The Big Island

Fourteen hours.  The time between stepping into a cab in front of our house and arriving in paradise on the Big Island of Hawaii is fourteen hours. It is already dark when we touch down and collect our bags and find the 'economy' rental car. It's not fancy, but it'll do. It is a short drive to the hotel and we are looking forward to a good night's sleep.

This is a work trip for National Asset, which means I am mostly left to my own resources. It is a skill I have honed over the years. I admit, I resisted a bit, way back in my young years when I had the notion that true love meant being joined at the hip. But independence grew on me, and I am proud to have gotten the knack of adventurous travel. I have collected enough wonderful memories on our trips to warm my heart on many a cold night.

I have learned to pack comfortable walking shoes and make local street maps my friends. I carry a camera and a cell phone and a hat. I walk miles and miles and get to know a city in a way that just can't be done from a car. I ride trolleys and buses and subways and treat myself to yummy lunches. As long as we never have to return to Warminster, Pennsylvania ever again, I'm game. But that's another story.

National Asset has a day off this weekend before his meetings begin.  "You want to drive to Kilauea?" he asks.
  
"Is that the one where I got weird?" I ask.

"No, no...that was Mauna Kea," he hastily replies. 

I haven't quite got my island legs yet, so to speak, and can't keep the three peaks on Hawaii straight. 

"Are you sure? Because I don't want to find out you are wrong by going weird," I say.

I should define going weird in this particular context. It really is the oddest thing. I first experienced it on a trip through the Rocky Mountains years ago when our children were still young. We stopped at some kind of visitor center in Estes Park where I got, well, weird. I felt like I was going to fall off the mountain. Which would have been quite reasonable, say, if we were climbing up a cliff or something. But this was in a visitor center, for goodness sake. A perfectly level visitor center.

"I feel like I'm going to fall," I tell the Asset as we stand there in the middle of this ordinary looking building.

"Do you have vertigo?" he asks, which is a legitimate question to put to  someone with Meneire's Syndrome.

"No, no dizziness," I say. "I just don't feel safe. I think I'm going to fall off the world."

To his credit, he doesn't look at me like I am completely insane. 

"Can we go now?" I plead.

But the kids are souvenir hunting and the Asset is loving the view from up on the top of the Rockies and I don't look sick and there is no evidence whatsoever that I am actually in danger of falling off the world... so I find a wall in the center of the building and put my back against and just stand there as if my life depends on it.

The second time this happened was on Mauna Kea on a previous work trip for the Asset.  It was a pretty day, clear and promising a gorgeous view of the island. At the visitor center I start getting out of the car, stop, sit firmly back in my seat and close the door.

"Why don't you just go?" I say, trying to sound casual.

"You don't want to come?" the Asset asks in a tone that implies how can you not want to come??

"Remember Estes Park?" I say.

"Ohhh..." he replies.

"You go ahead. I am just going to sit here with my back against this seat."

"You're sure?" he asks.

"Yes."

"Okay, then..." and he goes out to explore.

What can I say. The definition of altitude sickness doesn't include this particular symptom. So we just call it going weird. Apparently it is a unique symptom of high altitude that affects only me.

Now that we are clear on our destination, we head to Kilauea. We've been here before, but enjoy it again. How often do you get to look down into the beating heart of a live volcano? We learn a new word, vog, the volcanic equivalent of smog. I try not to breath too deeply.

As we begin the drive back towards Hilo we are forced to take an alternate road.  Flare ups at the edges of red hot crawling lava set brush and trees aflame.  Later we will find that it is inching its way towards the town with the Burger King where we just ate lunch. I try to imagine what life is like in a place with this particular challenge. I've met folks from Tornado Alley who get antsy about possible earthquakes when they come to visit Disneyland and I have to try hard not to smile. I guess we each just learn to live with the risks we know and fear those we don't.


We follow the coast and catch glimpses of sapphire blue ocean through the dense, jungle-like woods where trees and bushes are smothered with twining vines. It calls to us, and we give in and stop at a place where other cars line the edges of the narrow road. A young man walks towards a narrow path between the brush, leading down the steep cliff to a beach the color of dark chocolate. He looks back at us.

"Did you see the whales?" he asks, his smile wide and friendly.

"Whales, no. Are there whales?"

"Yesterday," he says. "There was a whole pod breaching. There were so many it looked like they were actually affecting the sea, making the waves higher."

He continues down the trail and National Asset follows him. I am content to sit under the trees where I can watch waves booming without mercy against the rough mounds of hardened lava below. The brilliant blue shatters into sparkling white diamonds that fly up and rain back into the sea once more.

The Big Island. A place where things are still wild.