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Not much to say about the trip to Honolulu, nothing to see, not much to do. They did show the movie "Fried Green Tomatoes" which was good. That was for a price of course. The difference between service and food on American and Alaska airlines is quite striking. We had more and better on the two hour flight from Seattle to San Francisco than on today's five hour flight.
In Honolulu we picked up our luggage and caught the Waikiki Beach Shuttle to the Edgewater Hotel. It was driven by a huge Hawaiian woman who made the van lurch every time she'd step aboard. Her partner, who was almost as big, handled the baggage and kept up a running conversation in Hawaiian with the driver, the subject of which we couldn't even guess. They got us to the hotel okay though and there a nice lady at the desk gave us a room next to Paul and Eleanor's on the 6th floor overlooking the pool and the windows of the rooms in the other hotel on the other side. If we step out on our balcony we can see the famous Waikiki Beach past two or three hotels to the south. The Outrigger "Edgewater" isn't exactly at the edge of the water. The room are clean though, and inexpensive for Hawaii -- $70.00 as opposed to the $100 to $300 range for the big hotels.
It was a couple of hours before Sis and Paul showed up. They had gone through San Diego and their flight was about an hour late. We took a nap and then, when they arrived, we took a walk down the beach as far as the boat harbor. The weather is as great as advertised, about 70 degrees with a nice breeze blowing off the mountains behind the city -- that's a bit unusual for us to see. The offshore wind makes the beach surf very gentle even though there are big waves not far out. Lots of surfers playing out there. And quite a scattering of bodies on the beach getting tanned but not the crowds that I imagine are here in December.
As Bob had suggested we rode the city bus to Ward Centre for dinner at Keo's. It's an excellent restaurant, the service was superb, but we had a little trouble with some of the spicy Thai dishes. None of us had had Thai food before and it's going to take some calibrating. The "Evil Jungle Prince", Bob's recommendation, was liked by all even though I ordered it hot. On the other hand, none of us could handle the "Thai Noodle Salad with Chicken" which Lois ordered mild. We walked home and went to bed early. It had been a long day for all.
Heading east from Waikiki it took more than an hour to clear the metropolitan area of Honolulu, through the city, past Pearl Harbor, Aloa, and Pearl City, we were in a roaring throng of cars, truck, and buses. It wasn't until we turned north until we started to enter open country. Even there it is a strange kind of openness. Where there aren't residential developments or steep mountainsides the fields are cultivated, but there isn't a farmhouse in sight. The hills all appear to be covered with the pineapple and sugarcane fields of the Dole Company. At the Dole Plantation, almost centered on the island, they have a big "Factory" where you can view the pineapple processing. The bus didn't stop there but they run a free bus from Waikiki for anyone interested. The north shore of the island is about as great a contrast to the south as you can imagine. With the exception of a few isolated resort developments, it is mostly devoted to small holdings; villages, farms, and businesses, often with rundown buildings and shabby grounds. You could be passing though Eatonville or Worley. The climate is obviously different, much greener and more tropical than the dry, brownish hills of the south shore. The water along the shore is very shallow, the waves breaking a quarter of a mile or more offshore. In only a couple of places did we see even small boats moored or anchored.
Approaching the east end of the island we again started to encounter dense development, at Kaneohe back into the shopping centers and McDonald's restaurants which seem to blanket the populated areas. We were planning on getting off the bus, with another transfer of course, at Sea Life Park at the far eastern tip of the island, having lunch, and taking in some of the water shows; but, much to our disgust, the driver turned right and before we even new what was happening was headed over the Pali Highway directly back to Honolulu. Well, that's the breaks.
We got off the bus at Ala Moana Center, wandered though the shopping center for a while, then had lunch in the Food Fair, one of those places with a central table area and two or three dozen small food vendors around the perimeter. We each took off in different directions to buy our food and re-grouped for lunch. After lunch we decided to try again for the Sea Life shows. Took a while to find the right bus, then about an hour and a half to get out to the point because of bumper-to-bumper traffic a good part of the way. By the time we got there all but one of the shows was over and, with the $12.99 admission fee, we decided to bag it. One stroke of luck however: there was a free Sea Life shuttle bus sitting there and when we talked to the driver, a big, friendly Hawaiian, he said he'd be happy to take us home. He gave us a running lecture on the points of interest along the East shore. He had been racing outrigger canoes between islands when there was only one hotel in Waikiki.
Dinner at Jerry's SMORGY restaurant, an all-you-can-eat for $7.95 buffet. We'd just finished when they told us that the restaurant was being evacuated. The police had the whole street blocked off. We still don't know what it was all about. Maybe tomorrow morning's newspaper will tell us.
Landing at Kailua-Kona was a new experience. I've never landed on a lava flow before, and that's just what you do there. The airport is built on a huge flow of black lava, still new and undisturbed from the eruption only 200 years ago.The plastic looking flow is called "pahoehoe" by the natives as opposed to "a'a" which is the broken up stuff. None of the big city terminal stuff here, it's a more like one at Yakima or Idaho Falls. The ladies and I picked up the luggage while Paul got the rental car. Pretty good rates here -- got a four door from National for $139.00/week.
From Kailua-Kona we headed north up the Kohala coast, stopping at several of the big new developments on the way. This whole side of the island is a huge lava bed and resorts have been stuck on top of it wherever the sea has cut a sandy beach into the shore. There's a lot of money going into this new "Gold Coast" but, at least at this time of year, there sure aren't many customers here. The big resorts looked a bit rich for our blood so at Kawaihae we left the coast for Waimea, the home of the famous Parker Ranch, largest in the United States. Waimea is at about 2500 feet altitude and quite a bit cooler than at sea level. It isn't a big town, just four motels, a few restaurants, and a couple of small shopping centers. We stayed at the Parker Lodge, sharing a room with two double beds for $95.00. Had planned on having dinner at the Cattleman's restaurant but when we saw the prices on the menu -- $25.00 and up -- we opted for the Submarine in the shopping center. There a tiny Hawaiian girl gave us a real show of efficiency as she made our sandwiches -- I gave her a nice tip.
At about 2:00 in the morning the smoke alarm in our room started chirping. The battery was low. The danged thing is mounted on a beam about twelve feet high. We tried to ignore it but those things are designed to wake you up; so, we piled furniture up until Paul could reach the dumb thing and disconnect the battery. Lois stayed in bed and took pictures of Sis and I holding the chair while Paul balanced on top. What a night!
It's amazing how fast the climate changes as you drive around this island. In 20 miles we went from green range to dry almost barren hills to lush green jungle. At Hawi we turned east and followed the road to its end overlooking the Pololu Valley, a series of deep, jungle covered gorges leading from the 5500 foot high Mount Kohala to the sea on the windward side of the island. On the way back we stopped at one of the prettiest parks we've found yet, Keokea where huge rollers crash onto a rocky beach in a lush green cove. The book says you can swim and surf there on "calm" days -- this wasn't one of them. At Kapaau we admired the statue of King Kamehameha but didn't get to his birthplace because of an asphalt laying machine blocking the road.
Only a mile or so to the west of Hawi on the west side of the hill we were back in dry country where the only vegetation is clump grass and a small leafed tree which looks like a locust. We stopped at Lapakahi State Historical Park and walked the mile trail though ruins of a 600 year old Hawaiian village which the guide pamphlet speculated was abandoned because the water supply dried up. At Spencer Beach Park we changed into our swim suits and took a swim for the first time. As Bob had told us, the water was perfect, a little cool on first contact but not chilling, and not so warm as to be tiring. I am the only one with a snorkle and fins so I swam out to the reef while the others played on the sandy beach. Lots of big coral heads there, and a few fish, but I think we need to find a more rocky shore for really good sightseeing.
Just south of Spencer we turned east to the village of Waikoloa, a big residential community out in the dry desert above the western shore. It must be a cheaper place to live than along the shore. I can't think of any other reason to pick it. We had lunch at the Village Market in the modern shopping center, beer and deli stuff at a table outside. From there it was east to Highway 190, then south to Kailua-Kona where we'd started. The AAA rates the route as 'scenic' and scenic it is. Mauna Loa on the left, the west coast on the right, and a road lined with flowering trees gradually dropping from high, dry desert to lush green semi-jungle as we cross lava flows on the way back to the sea.
In Kailua we stopped at Snorkle Bob's, an outfit which has ads in all of the tourist literature saying that for only $15.00 a week you can rent snorkle, mask, fins, goodie bag, etc and he'll throw in the fish food. We though that, for that price, it would be fun for Sis, Paul, and Lois to be outfitted but when we asked he immediately dismissed the $15.00 package as 1960's trash and put on the hard sell for a $39.50 package which was "much better". He was only interested in making sure we were satisfied. We told him we'd look around a bit before renting.
Gased up before leaving Kailua -- $1.649 per gallon -- then to Captain Cook, a small village out of the high rent district where we found some very nice rooms in the Manago Hotel for $30.00. It's an old place but clean and comfortable with beautiful gardens. Before dinner we took a side trip down to Kealakekua Bay where the good Captain Cook met his end. It took some hunting but we finally spotted the monument to him, a white spire on the shore of the bay. Never could find the "Painted Church". The tour maps we have aren't all that great. Maybe tomorrow. Dinner in the dining room -- pork chops and Mahi Mahi -- not great but not bad either.
| We stopped at Hookena Beach, a pretty spot with many outrigger canoes on the beach, not the fancy fiberglass kind we'd seen in Honolulu, rather real working wooden fish boats with fish boxes built in the center and rough branches for an outrigger. We talked to a Hawaiian lady on the beach who was laying out fish strips on a big wire drying rack. I asked her if she marinated the fish before drying and she told me that she only soaked the strips in salt water. It was a dark meated fish similar to Bonita. She also said the little bay was a great place for snorkling, but it was early and we wanted to move on. Taking another side road, we drove five miles down a very bumpy road to Milolii where a big housing development is being built on a relatively new lava flow. Paul and I had a running argument as to the nature of the one line strung on poles from the main highway to the village until I finally convinced him that it was a telephone cable and not a power line. For power many of the newer houses had banks of solar panels on their roofs, others may have had generators, but all were tied to the telephone cable. It's hard to understand the attraction of such a barren lava flow as a home site. | 
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Had an early lunch in a State Park and Arboretum, then wandered on down the road toward the "most southerly point in the United States", the south tip of the island. Just beyond there, at Punaluu, we found a very nice spot in the black sand beach of another state park. In this quiet little cove with a sparkling black sand beach and crystal clear water we saw a big turtle just a few feet beyond the flat steps of lava leading to the water. This also looks like a great place for snorkling.
It was cloudy and misty as we climbed from sea level up toward the Kilauea Caldera in Volcanos National Park. We stopped at the visitors center, talked to a volunteer guide, then drove around the crater rim road for a preview of what we'll see next week. It's an impressive sight but, unless something wild happens, it looks like we won't see any red flowing lava. We didn't spend a lot of time in the park because we'll be here all next week; and drove on northward, down the long slope to Hilo, the east island city. There we stopped in a shopping center where Paul bought a snorkling outfit for only a little more than the price Snorkle Bob wanted for a week's rental. With two outfits we can have fun, trading off for our underwater sightseeing.
Just beyond Hilo we started looking for either the Hilo Bay Lodge or the Dolphin Bay Hotel, both recommended by Sis' Maverick Guide which has done pretty well by us so far. After some hunting we ended up at the Dolphin Bay in a nice suite with a kitchenette one queen bed and two twins for $98.80. We flipped a coin for the queen bed and Lois and I won the toss. Pretty good tempura prawn dinner at Restaurant Satsuki, a small Japanese place recommended by the lady at the hotel.
Laundry this morning. Sis and Lois worked that problem at a local laundromat while Paul and I went off to hunt up a McDonald"s for breakfast sandwiches. That finished, we checked out of the hotel and set off exploring again. Minor problem at the local gas station where we drove off without our gas cap -- fixed at the NAPA parts store for $8.13. At Richardson Ocean Park just to the east of Hilo we found a another beautiful black sand beach, surfing, and snorkling site where Paul could try out his new outfit and spent a couple of hours there, trading off the equipment. More rocks and reefs here, and lots more fish than I'd seen last time. While many of the reef fish are the same as we saw in Mexico and Central America, I saw several varieties new to me. Good sized Parrotfish swam with some double-nosed and brightly colored species that I'd never forget.
Heading north on 11 we stopped at the Mona Loa Macadamia Nut "Factory". There wasn't much happening there on this Mothers Day Sunday, the processing plant was closed, but we bought a few Macadamia nuts and wandered through their arboretum.
At Keaau we turned east on 130 toward Pohoa we were again in country new to us, the lava streaked, most easterly point of the island. In the thirty mile loop (130 to the coast, 137 following the shoreline north, and 132 back to Pohoa) we must have had a dozen drastic changes in vegetation. In a quarter mile we went from deep, damp jungle to dry almost barren scrub brush. We'd be driving through huge leafed breadfruit and banana trees and within the space of a hundred yards find that there was nothing but a pine forest with a foot deep layer of needles along the road. For the most part the road is paved with asphalt but much of it is very narrow and patched so often that it's a bumpy ride. We bought some deli sandwiches in Keaau and were looking for a nice park in which to have our little picnic when we came on a long line of cars along the road. There wasn't one of the Hamehameha Tourist signs which normally mark a park but we decided to stop and see why the big crowd. Turned out to be a nude bathing beach. Walking to the edge of the road we found a hundred or more people, ranging from little babies to old men and women, in various stages of undress swimming, surfing, and playing on a very nice black sand beach beneath a fifty foot high lava cliff on which we were standing. We thought about joining them but decided that we were too well dressed.
So, on we went -- next stop the "lava trees". This interesting phenomena occurred when very liquid, fast flowing lava cooled around a tree trunk making a cast of the tree before subsiding. Hundreds of hollow pillars stand in this Lava Tree State Monument just east of Pahoa.
Paul was worried about being late for the Elderhostel so the next stop was KMC, the Kilauea Military Camp, where we are scheduled to spend the next six days. We found barracks 36, home of the Volcano Art Center Elderhostel and, far from being the last to arrive, found that we were one of the first. A camp build for servicemen R&R during the Spanish/American War, the KMC is still run by the military but some of their facilities are rented out to various groups wishing to stay on the mountain. We checked in, unloaded the car into our rooms -- four bed rooms but only one couple to a room -- and did a little exploring before the others started showing up. About 35 people are in our group. Happy hour at 5:00 with wine and chips, buffet dinner in the main room, orientation session after, then to bed. Sis and Paul lucked out with a pretty good room, on the end with windows which open on two sides. Ours is one of only two located in the middle of the building with no window and very stuffy. Midnight before I could get to sleep -- have to work that problem somehow.
08:00 On a schedule now. First speaker: Susan McGovern, one of the two Volcano Art Center employees who are managing the Elderhostel. Subject: The Hawai`ian language. See, I've learned something already. That backward apostrophe is called an Okina and is used as a consonant, a guttural stop between vowels.
08:30 Hawai`ian History - Dr. Russ Apple, a retired Park Superintendent with a PhD in the subject, gave a rambling three hour talk on the recorded and verbal history of the islands and their Polynesian inhabitants. A strong supporter of the "Hawaiian Nation" he spent quite a bit of time telling us about the atrocities committed by the U.S. and Britain. He has some interesting, and sometimes spicy, tales of the many generations of Kamehamehas who ruled the island.
12:00 Lunch in the cafeteria. Things looking up -- Tuna fish samich, noodle soup, and green salad.
13:00 Volcano Geology - Janet Babb. Best lecture so far. Very nicely done slide presentation on the formation and evolution of the Hawaiian Island Chain. Points of note:
Hawaiian islands are formed by a "hot spot" in the Pacific Plate.
Older and more northerly islands are smaller and lower because of erosion. Most northerly are 30 million years old as opposed to the big island of Hawaii's age of half a million.
Hawaiian volcanos are called "Shield Volcanos" because of their shallow slopes which make them look like a shield lying on the ground. The hot (2100 degrees), fast flowing lava causes the shallow slopes.
Kilauea Volcano is quiet right now with the nearest site of activity a rough ten mile hike away.
14:00 First field trip, a 1.5 mile nature walk to the Jaggar museum along the Crater Rim Trail led by Rob McGovern, the Elderhostel leader. He's a naturalist and very knowledgeable on the plant life of Kilauea. We learned more than I'll ever remember about the vegetation along the trail. More interesting to me was the talk, again by Janet Babb, on the Kilauea cauldera and lava lake below us. The only current sign of activity is the steam venting from fissures in the surface, but it's still an impressive sight.
17:30 Dinner in the cafeteria - Spaghetti this time with an extra charge for a green salad. I think they're going a bit far in economizing with the meals.
19:00 A very good slide presentation by Dorian Weisel, a young photographer of the volcano. He has some spectacular pictures taken over the past six years of the Kilauea eruptive activity.
08:00 Morning Hawaiian session with Susan -- volcano and tree names.
08:30 Super session with John Kjargaard, a freelance photographer of volcanos specializing in video. A long, lanky guy with a wry sense of humor, he lectured us on volcano formation and had the pictures to prove his points. His coverage of the destruction of the village of Kalapana is outstanding. We bought copies of two of his videos, unfortunately the best he showed us isn't available for sale yet. I talked with him about going out to the "breakout site" in a helicopter. The problem is that just hovering over the site wouldn't be as good as seeing the videos...no sound, no heat, not really close. To hire a helicopter to drop us and pick us up would be awfully expensive. We might have to come back when things are happening in a little more accessible location.
12:00 Lunch-Sandwich, salad, soup -- not bad.
13:00 Loaded onto the KMC bus for a longer range field trip. It was drizzling and foggy so we couldn't get the full benefit of the overall views but with the primary objective of seeing the recent flows up close that wasn't a big problem. First around the Kilauea cauldera to the Thurston Lava Tube, a cleaned out section of 8-12 foot diameter tube about 200 yards long which is accessible by paved path. Before the John's pictures this morning showing how they are formed it wouldn't have been very impressive but this afternoon I could almost feel the heat radiating from the lava heated walls. Next, a few walks around the edges of Kilauea Iki, the small (iki) crater which is the site of most recent cauldera activity. Then down the mountain by way of the "Chain of Craters Road", winding our way between craters of the east rift down to the sea. The road ends abruptly about three miles to the south of the former village of Kalapana, wiped out by a pahoehoe (That's smooth as opposed to A`a which is rough) flow of lava twenty feet thick. We clambered out of the bus, for about the tenth time, and picked our way over the broken lava field to the cliffs dropping into the ocean. This flow, less than two years old, retains many of the features gone from the older flows. A surface layer of taffy-like, ropey, glass covering the underlying pumice is already starting to break up. Where it came oozing over the edge of the existing cliffs it has formed a layer aptly tagged "Elephant Skin" by the geologists.
At about dusk we left the cliff site and went back to a Park campground at Kamoamoa, another former village site. The lava flow missed there but where there once were twenty foot high cliffs there is now a black sand beach, formed in only four days according to Rob our guide. It's one big pile of sand, but makes a neat place for a picnic and that's what we did. We all had our brown bag dinner and Paul even found a ripe coconut which I husked and passed around to the amazement of some of our Elderhostel associates who had never seen one opened.
On or return trip we were flagged down by a young man in shorts carrying a small pack. He had been up to the breakout site with a buddy, had gotten separated, and when he finally got back to the car found that his friend who had gone ahead, and who had the keys, wasn't there. It was after dark and not exactly a warm night to be spending on the mountain. We took him to the Volcano House where he could contact the Park Rangers. He said that they had gotten to within two hundred yards of the eruption site but were stopped by "Shell Pahoehoe", a very thin crust through which you can break with disastrous effect.
Home at about 8:00, we paid a visit to the Lava Lounge for a nightcap. It's a very nice little bar with leaded glass windows all around. In fact many of the cabins here at KMC boast leaded glass. I speculate that it might be the result of a craft class which may have been in operation here for a number of years.
Had lunch at the very nice restaurant located on a little lagoon behind the beach, then headed back for Kilauea. It was still drizzling on the top so we took a sightseeing drive through the little town of Volcano. It has 4,000 residents but you'd never know it. The center of town has only a gas station and one general store, and the homes are spread over a wide area, each tucked into its own little piece of the rain forest.
14:00 Ecology of Hawaii lecture by Bill Mull. Bill is an excellent naturalist and nature photographer and a good speaker and did a great job in outlining the current ideas on how these islands which arose out of the Pacific a relatively short time ago were populated. He had many slides of plants, insects, birds, snails, etc. showing the diversity of species Mother Nature has developed here in a place where nothing existed before the first lava was pushed through the surface of the sea. Bill also suffers the same blind spot of many naturalists and most "environmentalists". When I asked him why he considered as "native" anything introduced by wind or wave, and as "exotic" anything brought by man, especially Western man, he agreed that naturalists shouldn't try to play God. But only a moment later he was classifying as "bad", a snail from Florida which is destroying the "native" Tree Snails and admitting that, although he had no real hope of keeping them off the top of the mountain, he worked to make it more expensive for astronomers to build an observatory on the top of Moana Kea by forcing an environmental impact study of the Big Eyed Wolf Spider, top of the food chain in an ecological nitch supported by dead insects blown to the top of the mountain where nothing grows. No matter, his slides were excellent and his description of the development of species fascinating. He ended his lecture with the song of the hermaphroditic tree snail:
You have some genes, Dear
I have some too
Mine are the best genes
Because they are for you
Come Sweetheart, to me
Now is the time
You give me your genes
And I will give you mine
18:00 Late for dinner because of Bill's presentation which no one could leave. Had to eat in the Lava Lounge because the fifth graders had taken over the dining room. Good dinner, though-- turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy.
19:00 Native Hawaiian Birdlife -- Maile Kjargaard. Couldn't quite sit though this one. Pretty good slides, but Maile is so buried in the idea of what could have been if nasty man hadn't come along to spoil the scene that she can hardly appreciate what is. After a sad story of birds know only to us by the fossil record I gave up and went to bed.
Oh, incidentally, they found the young man who was lost last night hitch hiking this morning. He'd taken a wrong turn, back tracked, then it got dark. He had no flashlight and, after a few stumbles, decided to sit down and wait it out. Must have been a cool night on the mountain in nothing but shorts.
08:00 Off on the longest hike of the week, a four mile trek down into and across the double crater of Kilauea Iki. We split up into two groups, the hikers and the strollers. Lois and I went with the strollers, Paul and Sis with the hikers. We strollers went first, led by Rob. Susan took the hikers, who left a few minutes later from a different spot but still caught up and passed us as we reached the crater floor. Even then it wasn't enough for Paul. He left his group at the far side of the crater, came back by us as we trudged over the pahoehoe, and took a different and longer trail back to the camp. He got there just as the van, which had picked us up at the Thurston lava tube, arrived. In our group Rob was his usual talkative self, lecturing almost non-stop on the flora along the trail. To me the names all blend together but a few things stand out. I was surprised to find so many varieties of coffee plant and hear that the only one commercially grown is one originally from Africa, now called Arabian coffee. Lobelia, that I know as a ground cover with a little blue flower, also is represented here in everything from a bush to a fifty foot high tree which I would have mistaken for a palm. Walking across the crater surface with steam venting from the cracks was also an interesting experience. Although not as impressive as the Yellowstone geysers, the fact that you know molten rock lies just below the surface give it a special feeling.
12:00 Back in time for lunch -- same soup, salad, sandwich -- it's nourishment.
14:00 Project -- Screen print the Elerhostel logo on a T shirt or, in my case, my softsided briefcase. Kind of an interesting keep-us-busy project which was alright because it was pouring outside, first real rain we've had since we got here. I'd seen screen printing before but had never done it.
17:15 Dinner -- Mushroom Chicken -- not too bad.
19:00 Videos about the old Hawaiian crafts and customs. Lots of nostalgic stuff about the good old days, but the demonstration of bone fish hook carving was interesting. It would have been more so if the narrator had given more about fishing technique than about what a great thing it was for the soul to do the carving.
07:00 We're now used to watching the kids walk by with strawberry covered waffles covered with whipped cream while the cook serves up our gruel. Not quite that bad -- I asked for rice instead of cream of wheat this morning and got it.
08:00 Hawaiian lesson again. Susan teaching a chant to the class.
08:30 Off on a bird watching tour. The van was full so we took the car and drove past the "Bird Park" and on up the Moana Loa road to its end before coming back to join the others. It's a pretty, ten-mile drive through groves of big O`hia and Koa trees. We hoped we might see the plume from the eruption site but there was too much vog. Back at the bird park we found the others just about halfway around the trail, Rob lecturing as usual. We aren't much in the way of bird watchers but we did see several Kilij Pheasants, a colorful bird who seemed to like roadways and open trails.
12:00 Lunch of Pizza, soup, & salad -- not bad at all. They even cooked the small frozen pizzas in the oven rather than the micro.
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13:00 Schedule calls for Lei making. Paul had Sis take him to the far side of the Kilauea crater so he could hike back and I volunteered to help Rob gather and prepare the Ti leaves. Sis and Lois went with the rest of the bunch to gather materials for the leis. Contrary to popular knowledge, the Hawaiians didn't use orchids in their leis. Hawaii only has three "native" orchids, those scrawny little things which wouldn't make a very good lei. Instead they used colorful foliage which they bound to strips of steamed Ti leaves. Rob and I went to a place where he is clearing land and picked the Ti leaves, then brought them back to the camp and cut the center stems out of the leaves. |
| When they were all cleaned Rob took them over to the cafeteria and conned the cook into microwaving them for him. The halves of leaves then came out tough and pliable, ready for use in the leis. I then cut lengths of string to use in tying the decorative material to the leaves. When the gatherers got back with their sacks of foliage they first had to trim and sort all the stuff. Lois made a very nice wrist lei from O`hia leaves and blossoms, ferns, wild grasses, and who knows what else. Sis made a head lei from similar materials and also a basket from strips of palm leaf which a young lady named Joan had prepared. Paul and I supervised. | 
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17:00 Seafood something for dinner -- pretty good slop, lots of scollops, shrimp, and fish in a sauce over rice plus asparagus.
18:00 Hula Show in the Lava Lounge. Not very old time Hawaiian. Microphones, big amplifiers and speakers oversized for the room. I've seen as good in Dayton, Ohio bars. But Hawaiian music is always fun, even in its modern form, and the pretty ladies even got Paul to perform the Hula with them. He got a lei for that -- one made of flowers.
At Hilo we stopped at Hilo Hattie's factory to let the ladies get in a shopping fix -- it's been almost a week. Hattie's is the most widely advertised Hawaiian clothing maker and certainly do make a bunch of colorful stuff. Because it was Saturday their 73 seamstresses weren't working but they had a whole warehouse full of stuff on sale. Lois and Sis spent almost an hour browsing and bought quite a bit, including some God-awful shorts for Paul and me. Later, when it warmed up, Paul wore his but I "loaned" mine to Lois. More Hilo stops at the service station and farmer's market. Hilo has a pretty good one. Lots of farmers -- most seemed to be oriental -- selling everything from flowers to taro root. We didn't have room to buy anything but a few bananas and a pineapple -- a sweet, ripe one like you can seldom find in the stores.
At the guide book's suggestion we took a side trip to Rainbow Falls, just to the west of Hilo. It's a pretty falls, but there were so many tour buses there that you couldn't even hear the water for the roar of their engines. I guess they keep them running so the air conditioning will stay on. We crowded up to the rail for a peek then headed north to find a less crowded place. Took some pictures of a monstrous Banyon tree along the road at the Hawaiian Botanical Gardens, then stopped at another falls called Akaka. No buses there, and not overly crowded, but the vegetation was as impressive than the falls. An asphalt trail leads through a jungle around the two streams which form the falls. Nice walk, even if over developed.
We had a lunch of chips, bananas, and pineapple at Laupahoehoe State Park, a beautiful spot on the water where the waves crash on a lava reef. There's a small breakwater there -- huge tetrahedrons piled on the lava -- a boat launching ramp, and a sign saying "Laupahoehoe Harbor". When the waves would break over the reef the entire launch area would be sprayed, hardly much of a harbor but one small boat was launching anyway. From Laupahoehoe we continued northwest though the cane fields to Paauilo where we took another side trip to the Kalopa forest recreation area. There's a nice camp there with cabins they rent for $12 per day for two people. Sounded good but we weren't really prepared for that type of overnight. North again, or actually we're now heading almost due west, to Kukuihaele where we could look down into the Waipio Valley, one of several deep cuts in the older mountains of the north end of the island. That sure looked like a great place to camp -- great beach there -- but you need a four wheel drive vehicle to get to it.
No motel facilities anywhere in this area, so we continued on to Waimea for the night, staying this time in the Kamuela Inn ($93.00 for two rooms with a kitchenette). Had dinner at the Paniolo Inn, very good Teriyaki short ribs cut very, very thin.
From Hapuna we headed back to Kailua-Kona in the hope of finding a good spot for Lois and I to stay for the night -- Sis and Paul's flight leaves at 8:55 this evening and doesn't get into Idaho Falls until noon tomorrow; American, our carrier, flys only at 12:55PM so we'll go tomorrow. By studying Sis' Maverick Guide we found a good one, the Kona Tiki, where for $50.00 we have a room right on the water -- pretty noisy, but only from the sound of the surf which crashes against a sea wall just outside our room. We unloaded our stuff, relaxed for a while, then took the ladies shopping. First to a bunch of the high priced shops along the waterfront then to Hilo Hattie's again -- she has stores on all the islands and every major city -- where Lois bought me a shirt.
Dinner at a joint on the waterfront called the Ocean View -- so-so food but reasonable prices, then to the airport to drop Sis and Paul. We had gone by there early to arrange with National for me to legally drive the car. On the way back we took a swing though the Kailua Harbor -- very tight and filled with sightseeing and fishing charter boats. Didn't look like much of a place for cruisers. If there is decent cruising in Hawaii it's someplace other than on the islands of Oahu or Hawaii. I suspect that if you want to see the state from the water the best bet would be with kayaks or canoes like the natives did.
When I called to list on American's Flight 18 this morning the gal said it was sold out but only by a couple; so we headed for the airport early, hoping to catch an Aloa flight into Hoholulu in time to get a good standby time on American. Well the Aloa part worked great. We gassed the car and I dropped Lois and the bags at the curb while I turned it in -- cost a little more than we figured -- the $2.00 per day rental tax hadn't been shown on Paul's rate slip even though there was a notice in the envelope. We checked three of our bags, walked the short distance to the gate, and in about fifteen minutes were on the plane to Honolulu. So far, so good.
At Honolulu it was a different story. First, I didn't realize that the Aloha terminal is at the far end of the airport from American and, by the time I'd figured that out, we couldn't find a cart. Lois shoes were hurting her feet so we'd carry awhile, then rest awhile. Finally we made it to the American counter where the agent told me that it didn't look very good -- they weren't oversold but there were quite a few standbys. So, I held onto my day pack, checked the two big bags, and had him put us on the list. At the gate we found he was right. I talked to two ladies who hadn't made yesterday's flight and were still waiting. When the plane finally pulled out there still were six or eight of us waiting. Oh well, there are worse places to be bumped, and for us it's the first time.
Back in the terminal, I started calling car rental agencies. The best deal I found was at Tropical. They gave us a new Buick Riviera four door for $27.95-- plus the $2.00 rental tax and sales tax of course. We headed out of the terminal and north, not interested in going back to the Waikiki madness. Hoping to find a place to stay along the Waianae coast we took H1 out of town, past Pearl City to Barbers Point, and then went north on 93 to the end. Nothing! The military has trashed that whole part of the island. Although there are a lot of State Beach Parks along the shore -- that's where the international surfing competition is held -- the other facilities look like one huge low cost housing development. Only a couple of newer small shopping plazas break the monotony of rundown buildings and trashed cars. The one overnight accomodation we saw was a big resort built far up the Waianea Valley. It looked a little rich for our blood. Giving up on that scene, we retraced our route to the junction of H2 and turned north across the saddle where Dole has their pineapple plantations. From there down to the north beach, beautiful country and much nicer than the west coast but still no overnight accomodations. There's the big resort at Turtle Bay, of course, but again that's one of those $200 per night kind of places. Then, about when we'd decided that we were going to have to return to Waikiki, we stumbled on to the Laniloa Lodge in the little town of Laie, the site of the big Morman Temple of Hawaii. It's major reason for existence seems to be that it is right next door to the Polynesian Cultural Center, a big, Disneyland-type, showplace, popular with tourists. We thought about going to the 90 minute evening show but they wanted $20.50 each for "the ultimate Polynesian experience, performed beneath an explosive volcano and cascading waterfall." Sounded scary to me. Anyway, the room was nice, the price not too bad for Hawaii ($79.00 plus tax), and from our second floor room we could we could see part of the show and hear the pounding of the drums just across the fence at the "Cultural Center". Dinner at McDonald's right next door -- Chunky chicken salads -- we've got to quit eating so much.
We gassed the car in Aloha, dropped it at Tropical, and were at the Flight 18 gate by 11:00, two hours before flight time. That was really unnecessary -- our name was on the list from yesterday -- but we wanted to be sure not to miss any bets. No problem today. There were even a few empty seats on the airplane. Had a nice flight back. They showed a movie, "Father of the Bride" which made the time pass quickly. In San Francisco we rented another car from Budget, a little Toyota for $149.00 per week, not as good a deal as in Hawaii but the last of the inexpensive cars at any of the four agencies I contacted. We'll need it to work our refrigeration problem. Home at 10:00. Not the best way to celebrate a wedding anniversary but we didn't have a whole lot of choice. All seems to be well at the boat. Back to work tomorrow.