthday! It was the best birthday I've had in years.

We actually didn't do very much, because we'd chosen this day to be way more chill than the day before, and it was the last full day we had before we'd have to leave and wanted to enjoy it.

*Before I give my brief account, I know I'm forgetting stuff. We went back to that market an alarming amount of times during our stay. Steve went to the pool, and I went shopping. We ate, but not as often as we probably should have. Honestly, I don't remember which days these things happened, so just imagine those activities crammed into the cracks of all of my other stories.*

We met a cat in the morning on the back porch...ahem, I mean, the lanai. Heehee.

She was a sweet tortoise shell cat that had been caught, fixed (she had a tipped ear,) and released around the resorts. We'd seen several of them during our stay, and this was the second one to make friends with me. I think it was because I was eating cold, fried squid and shared it with her. She wanted love so bad, so I gave her lots. I named her Lilikoi, which is the Hawaiian word for passionfruit and one of the few words I could pronounce. She meowed so sadly when we left for the day. I wanted to cram her in my suitcase and take her home, but you can't even take a mango back from Hawaii, so I didn't think a cat would have made it through the agricultural check. :(

We drove down to Kona, which was the same town we went to for the luau earlier in the week, to visit the farmer's market that happened every morning. We wanted to buy fruit. I don't know why we got as much as we did because we had to leave the next day and couldn't take it with us, but it was too tempting. We got a pineapple, a cocoa bean, some bananas, a weird, scaly thing called a soursop, and a mystery orb that turned out to be a yellow passionfruit. I'd hoped that I could find something to take back to my mother and sister as a souvenir, but most of the booths hadn't opened and the ones that had were mass market stuff that I could have found anywhere else. We walked around Kona for a bit, met a very passionate man who worked for a local coffee company and seemed like he'd had a gallon or two that morning, and we got drinks from a local vendor (mine was passion fruit and I'm now addicted to them) to drink while we sat near the beach. It was a very lovely morning.

The only thing we'd actually planned to do that day, other than the dinner reservations we'd made, was visit a local beach. It wasn't one we'd seen before, and it was very popular that day. Don't be shocked, but I actually wore a swimsuit. In front of strangers. A two piece one! I know! Don't be too excited for me because it didn't fit very well. It was the first time I'd worn the bottom half and it was a shade too big, and the top was a shade too small, but except for my boobs threatening to fall out occasionally, I didn't care a bit. We found a spot to lay our blanket, and I got into the water. Dude, it was cold, but I stayed in until could swim around. Steve stayed on the beach, and I geeked out because I was in Hawaii, swimming in the pacific, on my birthday. I got out and walked along the beach looking for shells, but I really don't think that the island where we were was good for that. I only found two intact shells the whole time we were there, but I found a few pretty broken ones. Then we lay out on the beach for a while just enjoying the day.  

After we left, Steve found a place he wanted to visit a few miles away, but I decided to stay back at the condo and take a nap. When he got back we visited the resort pool and hot tub, and it was like a scene from Cocoon. Then I realized that we are also old, and that made me sad! Haha! It was evening by that point, so we got cleaned up to go to dinner, which was, weirdly, at a Hawaiian-Cajun fusion place at the shopping center. Great food; weird combination.

While we were waiting on our dinner time, I wanted to get one particular thing for myself as a souvenir, and that was a necklace. I'd been given some birthday money from Mr. Lee, and I thought a nice piece of jewelry would be a great thing I'd use all the time, and it wouldn't gather dust, but y'all...real jewelry is effing expensive. I didn't want anything elaborate, or made of diamonds, but even the relatively simple stuff I found was WAY out of my price range. I usually just wear a simple, silver necklace with a small pendant on it, and that's all I wanted, but geez. I did finally find one, not exactly what I originally wanted, but close enough. It's a tiny, silver hibiscus flower on a chain. It's pretty rad. 

We had to go back and start organizing our stuff so that we could leave the next day and I was sad. I know how cliche this sounds, but I genuinely didn't want to leave. I know that a lot of people feel like that, and they move to Hawaii for the vibes and then realize that living in Hawaii isn't the same as vacationing there, but I literally could have abandoned everything and stayed. That sounds so dumb. There was something about being there, on that island I hadn't prepared to visit and didn't know anything about until driving around it, that has my heart now. I genuinely miss it. Not the food, not the touristy stuff, but the place.  

But leave it I must. It is the way of things.

The next morning (Sunday) we got everything packed away, snarfed an obscene of farmer's market fruit, and played with the cat for a while. Three kids came up while we were outside and I introduced them to the cat, so I know she had some playmates after we left which made me feel better about leaving her there. After checking out, we returned the rental car and sat at the first of three airports for a really long day of travel. Our first flight wasn't until that afternoon, but our check out time was in the morning, so we sat in the Kona airport for several hours before a short flight to Honolulu. From there we got on a long-ass, 8 hour, overnight flight to Atlanta. I took a sleeping pill for that one, but still managed to watch a movie, have a meal, and try not to touch the person I didn't know sitting to my left. We hadn't managed to get better seats for the long-haul flight, but that was fine. Such is life! In Atlanta, early Monday morning, we had just enough time to visit the Delta lounge before our last leg of the journey.  Steve has enough Delta miles from work travel to be a member, and he can bring a guest, so we went in and got breakfast. Out of an abundance of Fuck-It-All, I ordered a White Russian at 6:30 AM, because it kind of has coffee in it and it's on my list of cocktails to try and I didn't have to pay for it! So slightly tipsy, we went to our gate and got on the plane to Huntsville, where I promptly fell asleep again.

Although the trip was not the one I'd planned, it was the one I needed, and I had the best time. I found a new place to love, and I hope I can go back one day to visit it, and the other islands as well. 

There you go! Aloha!

BLOGGED, BUT NOT ALONG THE WAY: PART IV

Okay. All right, now, let's see. Where were we? Oh, yes. In the Pit of Despair...

Well, no, we're still on Big Island. I believe this would make it Friday, February 13th at this point!

This is the day that Steve planned. When I told him to look on the map and find places he wanted to go, I didn't expect a full itinerary, but he surprised me! I have also been reminded that when he sets a schedule, he abides by it. I can respect that, even if I'm more of a wanderer, but I will comment more on that later.

We had to leave just after 8 in the morning so that we could go to all the places that he'd found to visit on this day. Although we still weren't sure about the size of the island or how long it would take to drive around it, and the internet wasn't telling us what we needed to know in a practical way, we decided that we'd just get up, get dressed, and go and worry about timing and anything else that came up along the way. 

(Important Note: I had only had enough water to swallow a pill before we left. I accidentally left my bottle of water on the table in the condo.)

As you can see with my fine graphics skills, I have numbered the areas on the map that we visited that day in the order we visited them. We had actually planned go in the opposite direction than we actually did, because there was one other spot we wanted to see that was closer, but the things that we had on our list were things we wouldn't be able to see if it got dark, so we reversed our course.

1- That was our home base. I believe that I showed you that in the last post. That first long stretch of the drive was through a desert of some kind. Not a lot of trees that weren't small and scrubby, bright, hot sun, and lots of lava rocks were the scenery at first. Oh, and goats. So many freaking goats. There wasn't much out there as far as buildings, but we did see some kind of testing range out there. I know it was military, but not what it was for. I figure if we needed to know, there would be a sign out front telling us what they were testing. Missiles maybe? Not my business. As we drove, we saw the same kind of landscapes that we'd seen the day before on our way: dry - then high and rainy - and then bright and lush. 

We would have loved to drive up the side of Mauna Kea, the worlds largest mountain from base to top, (SUCK IT, EVEREST!) but we didn't have the right kind of rental car to get there. Apparently, you need a 4-wheel drive, and we had a convertible, so we just knew it was there and had to be satisfied with that.

As we were getting close to our first stop, we got rear-ended at a stop light. Thankfully it wasn't bad and there was no damage to either car, but it scared the crap out of everyone involved. The poor guy who hit us either skidded on the wet road, or got bumped from behind by someone who didn't bother to pull over with us, but thankfully this didn't derail our day at all. In the spirit of Aloha (I read that on a travel blog, so don't blame me for that) we all parted ways kindly. 

2- It was a little hard to find, but such a lovely drive that I didn't care. We finally found our way to the first stop, which was the Star of the Sea painted church in Pahoa. It was so beautiful. I didn't know what to expect when we got to this tiny blue church in the middle of nowhere, so it blew my mind when we walked in. The link above can tell you about it much more succinctly than I can, so please go and read about it there, but going inside was such an experience. The interior was painted in forced perspective, so it actually looks much bigger when you first walk in, but it's really very small. There was only one lady in there with her baby, so we were able to look around without being crowded. At first glance it seemed a little gaudy, but when you took in everything that it was trying to express, it was really worth the long drive out there. There was a donation box, and a basket of "trinkets" that you could choose from if you donated, so I put in some money and got a rosary and oddly, my favorite souvenir of the entire trip, a macramé bracelet with a little saint medallion on it. I have no idea who the saint is, but I've got high hopes that having him with me is a good thing. :)

3- We drove on to this stop, which was Volcano National Park. I was really shocked that Steve wanted to go here, because it didn't seem like a thing he'd enjoy at all. His dad always took him to national parks when he was a kid, and I thought that he'd had his fill, but we were there to specifically see something called a lava tube. What is a lava tube?  It is a cave with protuberances. At least, that's what the internet tells us because we didn't get to see it. There were so many people in the national park that day that we couldn't find a place to park so that we could get to the lava tube. We could have parked a bit away and walked, but it was cold and rainy, and we hadn't expected to be in that kind of weather and didn't have jackets. Plus, the road we'd have to walk was narrow and winding, and we didn't trust that we wouldn't get ran over by a tour bus. We did get to see into Kīlauea, which wasn't erupting at the time, and we got to see some Nene birds (which are fancy Hawaiian geese) and that was very cool. We were going to go see some more stuff in the park, but we couldn't find a place to park anywhere. We even got stuck in a line of traffic that wouldn't budge, because people were parking in weird places, and some angry German lady got out of our car and knocked on our window and told us we had to move because she needed to leave, but we were literally unable to go anywhere, so she had to deal with it until we managed to inch forward. 

I almost gave her the Fist of Aloha. Hateful schlampe.

There was no place in the park that we could stop and look at anything because of the parking situation, and even the welcome center was closed for remodeling, so we decided to leave. I wish we could have seen more, but it was a nightmare trying to get anywhere with all the people, so we counted it as a partial loss. We did get to see a volcano, though, so that was my silver lining! 

We drove and drove and drove to get to the next spot, but again, it was such a beautiful drive that it didn't bother me at all. We went though a lot of neighborhoods and tiny towns, and it was cool to see the kinds of houses people live in. I guess I probably make it sound like they were living in grass huts or something, but they weren't, of course. It was just much different from the houses and yards where we live. There were small, brightly painted houses with lava stones decorating the yards, and all kinds of flowers everywhere. There were orchids growing wild on the side of the road, and wild chickens. We saw macadamia nut farms, and coffee farms, and there were wide fields that led to sea cliffs, so at certain points along the way we could see the ocean. We did pass one place I wish we could have stopped, which was another black sand beach, and a famous one from what I understand, but when I pointed it out, Steve didn't stop. I didn't say specifically that I'd like to stop, but I wish I had, because by that point a bathroom and a vending machine would have been nice. It was almost 1 PM by that point and I hadn't eaten, drank, or gone to the bathroom in all that time, but we had someplace to go and we were on a mission to get there. After driving through all of that, and then more driving through one-way farm roads towards the ocean, we finally found what we were looking for.

4- We got to the parking area of the Green Sand Beach, Papakōlea. I have read about this place before, it was a bucket list place for me, and I wanted very badly to see it, but I didn't think I'd get the chance. Not just because I thought I'd never get to Hawaii, but because it's apparently not an easy place to get to even when you're there. We'd heard you could pay locals to drive you out to it in an ATV, but we didn't like the idea of that because we'd be on some else's schedule.

Charles asked us our first day if we'd be going to the green beach, and we told him we'd like to but that we'd heard it was hard to get to, but he told us that it was an easy 2.5-mile hike without many hills. Very easy to do, you see. We are not big hikers, but we have hiked further than that before with no issues. Plus, Charles said it wasn't that bad! Charles wouldn't steer us wrong, would he?

Now, before you answer that, there is something you need to know about Charles. Charles is a multi-time Iron Man Triathlete finisher. I don't know if that's the proper term, but he was a big Iron Man guy. That was one of the reasons he lives on the Big Island, because that's where they do the Hawaiian Iron Man race. Also, unless you, yourself, are an Iron Man triathlete, you cannot trust them when they say something is easy, because they spend huge amounts of time torturing themselves to train to do a race that regular humans can't do, and their idea of easy IS NOT THE SAME as that of a normal person.

We didn't consider that. 

When we got out of the car, someone walked up and asked us if we wanted to pay for a ride. It was $50 for both of us out and back, but we didn't have that much cash on us, and we also figured if Charles said the hike was easy, then we'd be fine. That is when God punished us for our hubris.

It wasn't hard at first. Sure, we were walking on old lava flows, and it was hilly and rocky, but it was fine. It was lovely scenery, blue sea, black rocks, rough surf, and very windy, but still nice. It didn't take long before the trail stopped being a trail, and we had no idea how far we actually were from our destination, and it wasn't that nice anymore. It's easy to be dramatic about it now, because obviously we lived to tell the tale, but the hike out there became long, hot, dusty, windy, and complicated. Where the ATVs drive through, it had carved gullies out of the ground that you had to figure out how to follow. If you got out of the gully, you had to climb up and down rocky wash outs, and there were so many trails that we didn't know if we were following the right ones. Every time we saw a hill, we expected to see the beach just beyond, but it was never there! Two or three times, the ATVs and trucks drove by and they asked if we wanted a ride, but Steve said no. I was not pleased, but what could we do? After a time, I decided that if I could make it there, I'd count it a win, and so I became determined that I would see that green beach, even if it was the last thing my living body saw.  Finally, and I have no idea how long it actually took because my body had ceased being able to tell the passage of time, we got there. It. Was. Freaking. Gorgeous.  Did I think we could just walk down to the beach and enjoy it? Yes. Could we? No. Because we had to scale a lava cliff before we could get down to the sand. Geez.

Before we got to the cliff, I turned and asked one of the drivers waiting nearby if they took Venmo. They did. Hallelujah.

So Steve and I, out of shape, dehydrated, hot, dusty, and a little pissed off, got to the cliff and made our way down. There is a small ladder to the first landing, and after that, the rest of the climb is between you and Jesus. Thankfully, Jesus was on our side, so we made it down safely. It was totally worth the hike. 

I wish I could have stayed there for a long time because it was one of the prettiest places I'd ever seen. It was right up there with Zion National Park in my book, and that's saying a lot. The green sand literally sparkled, the beach was in a little cove protected from the wind and civilization, and the water was deep, dark blue. If we had been alone there, it would have been perfect, but of course, we weren't. It was still like something you'd dream about. I dug around in the sand for a little bit, and looked for shells, but there weren't any that I could see, but it didn't take long for Steve to want to leave. It had taken us much longer to get out there than we'd thought, and we still had another stop to make. Honestly, as much as I loved being there, I didn't fight him about leaving because I was so tired. So we climbed back up the cliff and were assigned a truck to get into, and we waited for the other passengers so that we could leave.

The ride back was...harrowing. The man who drove us had a green truck he called The Turtle. At least I think that's what he said, because his accent was thick and I wasn't sure what he was saying. It was a very old truck, and once the other four passengers got in (we all stood in the bed, holding on to metal pipes that had been welded into a sort of frame to keep us in) he used moving straps to hold the doors of the cabin closed before setting off. I'm fairly certain that even in my most redneck of days, living on our little farm and riding in the back of the farm trucks, I have never been so close to death as we came from riding back to the parking lot in The Turtle. I had my arms and legs wrapped around the pipes, and we would go over hills violently, or tilt up almost 90 degrees very slowly, or tilt to the side so much that I just knew we'd fall over. However, the man got us back. It didn't take any less time, more or less, but it took much less energy, so we were grateful. Once we got back, Steve venmoed the money to the guy's wife, and I was so glad to be back that I gave him every last cent of cash I had on me as a tip. That was dumb, I realized later, because when we came to a place where someone was selling water, we didn't have cash for that. Good Lord. I would realize later that every time we hit a bump, my right hip bone was slamming against the pipe, so I had a nice sized bruise there and, on my elbow, after a day or so.

Thankfully our next stop was literally less than two minutes away.

5- This place was the southernmost point in the 50 states of the US, called Ka Lae, Hawaii. It was a cliff. Steve didn't get out of the car, but I did. I didn't go through all of that not to get my foot picture with the edge of that cliff, by God. I didn't stay long. 

We had a long way to drive back, and although we were going to make one more stop, we decided not to because were not only dehydrated, exhausted, and sunburned, we were now filthy from all the dust we had walked through on our way to the green beach, and all the dust that The Turtle kicked up on our way back. We weren't just filthy, we were gritty. It was not pleasant. I asked Steve to stop somewhere so that we could get something to drink, but I don't know if he was so zoned out that he wasn't paying attention, or if he wasn't seeing the gas stations and restaurants we passed in time to turn, but it was a while before he actually stopped so I could get something. There was a brief moment where I could have gladly stopped the car and beaten him to death for that, but I kept the spirit of Aloha right up until we got back. Lucky for him.

We got back to the condo, cleaned up, and FINALLY got something to eat before collapsing into bed. I don't remember anything after turning the lights off. It had been a fun, adventurous day, but damn, I was glad it was over.