Sometimes things don't go our way. Work is crazy, the weather sucks, it's dark, cold and gloomy and spring seems so far away it doesn't feel we'll live long enough to see it. What do you do when that happens? Eat more? Binge watch Breaking Bad (again)? Pull the covers over your head and set the alarm for April?
After the October fires, Mark was buried in non-stop fire recovery at work and getting more and more exhausted and irritable. He was stressed and over-tired, and it was quickly turning into depression and hopelessness. The only thing that seemed to cheer him was talking with our friends about upcoming camping trips, but the earliest of plans were for May of 2018, a whole 6 months away. We needed something more immediate, something to look forward to, somewhere warm and sunny and relaxed. The remedy was obvious.
Hawaii.
Humuhumunukunukuapua'a Hawaii's state fish
Calling the Hawaiian Islands paradise might seem like a cliche, but only to those who've never been. It is without doubt the most relaxing and enjoyable place I have ever visited. A year round temperature range of 72 to 85 degrees, surrounded by warm ocean water and coral reefs teaming with tropical fish. Sleeping with the windows open and feeling the trade winds blow over you as the sound of waves lull you to sleep is truly the best way to relax. Sure, it's expensive, but every now and then there is nothing else that will do.
Once we made up our mindsto go we sat down and made reservations late one December night in a frenzy of web searches and adrenaline that ended with a high five and sigh of relief (pro tip: never book your flight until you've reserved a rental unit, that was a nailbiter!). Oh, and a condo on the beach in Maui for early February.
Hawaii Checklist:
Dog sitter
Airline tickets
Airport parking
Rental car
Rental condominium
Rental snorkeling gear
Snorkeling excursion to the island of Lanai
As soon as the details were settled, the anticipation set in. Mark set a countdown clock on his computer at work and sent me screenshots twice a day. We debated getting a new underwater camera. We toyed with getting new swimsuits. We were packed two weeks before our departure. It seemed to take forever, but the day finally came. We took off for the airport at 4:30 on a Saturday morning, where we made it in time to have the ceremonial over-priced Bloody Mary at the airport bar before our plane loaded.
We spent a glorious week tooling around the island of Maui in our rented jeep, visiting all the best snorkeling spots we had found on the last trip and finding new ones, always finishing the day at Ululani's Shave Ice shop for some frosty treats. We went out to dinner a few times, but mostly cooked for ourselves on the shared barbecue grills at the condo (food there is very expensive, and a nice dinner out for two with drinks and dessert can easily put you back $200).
Food trucks are another option. This one was excellent; a full day of snorkeling makes for a hungry belly.
Although the Big Island of Hawaii is our favorite, we chose Maui because of the proximity to the humpback whales. Every year between January and March, hundreds of humpback whales go to Hawaii to have their young and raise them until they are big and strong enough to go to feeding grounds in Alaska and the Bering Sea. It's an incredible sight to see the whales breaching and tail slapping, right from the beach. We saw them from above out the airplane window on our flight in, watched them from our condo's lawn, heard them "talk" while snorkeling. It's amazing, exciting and humbling to see these giants out there, especially up close from a small boat.
Snorkeling is really our main pursuit when in Hawaii. Mark is SCUBA certified and has been diving in the frigid waters off our coast since he was a teen, but that experience is nothing compared to the tropical waters of the South Pacific. The water is clear and warm, the fish are more colorful and plentiful, and come on, sea turtles? whales? How can you beat that? We grabbed a quick breakfast and were on the beach most mornings by 8:00am, donning our fins and masks and running into the surf. We came away with hundreds of pictures; I won't bore you with all of them, but here are a few:
An eel hunts for lunch in the reef.
The reefs around Maui are teaming with fish. Every day we saw something new.
These urchins actually eat into the coral, creating weird patterns.
Convict fish
A Spotted Moray eel tries to intimidate the camera
A Boxfish wanders around
Mark chased this White Tipped Reef shark trying to get a better photo.
He assured me they weren't too dangerous. I guess he was right, since he still has all his limbs.
We found this large conch laying on the reef floor. It looked like something had torn it from it's moorings, but the snail was still inside.
Here's the view from the top.
Green Sea turtles were everywhere. Being a protected endangered species, you're not supposed to bother them. That said, they have really bad eyesight so sometimes they swim right up to you. I was once rear-ended by one — scared the crap out of me.
A little video of a curious green sea turtle that swam by us. Listen carefully and you'll hear the humpback whales talking in the background:
We splurged on a boat trip around Lanai, the closest in the Hawaiian island chain to Maui. Lanai is much less crowded, and has some stunning sea cliffs and coral reefs surrounding it. The only way to get there is an expensive plane ride (or private jet), ferry, or one of these excursions. Although the wind didn't cooperate that day, we did get in some snorkeling and a front row seat to the whales.
See below for a short video taken from the boat. Sorry for the shaky camera work; the boat was tiny, the whales enormous, and the water rough:
The wind was really blowing that day. It made for a rough ride but dramatic photos.
The sea cliffs on the west side of Lanai are beautiful.
The north side of Lanai has many WWII ships that were intentionally grounded here when no longer needed.
The front of a concrete Liberty ship that broke free of it's moorings and ended up here.
The back. You can see how the waves have broken away the concrete, leaving the rusting rebar exposed.
About halfway through our trip, we received an email with a surprise message. We were being gifted a helicopter tour, something we had thought about doing before but could never justify the cost. Our excitement was confirmed from the moment we sat down in the front seat, the closest to a bird's eye view of the island you can get.
Our pilot Dylan was so laid back we worried he might be medicated. I think living in Hawaii will do that to a person; even Mark was relaxed about everything, including two trips during which his motion sickness could have been a real buzz kill (he was fine by the way, thanks to Bonine).
Our trip included a ride through the canyons of north Maui, then up the coast of Molokai. On our way across the channel between islands, we saw more whales and Dylan lowered and circled the helicopter so we could get a better look.
Although it is an expensive excursion, if you can swing it I highly recommend it. It really is a view of Hawaii you can't get any other way.
Dylan was kind enough to take our picture together. Of course, the helicopter photobombed us.
Taking off from the Kahului heliport.
It was cloudy, but it made for a more dramatic photos. The cliffs of Molokai are the tallest sea cliffs in the world, some up to 3900'
Molokai is also home to a 25 mile long coral reef. Since the island is sparsely populated and gets comparatively few visitors, the reefs are in pristine condition. We are planning our next Hawaiian adventure there.
We landed on the north shore of Maui. Here Mark is talking with pilot Dylan about helicopters. Mark came away from this trip with a new goal: get a helicopter pilot license. God help me.
Here's a little video from the trip, flying along the cliffs of Molokai's north shore:
There are other things to do that don't involve swimming. We spent one rainy day walking around the Maui Ocean Center, a nice little aquarium. While it's geared for kids, we learned a lot talking with the workers about the difference between urchins types and asking about some of the fish we had seen snorkeling.
Of course Mark had to risk life and limb again, but made it out unscathed. Maui Ocean Center
We also spent some time walking around the Kealia Pond Refuge. In the winter, this natural pond fills and attracts migrant birds and native shore birds. There's a new walkway that leads out across the pond, getting you closer to nesting sites and the birds themselves. It was a nice way to spend an afternoon.
The boardwalk had benches and information panels built along the way.
Black crown night heron hunt for small fish in the stream leading out to the ocean.
These white egrets are not native to the islands, but they're ubiquitous around Maui. You see them following the gardeners as they mow the lawns around the resorts, picking at the freshly mown grass for insects. It's amazing more don't get run over, they follow so closely.
The pond was full from all the rain Maui had gotten in the last few weeks.
We were rained out one day so we decided to take a little road trip to the Iao Valley State Monument. When I say rain, what I really mean is RAIN. Hawaii is surrounded by warm ocean water, and when the trade winds don't blow in their normal fashion, the clouds suck up moisture from the ocean and gather right over the island, where they unleash a torrent of water. The volcanic soil doesn't hold a lot, and the steep mountains funnel everything back down to the sea. The streams became rivers, the roads flooded over, and it was chaos that morning. But it was warm so it didn't stop us from running around in our shorts and t-shirts, giggling like school children. It also didn't hurt that we had rented a relatively high clearance jeep, so driving through the ever deepening puddles in the road was not a problem.
Iao Valley has a sad history.It was here that King Kamehameha fought a battle with the ruler of Maui. He brought a huge army and cannons, which he used to kill so many of the opposing forces the bodies dammed up the stream as the women and children watched from the cliffs above. Kamehameha eventually won, taking over control of Maui and eventually the entire Hawaiian island chain.
It's a pretty park, with gardens and demonstration plantings of taro. There's a little covered hut at the end of the trail in case you get caught in a rain storm. We made good use of it this trip.
There were waterfalls in every crevice of the park.
The streams were more like rivers that day.
The ravines of the valley were filled with rain clouds
The gardens, a little waterlogged.
Taro, up close
The Iao Needle
This trip was probably the most necessary thing we've ever spent hard earned money on. By the time we boarded the plane home we had shed every worry that had seemed so overwhelming when we left; Mark had plans to become a helicopter pilot, I had the outline of a roving bakery business going in my head and we were ready to sell the house and move to the islands. Perhaps not realistic, but a dream that will (hopefully) sustain us until the next time we make it back to the Hawaiian Islands.
A quarter of a century has passed since Mark and I got married.
October 27, 1990
Wow, that sure sounds like a long time.
When I was a kid I used to think "old people" (people younger than I am now) were crazy when they kept saying how fast time goes by. "You're getting so big!" Grandma Thelma would exclaim, "Seems like just yesterday I was rocking you to sleep."
At the time I thought Grandma was nuts. Did she know how long it took for Christmas to come? Did she know how excruciating it was to wait for the last day of school before summer vacation? It took forever! Longer than forever!
That lasted up until the end of high school. Suddenly, there didn't seem to be enough time. The first day of college turned into finals much faster than I could study. Graduating was a shock. What do you mean I have to get a job? That's when things really started speeding up.
Pre-marriage: 1988. (Those are safety glasses on Mark not a fashion misstep. We worked in a laboratory; not sure why I wasn't wearing mine.)
No one can say we had a whirlwind romance. We were friends, we dated, we got engaged, we got married in the space of 3 years. Our first year we spent crammed into a one bedroom duplex with two big dogs, all our wedding gifts still in boxes stacked in the hallway (occasionally knocked over by one of the big dogs). When we moved to a rental house we stacked the boxes in the spare room and lived in the rest of the house. It was eight years until we bought a house and unpacked the gifts, finally serving holiday dinners on the china we received.
Tahoe 1999, pre-camper days.
We've now known each other longer than we haven't. We met when we were both 23, and we've been together for 28 years. Sounds impressive, but like Grandma used to say, it feels like just yesterday.
I look in the mirror now and am shocked by what I see. When did this happen? I still feel the same, and as long as I don't look at that reflection, I can believe it's true (that might explain the state of my hair on occasion). I'm still waiting for the day Mark and I start to look alike; they say that happens you know. God I hope not. Mark's got a pretty good beard going these days.
Backpack trip to North Dome (Half Dome in the background), 2001
I don't have any advice about how to make a marriage last; I seriously think we got lucky when we found each other. Neither of us have strong opinions that we don't agree on; that saves us from serious arguments. We both enjoy the same hobbies, and the few we don't share we've found others to share them with. We've learned how to deal with the other's grumpy days without taking offense and how to sense when to shut up and listen. We don't have kids, so either we've been living the empty nest syndrome this whole time, or we've enjoyed it so much we didn't notice.
Death Valley 2004
When our now-eighteen year old niecewas five, we were teasing her, pretending to take away her favorite toy. When Mark ran off with it and I pretended to be in distress, telling her he wasn't going to come back, she just rolled her eyes at me. "He'll come back. He wouldn't leave without you because you match." At that point in her life, she had never seen us apart; she couldn't imagine it any other way.
Frankly, I can't imagine that either.
Hawaii 2005
Like a lot of couples we spent our honeymoon in Hawaii. We went back for our anniversary, this time spending it hiking in the national park there trying to catch the volcano erupting (there's a metaphor in there somewhere, I'm sure) and snorkeling around the reefs with an eye out for sharks (another fitting metaphor I suppose).
Hawaii 2015
We had a lot of fun, because hey, how can you not have fun in Hawaii? Now that we're home we immediately started planning our next adventure.
The clocks have now been turned back and I am not happy.
I am not a cold
weather person, and coming home from work in the dark plunges me into a
depression. I need sun and I need outside air and I need said air not to
numb my ears and make snot run down my face. Winter is not a glamorous
season for me.
So this time of year always has my thoughts turning to Hawaii.
Ahhhh...Hawaii. It's where Mark and I went on our honeymoon, and every fifth anniversary (or more if we can get away with it) we try to make it back around this time of year. I like all the islands but I confess to having a favorite: the big island of Hawaii.
It's the newest island in the chain, so it's not as far along in the foliage department as the older ones. Being a desert person, I kind of like the large expanses of lava and the unobstructed views of the ocean. And being an outdoorsy kind of person, I appreciate being able to get away from the crowds of Mai Tai-swilling sunburned mainlanders out for a drunken week-long party (not that we're above swilling a few Mai Tai's ourselves...)
There's a lot to see on the island, but one of the things that you just can't get at home (well, mine anyway) is an active volcano. To witness the earth being built is an amazing and wonderful thing.
On our trip in 2005 we were staying on the western side of the island near Kona (less rain and clearer water for snorkeling.) We had set aside a day to go to Volcanoes National Park, and since it's on the southeastern side, we had to get up early in the morning to be able to spend some time there.
Being from California, we are used to a network of roads weaving the state together like a loose basket. Want to go east? Choose one of a multitude of roads that head east and go. The Hawaiian islands are different: since they are all relatively newly formed mountains in the sea, roads going up and over are rare. The interior is steep, sparsely populated and sometimes molten--not attractive living arrangements--so most of the activity is around the edges. Getting from one side of the island to the other involves a long circuitous route that follows the edge where lava meets the sea. Volcanoes National Park is 100 miles from Kona, a three and a half hour trip just to get to the entrance (the belt road is not a super-highway--everyone has to use it and it goes through every town on the island--so it's slow going.) Once there, it's quite a drive in, with lots of stops along the way to view the Kilauea crater, lava tubes, and of course the Visitor's Center and museum.
Inside the Thurston Lava Tube
Steaming sulfur fields along the Chain of Craters Rd.
The trail around the Kilauea Crater.
Close up of the crater floor.
The volcanic activity on Hawaii is mild in comparison to other spots around the world. Eruptions are a lot like the Hawaiian culture itself: laid-back and not in a big hurry. Most of the time it's more of an ooze than a flow, and rarely does it actually spew into the air. Sometimes it just stops altogether for a while, only to start up from a different vent. In 2005 it was flowing from the Pu'u O'o vent, slowly spilling a (mostly) underground river of lava into the sea. During the day, you could see the steam rising up from the ocean so you knew there was activity, but looking out over the black lava fields it looked deceivingly calm.
Lava pours into the ocean.
We had read that to truly experience it you had to hike out onto the lava field and stay until after dark, so we had come prepared. We wore sturdy, thick soled shoes and brought flashlights with us; both of these items were really for the same reason. You haven't felt real pain until you've scraped a body part on lava rock. Flip-flops don't cut it when walking a couple miles out onto freshly formed lava beds, and when it gets dark, it gets really dark. The black lava seems to suck any ambient light right into itself leaving you blind and in danger of falling...which leads to painfully scraped body parts.
Pahoehoe Lava-the nice kind.
Ropey lava looking for a knee to scrape.
So armed with our flashlights and actual shoes (which feel really funny to put on after a week of walking around barefoot on the beach) we drove to a large parking area at the end of the park road. It literally is the end of the road; it used to go much further in until Pele the Goddess of Fire decided to stop those pesky cars from coming any closer. Lava flows as recent as 1992 have crept down the mountain and covered the road, melting the pavement and burying it under five feet of lava. It's an impressive sight to see the asphalt disappear under the black lava, and sign posts occasionally poking up through it, still standing and recognizable but for the singed paint.
The end of the road, decided by the Goddess of fire, Pele, herself.
Every once in a while the road would reappear in the lava field.
Road sign left in place, minus the paint.
We parked and joined a crowd of people trouping out from the lot and started out over the lava beds. There aren't any official trails, just a general direction toward the steam rising from the ocean. We walked at least two miles before we came up to a series of poles with rope strung between them. In general, everyone stopped at the rope. A few people climbed over and wandered a little further. There were little signs on the rope here and there that said not to cross, but it wasn't really clear why. Mark wanted to go closer, but being the overly cautious one I vetoed the idea. We sat on the smoothest pile of lava we could find and waited for the sun to set.
There were quite a few people, but it wasn't crowded. It's such an open area that everyone had plenty of room to roam around and settle in. The wind was whipping across the open terrain; that coupled with the sulfur smell coming off the distant steam vents made our eyes water. We chatted with a guy who had flown in from the East Coast specifically to see the lava. We took his picture for him and he took ours just as the sun was setting.
Waiting for the sun to set. (Photo by Steve, or was it Paul? from somewhere on the East Coast) Notice the rope behind us.
It didn't take long to realize just why the rope was put in place. Not even 100 yards from where we sat a glow started getting stronger as the sunlight got dimmer. Half an hour later a series of glowing veins lit up the field before us like an illustration of the circulatory system in an animated medical film. Looking up into the hills you could see huge pulsing flows of lava coming down and spreading out into individual veins, all eventually flowing to the edge of the field where you could hear the waves turn to steam in the night. It was an incredible sight. So incredible in fact, that even though there were at least 100 people out there, no one spoke. There aren't many things in the world that make people shut up nowadays, but this was one of them. Aside from the clicking of cameras, only nature was allowed to speak.
Lava leaves Pu'u O'o vent and rolls down the hill.
Lava meets ocean much more dramatically after sunset.
To this day I can taste the salty/sulfur air and feel that warm humid wind. Being out in the dark on the darker lava, with all the stars so bright and the orange glow of the lava was one of those lifetime experiences that get socked away in the memory to be pulled out when in desperate need of amazement. I'm privileged to have witnessed many wonderful things in my life, but seeing the earth as it's being built is one of the top ten.
We sat for a while and pondered what might have happened if we had gone beyond the rope. There are stories about people wandered out too far and breaking through the thin layer of hardened lava into the flow beneath. I can only imagine how quickly your skin, not to mention muscle and bone, would burn in the kind of heat that melts rock. No thanks.
We stayed for about an hour before heading back to the car. We walked much more slowly, carefully picking our way over the undulating lava. You would think lava is lava, but it actually takes on many forms. Within the same area there are rolling, smooth areas (pahoehoe in Hawaiian) that were my favorite; much easier to walk on and mostly solid; then there was the areas of crusty, crumbling blocks that wobbled and tumbled as we walked over them (a'a' in Hawaiian--my theory is that's the sound you make as you walk on it). Those were hard to navigate and had the most potential for pain. While we were smart enough to wear proper footwear, we just couldn't bring ourselves to wear long pants in Hawaii, so every step was a potential for losing the hard-earned tan off our shins.
Some of the older lava takes on a polished look. This looked like a turtle shell to me.
We made it back to the car around 10:30pm. We had packed a lunch and snacks, but didn't realize just how late we would be getting back. It took about 30 minutes to get out of the park, and then we were faced with another three-plus hours to get back to our condo. The towns on that side of the island are few and far between--the resorts are all located on the Hilo (east) side and the Kona (northwestern) side--and most businesses in Hawaii close pretty early. So we made our way back, nervously watching the gas gauge in the rental car get closer to E. We finally found a tiny gas station about halfway back to Kona that not only had gas but a small rack of "food". This is how we found ourselves eating a dinner of Hostess Cupcakes and cokes at midnight, running on a sugar high after our 18 hours of volcano tourism. Sweet.
Mai Tai Mark, post-snorkeling.
It was a great time, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat. Unfortunately the last time we went to the Big Island the lava wasn't flowing. Fortunately for us though, there were still fish to be viewed through our dive masks, and just a couple Mai Tai's waiting for our sunburned-mainland-selves every night.
About halfway through our trip, we received an email with a surprise message. We were being gifted a helicopter tour, something we had thought about doing before but could never justify the cost. Our excitement was confirmed from the moment we sat down in the front seat, the closest to a bird's eye view of the island you can get.
