To Hawaii and Back Again

This is truth the poet sings: That a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things.

        Alfred, Lord Tenneson; Locksley Hall

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: As I sit here in Maine, writing this, we are expecting a bomb cyclone to turn a regular Nor'easter into a day-long blizzard, with up to fourteen inches expected in my town. After the snow passes, the Polar Vortex descends on us with a vengeance: Saturday's high will be 3F/-16C and the nighttime low is predicted at -20F/-29C. So it is bittersweet that I am here to tell you about my awesome Hawaiian vacation.

 Here are the girls and I about to take off on our flight from Boston. We were somewhat less chipper when we took off from O'Hare at 11pm (midnight, according to our body clocks) and positively staggering when we reached LA at 1:30am PDT (omgwhattimeisit EDT.)

Fortunately, we were traveling with the Sailor, and were able to bunk down at the Bob Hope USO, along with roughly 50% of the US armed forces and their families. Seriously, I slept on yoga mat beneath the piano in the reception area. We bounced back on the long flight to Kailua-Kona, and by the time we arrived we were fully able to appreciate the gorgeous heat and humidity - and the amazing drive to Hilo on the Saddle Road, which rises to over a mile above sea level and traverses the high lava desert between Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea.


We stayed on the Puna coast, which- as we were to discover - is the neo-hippie center on the Big Island. You have to go to Burning Man to see more white guy dreadlocks, Indian-print sarongs and nose rings. These free-living souls were a bit underwashed, but kind and accepting. In fact, at one beach a colorful fellow named Benjamin offered me a kiss and a joint. I declined both.

We were staying at a perfect house we had gotten from AirBnB (anyone heading to Hawaii? Email me and I'll hook you up.) It was inside a forest preserve, which in practice meant that every time we drove down the (dirt) road to the place, we felt like we were extras in Jurassic Park. It had a comfortable cabin style second floor and a ground floor that was really the ground - covered in pea gravel and open to the balmy air. I made breakfast and packed lunches every day while the neighbors' chickens wandered through. 



 We took our time and relaxed. We slept late (for different values of late. I would arise at 9:30am, the Youngest would join me around 11, and the Smithie and the Sailor, aka The Creatures of the Night, sometimes didn't make it out of bed until 1pm.) 

I discovered the many delights of traveling with twenty-somethings with real jobs: they each took turns paying for dinner (we intended to eat home-cooking as we did for breakfast and lunch, but somehow every evening we wound up at a restaurant or ordering take-out. They both drove and were both capable of loading the Jeep Wrangler with the necessities for a day out with minimal instruction. (those of you who are parents are impressed, right?)

Youngest was our DJ, as she's the only family member with a Spotify subscription. I honestly think one of the highlights of the trip for her was the chance to wear Lily Pulitzer clothing every single day. 

So what did we do besides sleeping and watching the chickens?



We spent Christmas Eve Day at Volcanoes National Park, where we were able to stand near natural steam vents, see the caldera of Kilauea, the most active volcano in the world, and travel down the Chain of Craters to see the collapsed cones of past volcanoes. They looked ancient, but the entire island is one of the youngest places on the planet, only a million years old.































We went to see The Last Jedi together! I know, go to Hawaii to sit in a cinema? But we all love Star Wars and have been waiting for TLJ, and we wanted to experience it as a family. There were VERY long lines at the only movie theater in Hilo. We missed one night, and came back much earlier the next. Also the girls and I all have massive crushes on Adam Driver. (Mark Hamill is more my age range, but apparently he's been happily married to the same woman for 40 years, so there you go.) 

We had some fabulous meals, including Pacific fish fresh enough to satisfy the most stringent Mainer's taste, grass-fed beef from the Parker Ranch that was so good I may never eat grain-fed beef again. Seriously, we have a lot of grass here in the continental US! Let's use it for better burgers! On Christmas Eve, instead of our traditional Chinese take out, we had...drumroll...Thai take out. And of course we enjoyed many tropical rum drinks. If you can't put the lime in the coconut and drink it all down in Hawaii, where can you?

On Christmas day, the kids were amazed to see Santa had flown their stockings all the way from the mainland and left them stuffed with books and dvds (and pocket-sized hand sanitizers, little tubes of Eucerin, and lip balm. St. Nick believes in prepping for winter weather.)




We spent Christmas Day at a nude-friendly beach. Bet you never thought you'd see me writing that, didja? The girls and I didn't actually know about the clothing-optional aspect until we were there, at which point the Sailor swore he had already informed us. We kept our suits on - mine is a particularly old-New England-lady number with a skirt - and Youngest took her glasses off, so everyone in the distance became a bit blurred. We read our new Christmas books, picnicked on tuna salad sandwiches and leftover Thai food, and swam in the warm Pacific waters. 

You bet we wore sunscreen. The sun can kill you, you know.

We saw the Waipio Valley and the high country beyond it and drove the ridiculously scenic Old Māmalahoa Highway, which climbs and turns past waterfalls, deep chasms and heart-stopping gulches. We visited with old friends who have retired to the island. We shopped for tourist kitsch and lingered through a museum on the geology and history of the island.

My favorite part was on our last day. Our flight wasn't until almost 9pm, so we packed up and picked up in the morning and spent the whole afternoon at the thermal pond in Ahalanui Park. Cool water surged in from the ocean through a winding channel to meet up with hot volcanic spring water. It was the perfect temperature, shallow enough so almost everyone could walk comfortably on the bottom (covered in sand and smooth lava) and the county of Hawaii had improved nature by providing a safe walkway all the way around and rock steps with handrails to get in. 

Here at home, the drains in the downstairs bathroom AND the kitchen have cracked from ice. I'm trickling water into a ten-gallon tub set in the sink, in the hopes we won't lose H2O completely downstairs. When it fills up, I have to empty it off the side of the porch, because the downstairs toilet is frozen. Literally.

Is it any wonder, dear readers, that in my head I'm still floating in the thermal pool, with the sun filtering through palm leaves and a breeze keeping things from getting too hot? I'll rub a little coconut-scented hand lotion on between tossing water into a blizzard, and remember warmer times.