Big Island, Big Fun, part III: Big Sky and Scrap Metal

Let this be a lesson in biting off more traveblog than you can chew. My grand plans to fully document my trip to Hawai'i ended up being the big slimy hairball in the flow of my blogging pipes. Here's an example of my personal dialogue on any 5 days out of 7 since April:

Me: I need to update my blog.
Me: Yes, you do. And you need to finish your Hawai'i entries and make them thorough, well-illustrated and entertaining before you move on to something else.
Me: Hmm. That's a lot of work. Maybe I'll update it tomorrow.

And so it went for the last 9 weeks. You may notice a switch to La-Z-Bloggr mode today. But then the hairball will be gone and I can move on with my online life.

* * * * *

As the tea was drunk and the smoothie gradually lost the battle of viscosity vs. suction (see Part II), we cut across the island towards the northwest corner. The scenery along the saddle road gave me a whole new perspective on Hawaiian landscape. Sure, there are the parts with the palm trees and the sand and the big pretty flowers, and then there's the leeward side of the Big Island:



Looks like Montana, no? Complete with barbed wire and paniolos (Hawaiian cowboys; not pictured).

We were heading for a few historic sites on the northern coast. One was the birthplace of Kamehameha, the warrior leader dude who united the Hawaiian islands.


Birthplace wall- or perhaps a recreation of one. Not sure.

The other place just next to it was the Mo'okini Heiau, a sort of holy place that was the site of thousands of human sacrifices.


Corner of the heiau wall

Kind of an unholy holy place, if you ask me. The 10,000 people sacrificed here against their will might agree.


Contrast that place with another heiau we visited later in the week, this one a place of refuge where people running for their lives could find safety; kind of a Hawai'an "ollie ollie oxen free!"


Pu'uhona O Honaunau- wouldn't have to twist my arm to take refuge here.


No description of our trip, no matter how abbreviated, would be complete without including the roadside modern art, as David Wilcox would call it. As we bumped and jolted our way along a very rutted and rocky (BIG rock rocky) dirt road, we followed the coast toward the Kamehameha birthplace. There was no signage anywhere at this point, and we were kind of going on faith that we weren't just driving ourselves off the edge of the northwest corner of Big Island. Then as the line of the cliff curved in front of us, we saw the glint of glass or metal in the distance. Oh good! we thought, there are other visitors' cars there. We must be on the right track. Then we eventually came around that corner to be greeted by this sight:



Waa! Sort of freaked us out, actually, given the very isolated setting and after reading in the guidebook about all that historical death and violence at the heiau. But wait, there's more:



So much for fellow tourists. Had we stumbled upon the Great Hawai'ian Car Graveyard by mistake?
Those were the first abandoned cars we came across on the trip, but certainly not the last. I say "abandoned," but that's grossly understating it. As you can see, the laid-back Hawai'i aloha attitude does NOT extend to derelict cars.



Glass smashed, tires sometimes gone, body attacked, and in one case:



I'm no CSI professional, but we think those are axe holes in the hood.

But we thankfully did not encounter the vehicle-hating axe-wielder and both us and our rental car made it there and back without losing any car or body parts.

Then we camped at a park on a beach.


All right, I need one more day. Darn you, Hawai'ian hairball! I still have high hopes of wrapping this up by Friday. If I have any MSR visitors left after breaking the cardinal rule of Publish or Perish, I'll be back soon. Really.

Happy National Library Week!

In honor of National Library Week, here's a trip through Hollywood's great library moments. Sexy!

http://www.ew.com/ew/gallery/0,,20190897,00.html

Big Island, Big Fun, part II: Hilo to Pepe'ekeo

Since Mother Nature is currently proving that slush is a verb (as in, "it's so windy that it's slushing sideways out there"), it seems like the perfect time to get back to travelblogging my trip to Hawai'i. Picking up where I left off:

Day Two was Tuesday. Thankfully Dawn was feeling, if not 100%, at least 65 or 70%, which is still a passing grade, and being the tough little trooper she is, we headed to the airport and flew the puddle-jumper from O'ahu to the Big Island. We arrived in Hilo and discovered that because of some mix-up or other, we were getting a free upgrade from our economy rental car to an SUV. Great, we thought, more room for all our stuff. Plus now we can go on some of the roads listed in the guidebook as '4-wheel-drive only'. Yeah, more on that later.

We planned to camp two nights on the island, and we needed a stove. Dawn's guidebook- which, incidentally, was published in 1997 and was withdrawn from the Hennepin County Library for being too outdated for our standards- listed a rental place, and also an outdoor store. Maybe one of these fine establishments could rent us a stove! The rental place was nowhere to be found on the 2008 streets of Hilo, so we stopped in at the (relocated) Hilo Surplus. Here is a transcript of our illuminating exchange with the lady behind the counter:

Dawn: Excuse me, do you rent camp stoves?
Lady: No.

By the look on her face, you would think we asked her if they rent out trained monkeys to set up our tent for us. Moving on.

Down the street at the former location of Hilo Surplus, there still seemed to be a lot of surplus-looking equipment in the windows, and a guy on the sidewalk outside who seemed to belong with the place. We tried another approach with him.

Dawn: Excuse me, is there any place in town that rents stoves?
Guy: No, there's never been any place like that. There's a law against rentals on this island.

Ooookay then. No stove rental for us. But we did discover 6 papayas for a dollar at the Farmer's Market, so Hilo can't be all bad.

We set out along the scenic Onomea Drive, stopping occasionally for scenic...scenery:

Onomea Bay

...until we got to Akaka Falls.

Which direction are those Falls falling?

Oh yeah. Thanks.

We continued on up the coast a bit to Pepe'ekeo, stopping for a smoothie at the What's Shakin' Smoothie Shack, a place much touted by Sarah's guidebook (copyright 2007) as having the best smoothies around. We were not the only tourists to take this advice, and the little shack was blending along at a leisurely aloha pace, so one smoothie and an iced tea took about 45 minutes. It might have been, say, 38 minutes, but some guy named Gary took Sarah's smoothie. Man, you stand around waiting with people for most of an hour, you think you have a bond, you know? Maybe the beginnings of trust? And then they snag your smoothie as if it were theirs- which it wasn't, Gary, weren't you listening?- hop in their rental car with their wife and 1.7 children, and take off. But the smoothies were actually quite good, and the bathroom featured interesting poetry, and one of us (whose rear shall remain anonymous) discovered a new form of body art applied using wrought iron patio furniture.

Upper right corner: "This June I would have married / But an ocean stepped between / I hope no sultry so-and-so / Has landed my Marine!"


Talk about your sultry so-and-sos!

I'm out of time. Next time on Big Island, Big Fun: the conclusion of Tuesday, when we discover a disturbing Big Island tradition, and test our SUV's off-roading capabilities- on a road.