Go Big (Island): The End of our Time on the Island

Aloha friends and family! Aloha in every sense of the word.

To anyone who has been keeping up with the blog posts (notably our parents,) it might be apparent that I haven't been feeling like writing many blog posts recently. It's been almost three weeks without a post, actually. This is due to several factors: 1) We haven't been doing a whole lot of noteworthy things lately; 2) I haven't been feeling particularly well mental health-wise, and thus haven't been particularly motivated to do very much at all, let alone write or undertake any creative ventures of any sort; 3) This island has become our home, and thus has become mundane.

Also, because I haven't been feeling well I haven't been taking photos, so this post will be more sparse and less colorful than the posts of the past.

Now I'm feeling compelled to write. Perhaps it's the allure of home coming that's raised my spirits. Whatever the case may be, I'm happy it's happening.

Of course, when we last left off, we were just returning from our escapades on Oahu with the Howards and Michael Gerard.

Something that we all remarked upon returning to the Big Island was how much coming back felt like coming home. The three of us were in unanimous agreement that Hilo was a much better place than Honolulu. It feels more genuine. It's less shiny. It's more authentic and comfortable with who (or what) it is. It's not busy. It has a grungy port right next to its nicest beaches. It has swindling vendors who pass Dole pineapples off as their own and charge triple the price for them. It has no social life...and it's okay with all of that.

We returned to our odd little farm in the middle of nowhere in the middle of a cloud forest that is perpetually in the middle of rain. We returned to the faces that have become familiar--the Mommsen family including Sanji, Mama Mala, Theo, and Charlie; Sanji's friend Baraka who has become a near permanent fixture in our kitchen; the smelly dogs roaming the farm, the handsome cat Zorro, the wild cats up at our shack, the chickens, and Sanji's new ugly ducks; our beloved car Lil Red and our leaky but cozy shack.

While we were away in Oahu Sanji acquired a new member of the farm: a part pit/part chihuahua mix named Piko. Piko means "belly-button" in Hawaiian and is a wonderfully apt name for this little dog. Ordinarily I am not a fan of small dogs, but I took to Piko right away. He's calm and gentle and has curiously reproachful eyes. He's also a little dancer.

One of the first things that we did upon returning to the farm was to sell our beloved yet quirky vehicle, Miss Lil Red. We weren't sure how easy it would be to sell her, and so we decided to put her up on Craigslist early, to give us plenty of time. It turned out that it was actually very easy for us to sell our little Raggedy Ann car. We sold her just a few days after we put the ad up. That left us with 3 weeks on the Big Island with no car, which is not an easy way to live here...nor is it especially conducive to exploring the island.

Lucky for us, hitch-hiking is both culturally accepted and abundant here. Also lucky for us, we're three relatively well-groomd and sane-looking girls, so it is easy for us to get picked up. Through this experience we've again been struck by how many generous and kind people live here. There have been quite a few people who will pick us up and then drive ten minutes out of their way to make sure that we are able to get home alright. We can also alays tell a Canadian when they pick us up, as they're consistently the nicest and warmest people, falling in line with that particular stereotype of Canada.

During our last few weeks here we've also made a new friend, named Morgan, who is the friendliest person we have ever met. He works at one of our most common watering holes, Shark's Coffee Shop in Honomu. We always got along really well with him while we were hanging out at Shark's, and we had always wanted to become friends with him. We're glad we have had the opportunity to hang out with him more and to become better friends with him, even if it has been just for these last few weeks.

One day we had an excellent adventure with Morgan. He took us first to Hakalau, which used to be a thriving community centered around a prospering sugar mill, but is now just another spot on the island where a tree-lined river meets the ocean in a cacophony of spray. We drove up the river a ways and there jumped off of a 20-foot-high bridge into a deep pool. It was quite fun and effectively set the tone for the rest of the day.

After Hakalau, Morgan took us to Ninole, where we scrambled and swam our way up a river to a series of massive waterfalls. We engaged our problem-solving skills to figure out how to navigate our way up and over each waterfall to get to the river and subsequent waterfalls above. We went cliff jumping a few times in Ninole; Rachel and I, for the most part, stuck to the more moderate and reasonable, yet still exciting, 15- or 20-foot jumps. Morgan and Tam, on the other hand, both decided to jump from the top of one of the waterfalls to its pool below, which was easily a 40-foot drop. Both had to run and jump without looking first, so as to not lose their nerves. Both ended up just fine, except for a tweaked shoulder (Morgan) and a bruised tailbone (Tamarah.)

When we had finished exploring that lush and idyllic tropical river, we were all feeling quite peckish. Morgan suggested a burger place in Waimea called Village Burger, which he was adament made some of the best burgers on the island. So we decided to extend our adventure to a trip to Waimea to try these burgers. They were indeed quite tasty and filling, with an extra bonus that truffle fries that could be ordered along with them.

There was another day when Tamarah and I hitched our way to Kole Kole Beach Park to go swimming, which, we now know, is not a wise thing to do at Kole Kole. As far as ocean activities go there, it is (and should be) primarily used solely by very competenet surfers...definitely not for two haole girls to go swimming. The waves at Kole Kole are tall, strong, and persistent. Luckily both Tam and I are strong swimmers and were able to stay reasonable during moments when we could be panicking. So, essentially, we swam out into the waves, realized we shouldn't be there, and slowly navigated our way back to the shore, all the while scaring some local boys who thought they were going to have to jump in the water and save our asses. We learned our lesson and sunbathed for the rest of our time at the park, safely on land.

On that day, upon our return to Shark's to get Rachel, we met a gentleman named Shane. Shane was looking for adventure buddies, and had a car to easily travel to said adventures. Tam and Rachel took advantage of the adventure-buddy situation to hike Waipio Valley with Shane, and then again to return to hike to Waimanu Valley, which is one valley further over from Waipio. The hike to Waimanu is much longer than the hike into Waipio, and so they decided to spend the night in the valley. Again, as I wasn't there for these particular journies I unfortunately can't report much besides what they told me--like the waterfall in Waipio that they saw that is many times taller than Akaka Falls, or how they met some incredible Argentinians that they got along with very well. I'd say that the most talked about part of these trips was the waves in Waimanu. Rachel was deeply touched by these waves. She says that not only were they the most beautiful ocean waves that she has ever seen, but they were perhaps the most beautiful anything that she has ever seen.

The farm in recent weeks has become substantially more crowded. Sanji was away in California for the first week and a half of December, and upon his return he brought many new lives in touch with ours: Sanji's friend Armando from Kona is here visiting and helping Sanji with his work; a family friend of the Mommsen's named Ashley and her 2-year-old daughter Chloe are here visiting from Volcano; a new couch-surfer named Ella who we quite enjoy hanging out with; an old family friend from when the Mommsen's lived in the Virgin Islands, a very nice man who we all call Uncle Bento; a pregnant couple from Austria who has moved into the main house for Mala's help as a midwife; and in the last couple of days a couple named Joe and Celine have taken up residence in the shack adjacent to ours. All of these new arrivals have added extra energy and activity to the farm that we've been enjoying quite a lot, especially since we spend the vast majority of our time there now a days.

Tamarah's last day on the island also happened to be her 23rd birthday. The day before she left we decided it would be nice for Rachel and I to take her out to one of the nicer restaurants in town that we have't tried yet. We've always been intrigued by Cafe Pesto, but it was closed for rennovations, so we decided to go to Pineapples. In town we ran into Lauren, Stephanie's friend who we quite liked, who showed us the banyan by Rainbow Falls early into our time here. She invited us to tea with Stephanie and some of their other friends, which we accepted, and in return invited all of them out to dinner with us. It was a lovely evening filled with pleasant people, delicious food, and yummy cocktails. After dinner Rachel and I bought a gallon of cheap wine and then the whole crew went up to Akaka Falls to explore it at night.

On the drive up to the falls Lauren asked everybody in the car what the felt fed their souls. I, without even really thinking about it, said Star Trek, and then had to (gladly) explain to a car full of people who had never seen the show how it could feed my soul. My answer was one of the less poignant answers (although I'm adament that it's still a true answer.) Stephanie said good chocolate and good friends, who she clarified to be people who she can be her self around and who she can say anything to, uninhibited. Rachel said the waves at Waimanu. Tamarah said moments when you're driving and a good song comes on, and you can be by yourself or with a group of good people, but that moment is still so gratifying and filling. Lauren said the moment when she crosses the singing bridge (a bridge so called because it sounds like it's singing when you drive over it) going north out of Hilo, because she knows that she's headed towards an adventure.

The moon was small but bright, which was helpful when we navigaed the steps to Akaka Falls at night with our gallon of wine. When we got to the falls we watched it for a while, passing around the wine, remarking on how amazing it was that we could still see texture in the waterfall as it plummeted in the dark. When it came time for that adventure to end, they dropped us off at the farm and we said our goodbyes to our new friends. We were so fortunate to have had such a good last night with them.

The next day, Tam's birthday and departure day, Sanji finally took Tam surfing. It was the best birthday present he could have given her. As she didn't have very much (if any) practice surfing during our time here, she flailed around a bit out there. But she was able to ride the wave a few times, which was good.

For lunch we went to one of our favorite vendors at the Farmer's Market. She sells her own Chinese food, which we love. Tam and I also had some delicious birthday brownies.

It was sunny all day. It was the perfect way to celebrate Tam's birthday and to send her home to freezing and snowy Colorado.

Since Tam left, Rachel and I have not been doing a lot. We spend a lot of our time at the farm or down at Shark's. We've hung out with Morgan too, which has been nice, as always. Yesterday the farm had a big party where most everyone living on the farm came and had dinner together. Rachel was in charge of cooking and baking most everything for the feast, and everyone was wowed by her cooking prowess. It was really a very nice time.

Now we're coming close to the end of our time here. I leave in two days and Rachel leaves in three. We're really looking forward very much to both being home with our families for Christmas and then being with The Collective (our college friends) for New Years. We're feeling ready to embark on our next adventures. Although our readiness to leave has not stopped us from reflecting on our time here, and all that we're going to miss about it.

We're going to miss our new friends, and all of the people we've grown close to while living on the farm. We're going to miss it being in the 80s everyday and for "cold" to be 55 degrees. We're going to miss seeing the ocean everyday, especially the view of it that we have as we drive down the hill from the farm into Honomu. We're going to miss he abundance of fresh and free exotic produce growing on the farm that we can eat at any time. We're going to miss the Farmer's Market and being able to buy any 2 pounds of produce we want for $2. We're especially going to miss Papaya Guy who sells 8 papayas for $2, and often gives us a couple extra for free. We're going to miss the small and quaint town of Honomu and the large and sleepy town of Hilo. We're going to miss seeing sea turtles on a regular basis. We're going to miss falling asleep to the sound of the rain on the tin roof of our shack. We're going to miss this unreal sense of freedom, of being able to do whatever we want to do whenever we want to do it. We're going to miss the laid-back atmosphere of the island. We're going to miss the kindness of people here who are truly living out the aloha vibe.

Most of all, of course, we're going to miss spending all of our time together, the three of us. Right now we are so, so very fortunate, and we know it. We got to spend 3 months in Hawaii with two of our best friends, exploring and doing as we wish (and eating SO MUCH fresh fruit.) Our lives are all headed towards new adventures, all of which we're looking forward to. But we will probably never be ale to be this close to each other ever agan. It is unlikely that the three of us will share a bed for any extended period of time ever again, or share with each other every detail of each other's lives as it's happening, or eat giant salads together from the same bowl every night.

It was a spectacular adventure that I still can't believe I was lucky enough to be a part of with two people that I love so much.

But it is coming time to say aloha to the island. Aloha, good bye. Aloha, with love. Thank you for letting us live here. Thank you for letting us grow here.

We love you, goodbye. Aloha.

Waves

You know how there’s all those people out there like Thoreau and John Muir and also maybe just a friend of yours, or maybe even you, who are able to find this incredibly deep appreciation of nature? They are inspired by it and learn from and have trouble comprehending its beauty. Well I’ve always loved our natural world and have appreciated it and thought it was beautiful too, but never to the degree that it seems like these other people were, I never looked at something or watched something and felt moved deep down inside. And to be honest, this always bothered me a bit, why could Thoreau get so much out of a pond and I couldn’t.

Well, last week this all changed for me, because I had an experience that affected my whole being and touched me deep down inside. This experience was profound enough to make me want to write about it, which is saying a lot, because I generally avoid writing at all costs.

It all started with a hiking trip taken by Tamarah, myself and this guy we met at our local coffee shop. The hike started at Waipio Valley, which is a beautiful and sacred place with a very high and lovely waterfall. Upon seeing Waipio Valley for the first time (which actually happened over a month ago when Riley was here) I felt like I wasn’t appreciating it as much as I should, maybe because I had heard so much about it being so beautiful, which it was, but not breathtaking or anything. This was just one of the many times that I was bothered, as I described above. There’s a trail that’s about 9 miles or so from Waipio Valley to Waimanu Valley. Waimanu Valley can only be accessed by this trail, or by the ocean, and nobody lives there, there is a small campground near the beach and a trail that goes back to some rather impressive waterfalls. It is also home to another waterfall that is 2,600 feet tall, making it the tallest in the country. It is this valley that we hiked to, arriving just before dark, we were greeted by two Argentinian travelers who invited us to share their fire, an invitation that we accepted with gratitude before retiring to our tent for the night.

The next morning, I woke up and found a nice rock on the beach to enjoy the sweet potatoes we had brought for breakfast while I watched the waves coming in. Now, watching waves is always a wonderfully captivating experience. It’s a lot like watching a fire, you can just zone out and be perfectly entertained and content. Well these waves were on a whole other level. They were perfect in every way; I can think of nothing that would make them more beautiful or more satisfying to watch. And that is the best word I can think of to describe them, utterly satisfying, from the beginning to end. I will now do my best to describe these glorious natural phenomena.

To set the scene, I’m sitting on a beach in a lush valley with waterfalls plummeting thousands of feet behind me. There are precisely 9 other people in the whole place and non are within my site. The sea is perfectly calm so each wave appears to come from nothing, and they are forming very close to shore, which just enhances my viewing pleasure.

When the waves were still in their beginning stages they looked like a monster rising stealthily from the depths. Then they began to take the wave shape. But these waves were perfectly shaped. They were very thin from front to back, and the front wall (the one we could see) became vertical as it rose. The crest of the wave was razor sharp, giving it a crisp, clean look that was unbroken for the length of the wave. The wave continued to grow, the crest held its shape even as the wave became concave. There was a second, when the wave appeared to freeze, as it became more concave without losing shape. Then, at precisely the right moment, it broke, and in that crashing white water was the release of all that energy that had been building up since that monstrous form first appeared. It was so powerful that I could feel the buildup and release in my own body.  It was so powerful, that just writing about it brings back the feelings I felt watching it. I can’t describe exactly how it made me feel except for deeply satisfied, and perfectly content.

I know that is something I will never forget, and I doubt I will ever see anything like it again. It was a perfect moment that I think will let me understand the similar moments that others have had. I know it has and will continue to affect me in various ways and I feel so fortunate to have experienced it. 

The Story of Captain Cook and Hawaii

This is the story of Captain Cook's "discovery" of the Hawaiian Islands.

Captain James Cook encountered the Polynesian islands on his travels around the word to discover a northwest passage. He hopped around the islands a bit, only to depart pretty quickly after his first encounters. His men were tantalized by the islands and asked Cook to return to the islands for an extened stay in te winter of 1778.

They landed for their extended stay in Kealakekua Bay, near the modern-day town named, of course, Captain Cook, on the western side of the Big Island.

Captain James Cook

Cook happened to arrive on Hawaii on the first day of the season of the deity Lono. Lono is the deity of, among other things, fertility, agriculture, and peace. His time is thus dedicated to such things. It occurs during the wet season and is therefore a time of plenty of food, and of ali'i tax collection. It is a time when the warriors retire to the mountains, so as to completely negate the possibility of warfare. It is a time of hula and procreation and feasts.

The Hawaiians that encountered Cook did not think that his arrival in his grand ships on the first day of Lono's time was incidental. They believed that he was a manifestation of Lono. So, clearly, it was a grand time for Cook to first land on the idyllic Hawaiian Islands: he was taken to be a deity, and thus respected as such, and he and his men lived out their first months on the island during a time of feasts and sex without warriors hanging around.

Cook was aware that in other places that they had visited, his men had spread syphilis amongst the native populations through copulating with the native women. He thus ordered his men to not have sex with any of the native women on Hawaii; he was very much struck by the beauty and serenity of Hawaii and the generosity of its people and didn't want to sabotage such a place through such a nasty disease. To ensure that his men did not sleep with native women during the night he ordered them to sleep on the ships during the nights. However, his men, wildly seduced by the beauty of the Hawaiian women and their sensuous hula dancing often snuck off of the boat at night to join the luaus on shore and fulfill their lustful desires.

Common artistic depiction of Lono
(usually in tiki form)

Cook and his men stayed near Kealakekua Bay for a couple of months before moving north along the Kohala Coast. At one point the ships encountered a gale, during which the mast of the Resolution was damaged, causing Cook and his ships to return to Kealakekua Bay to find timber for reparations. They expected that the good relations they had had with the natives during their previous stay in the area would continue.

As it was, the Hawaiians were not happy to see Cook return. His second arrival at Kealakekua Bay occurred at a time that was no longer marked by Lono, but instead his brother Ku. Ku is the god of war and politics, and during his time the warriors are definitely in occupance in the villages. Furthermore, the people of Kealakekua Bay were confused by the return of Lono during the time of Ku. They took it as a bad sign. They did not want him there.

Furthermore, during Cook's short absence from the area the symptoms of the syphilis that spread from Cook's men to the Hawaiian women began to manifest; another really bad sign to the Hawaiians that Cook's presence was not good news.

There were a series of scuffles between Cook's men and the Hawaiians. At one point some Hawaiians made it onto the Discovery and took some pieces of the ship. There is an argument that the Hawaiians would not have necessarily seen such an act as aggressive or wrong. Sharing was a common practice amongst the Hawaiian commoners, and so the idea of theft was largely unknown. Nonetheless, Cook decided that the appropriate reaction would be to attempt to kidnap a powerful chief of the area as hostage for the missing pieces of the ship.

This did not go over well with the Hawaiians, and they fought back. This skirmish is what led to Cook's death. Although Cook only incurred small injuries from the fighting, it disabled his ability to walk in the water, and he drowned. He was only in three feet of water. The great explorer James Cook did not know how to swim.

Upon Cook's death the fighting stopped. Cook's men wanted to take Cook's body back to England for a proper Christian burial; the Hawaiian's wanted to keep Cook's body, as they believed it to be Lono's and thus full of powerful mana. They wished to consume Cook's body to obtain his mana. Eventually, much to the dismay of Cook's crew, the Hawaiian's relented only one of Cook's legs to them for burial. The Hawaiians kept the rest.

Modern-day Captain Cook Monument in Kealakekua Bay

Of course, Cook's men returned to England and told everybody of the new islands of paradise they had found in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Even though Cook was relatively late in the game of discovery (he discovered Hawaii so late that the United States already existed at that point,) he had made a truly valuable discovery indeed.

Of course, many Hawaiians, even today, wish that he had never discovered their arhchipelago. Hawaiian society was far from being idyllic, but at least it was their own.

Kealakekua Bay, looking north towards the monument

**Most of this story I told from memory, as I learned it in my Native American Religions and Traditions class in college. I also gained some additional facts from this site: http://www.hawaiihistory.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=ig.page&PageID=266

**First photo from antarcticconnection.com
Second photo from tuckerstikis.blogspot.com
Third photo from aloha-hawaii.com
Fourth photo is my own

Go Big Island: Thanksgiving in Oahu

Aloha everybody! I hope everyone had a pleasant Thanksgiving and that you were all able to reflect on how lucky you are.

Tam and Michael on Crouching Lion trail, above the town of Ka'a'awa

We certainly were lucky and had a lot to be thankful for, because we spent our Thanksgiving (and its corresponding week) on the beautiful island of Oahu with the one and only Mr. Michael J. Gerard and the lovely Howard family.

On the morning that Rachel, Tamarah, and myself left Hilo to fly to Honolulu it was a lovely sunny morning, the first we'd seen in Hilo in about 3 weeks. When we arrived in Honolulu, it was raining, and we were entirely unsurprised that the universe would do such a thing to us.

View of Waikiki and Honolulu from top of Diamond Head Crater

We'd rented a car for the first 4 days of our stay on Oahu (which has the wonderfully apt nickname "The Gathering Place".) It is perhaps needless to say that we were entirely stoked to drive a car younger than ourselves for a little bit, with the bonus of it not being entirely overrun by cockroaches. We were thoroughly delighted when  Enterprise gave us the option to rent a litle red Nissan. I was saying that we should nickname our rental car "Miss Red" or something, as she was a proper car, in contrast to our dear "Lil Red," whose name more accurately represents her more ghetto characteristics.

The three of us arrived in Honolulu a good three hours before our dear friend Michael was to arrive, so we took Miss Red on a little spin into Honolulu where we met up with Tamarah's sister Jess, who lives in a little town near North Shore called Ka'a'awa but works as a pilates instructor in Honolulu. Jess living on Oahu is what brought the four of us (Tam, Rachel, Michael, and myself) and Tam's parents to the island for Thanksgiving. Jess brought us to Leonard's Bakery, the legendary home of malasadas on Oahu. Malasadas, for those who don't know (I didn't know) are Portuguese donuts and they're DELICIOUS. Rachel and I ate far too many and felt kinda sick, but it was worth it.

The one and only Michael Gerard

As I've mentioned in past posts, we are often struck by a sensation on the Big Island that we're not actually still in America, as the Big Island has a very particularly Hawaiian culture. This was not the case in Honolulu. Honolulu very much feels just like any other big American city. I felt like I was in a Californian city, really, and the others had to put up with me saying "This part of the city reminds me of LA," or "This part of the city reminds me of San Diego," every few minutes as we drove.

When we were finally able to pick up Michael at the airport it was an exciting reunion indeed. We were all super giddy and there was a lot of smiles and comparing tans (upsettingly we were only marginally more tan than Michael was, and he'd been essentially living as a shut-in student/waiter in Colorado while we were sunbathing on beaches in Hawaii. But I guess we can't really complain about such things too much.)

After the airport we met up with Jess again and sampled some free alcohol at the grocery store, purchased some alcohol at the grocery store, and then went to a beach just in time for sunset. The neighborhood the beach was in was really rather odd...it was full of mansions that were entirely abandoned. The huge houses were rife with graffiti and broken windows. We looked over the fence at this one glorious house right on the beach that was aglow with lights and abuzz with whirring hot tubs, and obviously empty. Jess told us there was a room in that house just full of bath tubs, for whatever reason. Rich people sure can be odd and wasteful.

The busy busy busy ocean at Waikiki

For dinner we thought it would be fun to check out Chinatown; I had it in my mind that Honolulu's Chinatown would be similar to San Francisco's, which is awesome, as both cities have a steady history of Asian immigrants. Unfortunately we all found Chinatown to be rather underwhelming. It kind of just felt like any other part of the city except for slightly more paper lanterns and a dash more Chinese restaurants. Nonetheless we had a delightful dinner at a fairly authentic Chinese restaurant. Our waiter warned us a couple of times against ordering certain things on the menu that we wanted, saying in so many words "white people don't typically order such things here." Despite our waiter's protests we ordered what we wanted anyways (because we're 'MERICANS,) which included the fine delicacy of cold jelly fish. It was alright. A little too chewy for my taste.

We were going to go dancing after dinner (because, as is probably obvious by now, we like to dance but don't have the opportunity that often.) However, we're now old people and are tired by 8. Also, Mr. Gerard lost his ID somewhere in LAX during his long voyage travelling stand-by. So we settled for getting cocktails (well Michael didn't,) then heading to Jess' (and her boyfriend Ryan's) place, which is about 45 minutes north of Honolulu for some good sleepy time.

The next day we woke up and had a delightful breakfast of eggs and toast with lilikoi butter (which is SO GOOD, like pudding,) and enjoyed the lovely view that Jess and Ryan have from their porch--Ka'a'awa (the little town they live in) is nestled right in between the ocean and the sharp, ragged, jungled mountains of Oahu.

Tam, Michael, and Rachel beach bouldering

After breakfast we journeyed further north to Waimea. It was raining when we first got to the beach so we took a quick detour across the highway first to checkout Waimea Falls Park, or at least as much of it as we could without paying. They shot a lot of movies there (including Jurassic Park, and supposedly somehow Lilo & Stitch.) When the rain let up we went to Waimea Bay Beach Park, where there was (to our pleasant surprise, especially Michael's,) some bouldering spots right on the beach. You can take the kid out of Colorado but you can't necessarily take the Colorado out of the kid. There was also a pretty large rock out in the water that we could jump off of into the waves below. Overall I would definitely recommend this spot, it was super cool (there were also some trees in the parking lot that looked straight out of Lothlorien.)

We got some groceries at Foodland, the North Shore's seemingly predominant grocery store chain, then went back for a quiet evening at Jess and Ryan's, where we made some stir fry and watched "My Neighbor Totoro" which was SO delightful.

Tamarah looking fly, buried in the sand

The next day we decided to adventure even more around the northern part of the island. Our first stop was at the Dole Pineapple Plantation. Again, we didn't want to pay to actually go into the place and have a tour, so we did what we could for free. They actually have the largest maze in the world at the plantation (in the shape of a pineapple,) but it was closed, which was a big bummer. We learned what we could from the information placards about the growth rate of pineapples and the history of Dole (which conveniently left out all of the practical indentured servitude of Hawaiians at both the plantation and the cannery for nigh a century,) and fed some ginormous koi. I chose to feed the koi on the periphery, farthest from the feeding platform, as I am a socialist at heart. We spent a fair amount of time in the extensive gift shop, then left, all feeling a little bit grosser from the experience (or at least I did. To be honest I was a bit pessimistic about the whole thing.)

Sunset at Haena State Park

After the plantation we went to have lunch in the historical town of Haleiwa, which was small and pleasant. As with everywhere else on the North Shore, there was a plentitude of food trucks in Haleiwa. We went to this parking lot that had about 8 food trucks, and had lunches as diverse as a crepe, a po boy, and a Philly cheesesteak.

During the afternoon we decided to check out Haena State Park, which is home to the western most point on Oahu. We actually didn't make it out to the western most point, but still enjoyed our terrifically muddy hike and the marvelous sunset.

The following day (which was a Tuesday) we went to Honolulu for the day. We decided to go ahead and allow ourselves to be tourists for the day. We started out our day of Honolulu tourism by hiking Diamond Head Crater, a fairly ostentacious geological formation right outside of downtown Honolulu. It's the result of a quick and violent volcanic eruption that happened long ago. The crater was used by the military in the past (it is a rather magnificent strategic vantage point of both the sea and the city.) I slowly became convinced during our time there that the military still operates there, but as a means to cover-up extraterrestrial activity/remains (the whole place reeked of "X-Files" and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind.")

We had an absolutely lovely lunch at South Shore Grill. It was simply made American food (burgers, tacos, burritos, da kine...(: ) For whatever reason we were all over the moon about the food we ate there. I would definitely recommend it.

Michael & Rachel climbing a banyan on the beach

During the afternoon we decided to bite the tourist bullet and headed to Waikiki Beach, one of the most famous beaches in the world. It had long been built up in my head as one of the most luxuriously tropical and perfect beaches there could possibly be. What we found was, to be honest, a fairly typical urban beach. It was absolutely packed to the gills, both on the beach and in the water. I don't want to say it was an unfortunate experience, however. We all still enjoyed our time there quite a lot. Rachel and Michael climbed a banyan. Tamarah got buried in the sand. I took pictures.

We walked the streets along Waikiki, waiting for Danielle and Mark (Tamarah's parents) to fly in from Colorado. We were quite amused at the insane consistency of ABC Stores (typical tourist knick-knack and convenience stores) on every. single. corner. We fancied the idea of watching the sunset and drinking cocktails at the Royal Hawaiian (the second oldest hotel in Hawaii, built in the 1920s, I believe.) However, we weren't allowed into the Royal Hawaiian, so we just watched from the beach, which was still very nice.

The four of us on Waikiki

It was decided that we'd just meet Mark and Danielle back at Jess and Ryan's place. It was a very happy reunion for the Howards, and pleasant for Rachel, Michael, and myself as well. We transferred sleeping arrangements to the place that Mark and Danielle had rented. At first we were under the impression that we would all have our own rooms, which we frankly didn't like the idea of. Luckily it turned out that all 4 of us were to share a room that had 3 beds. Separation anxiety was averted for the time being.

On Wednesday we woke up reasonably early and headed over to Shark's Cove for some snorkeling (Michael was pretty keen on getting some snorkeling in during his time in Hawaii, rightly so.) Shark's Cove was this pretty neat shallow cove protected from the crashing ocean by a naturally ocurring wall of rocks. For such a shallow and small pool there was actually a surprising amount of marine life. Certainly a lot of sea urchins, some eels, a couple schools of large silver fish, even some humuhumunukunukuapua'a (the state fish of Hawaii.)

Tam and Michael on Crouching Lion

Rachel had to get the rental car back to Enterprise at the airport so we weren't charged for an extra day, and on her way back to Honolulu she dropped Michael, Tam, and myself off at the "trailhead" to the Crouching Lion Trail. The trail is actually, technically, illegal to hike on, so there wasn't a real trailhead; it was more just a gap in the tall grass off of the highway that led into steep, muddy jungle. The trail was certainly an exciting hike, and was really quite beautiful. The scramble uphill through the jungle ends when you get to an old bunker of some sort, and from there it's just a steep (STEEP) climb along the ridge of the mountain right above Ka'a'awa. I am not quite as physically fit as my cohorts, but I still found it to be very enjoyable (I just used the ole line "Oh you guys hike ahead so I can take photos of you" quite a lot, to give myself a breather now and then.)

That night we had a spectacular dinner of Eggs Benedict and hashbrowns, prepared by Danielle, Jess, and Tamarah.

Tam and Michael on Crouching Lion

The morning of Thanksgiving we woke up very early to get Rachel, Tamarah, and Michael to a Turkey Trot race in downtown Honolulu. The race was 10 miles, and the winner was not who got in first, but whoever predicted their finishing time the most accurately before the race started. While those kids were off running the streets of Honolulu, The Howards and I had a pleasant breakfast at LuLu's Waikiki, which we finished just in time to see the racers finish.

After the race we returned to The Howard's rental and finished up the preparations and cooking for the Thanksgiving feast. Danielle and Jess did most the cooking, but Rachel and Michael made some fabulous sweet potato dishes and Mark made some yummy pumpkin pies. I barely contributed anything and was a complete moocher. As is customary at Thanksgiving, we went around the table and shared what we were thankful for (although we all had to think of things that we were thankful for other than the baseline "friends and family.") We ate rather early, around 2 pm, and we spent most of the night sitting around the table and talking to each other about things going on in the world: we talked about the Syrian refugees and the CERN hadron collider and the discovery of Homo naledi, and it was all quite intelligent and engaging. Rachel had a second Thanksgiving at a family friend's, the lucky duck (turkey?)

The rockstars after running 10 miles!

Friday was the last day on Oahu for both Michael and myself. Jess and Ryan took the whole gang on a very nice hike in a place called Ha'aula. The hike consisted of traipsing through what Oahu had to offer in ways of montane forests. There were plenty of Norfolk Pine, which are invasive but rather lovely looking--it gave the place the feel of being in a prehistoric jungle. After the hike they took us to La'ie Point,  which was a point of rock that led out away from the island into the tumultuous sea. We were surrounded by giant grey crashing waves. There were a handful of small islands right off of the point, and we learned that La'ie was believed to have been a very mean and very large lizard who the folklore hero Maui had slain. The islands were chunks of the lizards head, petrified in the ocean.

The 4 of us at La'ie, with a lizard head chunk in the background

The rest of our day priamrily consisted of lounging around until we were frantically trying to get me to the airport on time (Michael's flight was 7 hours after mine.) I don't know (in a detailed sense) all that Rachel and Tamarah did without me for four days in Oahu. They watched a surf competition at Sunset Beach, did some more hiking, got yelled at by a guy for trying to hike the legendary Staircase to Heaven (likewise an illegal hike,) soaked in the sun. I returned to the farm and read Vonnegut and wrote things.

I am sure happy to have them back with me.