A Day Off

Katie writes:

Recently when we have gone outside the RV at night, we can see an orange glow in the sky to the southwest...Madame Pele, the volcano goddess, is leaving her night light on. This morning, we woke up to vog (volcanic fog, consisting of sulphuric acid and other goodies) which is very rare up here - it means the winds are blowing out of the southwest rather than the northeast, which is usual. David and I started clearing our throats and doing some coughing, and I decided it was a great day to escape to the south shore and beyond. So without further adieu, except for breakfast, we headed out of Eden Roc, but not before picking some strawberry guava fruits along the road (they're about the size of a pingpong ball, and only the outer 1/2 inch is really edible, but ooohhh, what a half inch that is!!!), and a couple of yellow ginger flowers for me to put behind my ear - the fragrance is heavenly, altho the blooms wilt within a few hours.

And so....first we had to drive down the hill (toward Hilo-town) to the town of Mountain View to get gas, and then we drove up the hill toward Volcano Village, where we stopped into the little store and bought two coconut bars (the bomb!) and the Sunday newspaper. The vog wasn't as bad up nearer the volcano. We headed down south toward (yes) South Point, and we drove into the Hawaiian Ocean View Estates (a development of about 11,000 one-acre lots), which neither of us had seen before. This development was started by an oil company in the '60's, and was very slow to take off, mainly because it is almost entirely on a rather recent lava flow...one would figure folks wouldn't take a chance on building much on land that was so recently flowing with Madame Pele's signature paint (in 1907), but there are many very nice houses in the area. Land is cheapest here on the island, for the above mentioned reason, and the climate is hotter and sunnier, and often voggy, but the view of the ocean is phenomenal from almost every home site. So some folks choose to live dangerously! By the way, the development where we are living is in Lava Zone 3...Lava Zone 1 is the most likely to be covered with lava, and you can only get home owners insurance through Lloyd's of London. Fortunately, in Zone 3, we can get the normal homeowner's insurance, although we probably pay a bit more just for being in Hawai'i, just as we do for auto insurance. Anyhow, HOVE was interesting, and reminded us of Arizona, with lots of colorful bougainvilla and stunning cacti. I have heard that, although folks there have water catchment systems (as in catching the rainwater), they often have to pay to have water delivered by truck. That doesn't happen in our neck of the woods, because we're in the middle of the rain forest in Eden Roc.

Our builder, Marlon, has talked to us about Miloli'i, a town on the southwest shore of the island. Miloli'i is known as the last remaining fishing village on the island, and Marlon has bought a piece of land there. The drive from the highway down to the shore is harrowing, twisty/winding/narrow...which is not my favorite thing in the world. So I wouldn't be tempted to live there, but the view and proximity to the ocean is outstanding. Many of the homes there are quite old, and most have boats in their yards. We saw a really cool homemade sign along the road: "Old Dog Walkin." Loved it.

At this point, I convinced David that we should continue to drive, and that we might as well make this a whole day of driving the circumference of the island. This is the Big Island, and it took us from 8:30 AM until 7:00 PM to do the entire trip, although in all fairness, we did make a few pit stops! David had never seen Kailua-Kona, which is on the opposite side of the island from Hilo and Eden Roc. Kailua, and the Kohala area, is on the leeward side of the island, and it is much drier. It is also where milti-million dollar resorts are located, and therefore most of the tourists flock there, arriving at the Kona airport. The town of Kailua is actually smaller than Hilo, but it feels much busier. And we noticed that drivers are not nearly as considerate; tailgating was common and people seemed to be in a hurry to get somewhere. This side of the island has the best beaches for swimming and snorkeling, so after wending our way through Kailua, we decided to investigate a famous beach called Mauna Kea (AKA Kauna'oa Beach), but amazingly there was a guard at the entrance who said the parking lot was full so we couldn't enter! We then chose to go to one of my favorite beaches, Spencer Beach, where we changed into our swim suits and flopped down on the sand for a short nap, and a couple of dips; the water was very calm and delightfully warm. After our respite, we headed north again, driving through the barren lava fields of North Kohala, up to Hawi, a small town at the northernmost tip of the island. I've always liked Hawi. It's windswept, but much more lush, and has a lot of character. It's also very expensive to live there! But the drive down the eastern side of this shark-fin shaped tip of land is gorgeous - the terrain and climate change dramatically in such a short distance here on the Big Island, and this area is lush with pastureland and tall ironwood trees. The road is very curvy, and winds down into Waimea (or Kamuela as it is also called, after the one-time post office worker who handled the mail in that area), which is cowboy country and home of the largest ranch in the islands, and what used to be the largest ranch in the United States: Parker Ranch (225,000 acres). My two sons, Vin and Theo, spent the summer of 2005 with me in Waimea, where they attended Hawai'i Preparatory Academy's summer school, and I do love this area; once again, it is much too expensive for me to live there, and besides, it seems to always be misty/cloudy/rainy on the wet side of the town, which is preferable to the dry, barren side of town, which I don't find attractive at all. Once we left Waimea, we were on the homeward stretch, crossing the Hamakua Coast on the north side of the island. David has heard of malasadas, the Portuguese donuts, that are sold at Tex's Drive-in in Honoka'a... I've talked about it several times, but we've never been in Honoka'a when Tex's was open. Today, we made up for that, and David got a papaya-pineapple malasada that was soooooo good that I sincerely regretted getting just a plain malasada myself. Next time!!

That little bit of a snack was enough to get us through the rest of the journey, although by then, it was getting dark, and starting to drizzle as we finally entered the sweet sleepy town of Hilo. We stopped at a local grocery store to pick up some POG (passionfruit/orange/guava juice) for our evening "gin and POG," and headed up the hill to Mountain View and Eden Roc. The vog had vanished, and there was no orange glow in the sky when we arrived. There was leftover homemade vegetable beef soup in the refridgerator, and the song of the coqui frogs to lull us to sleep. It's been a full day, and a first for me - to circumnavigate the entire island in one day, and a great introduction to David of all the incredible sights along the way. Of course, we have barely tapped the numerous sights to see here, rushing as we did through coffee growing areas, and macadamia nut farms, as well as bypassing the Volcano National Park, and other state parks as well. There is so much to see and do here. We were tempted to stop in at Punalu'u Beach, which is a black sand beach with numerous sea turtles, and also South Point, where last January and February, we sighted many whales spouting and breeching off-shore (they're here again already, as this is annual calving territory for many whales). Sooo, there is much to do come another Day Off, but for now, it is time to sleep so that we can watch the progress on the house tomorrow....the lanai (deck) is going to go up, methinks! I did get a chance on Friday to climb the ladder up to the new floor and it felt like I was in a tree house - the view is absolutely wonderful, and our local hawk flew overhead, vocalizing a greeting. David has photos to upload, and more to post here tomorrow.