Robot Journal : Hello Hawaii - Part I (or "Aloha Sweet Jesus")

1/10/2007

Hawaii
It's pretty.

Fly
Often when we are in airports we will walk past the gate going to Miami or the Virgin Islands or Hawaii and joke that we should just hop on those planes instead of whatever non-tropical place we are supposed to go to. For once, we were those people. In line. Waiting to go to Hawaii.
Yay.

Conveyor Sushi
We arrived in Honolulu @ 5pm and quite tiredly got our rental car. The rental car shuttle driver informed us about Hawaiian customs including how and when to say Aloha, except all of her examples ended with “sweet jesus”.

Our pal Jacob loaned us his apartment for the night and recommended a sushi place down the street from him. It was one of those conveyor belt sushi places where the food cruises around and you just grab what you want.

My point is: If you are ever in a new place and jet-lagged and exhausted, the conveyor belt sushi is the best. You don't even have to move.
Tasty snacks just cruise to you. You barely have to make an effort to grab them off the belt. You don't have to talk to anyone.
Perfect!

Big Ass Island of Hawaii

Before coming to Hawaii, I think I thought that the “big island” or “Hawaii” was where Honolulu was. It's not.
We hopped on the little Island Air plane (Propellers! Cheap!) and tootled across the ocean from Honolulu to the little airport that is on the Kona side of the Big Island.

The airport on the Kona side is the best airport ever – mainly because it's outside.

Damn Thrifty
Here we are at another rental car counter (it was like my third one in almost 24hours). I am in line behind an older gentleman who mentions to the clerk that they might want to get a bit larger car since they have golf clubs and a pony. Oddly, she gives him a normal, smallish boxy Jeep – which in no way is a “larger car”.

Now, I am next. Another clerk takes my info and then looks a bit concerned when she tells me that they don't have any 4x4's available. We had reserved one because our B&B required it to get up their driveway (damn driveway).
I realize that the other clerk just gave away my Jeep to the man with the golf clubs.
“You don't have one, because she just upgraded someone into my Jeep”, I snark.
The other clerk plays dumb and mumbles, “No I didn't”.

I pout. I grimace. I tell them we have to have one. I tell them they had one and the other idiot just gave it away. They offer me aSebring convertible. I guffaw.

Finally, they kind of break down and point out that they do actually have one last 4x4 (!) and I can have it. The issue is that it's the Jeep Commander, which is Jeep's “Hummer for Dummies”.
It seats like 400 people. It's bigger than our apartment.
My clerk thanks me for being calm.

You might be asking, “What's the point here? So you rented a big jeep!”
The point is that yesterday I got a postcard from the clerk hoping that we had a good trip and also thanking me for being nice with the whole mess.
A postcard! Handwritten.
At the end, she wrote, “see you next year!”

Aloha Aloha Guest House
Near the town of Captain Cook on the west coast of the Big Island was our B&B: The Aloha Guest House.
Very nice accommodations with a beautiful view of the ocean. Wonderful staff. A nice dog. Lots of beach gear to borrow.

But, oh. Their driveway.
The driveway is actually more of a road. It's probably a mile long is shared between coffee growers and residents and farms and inns. They are all responsible for their little part, which means that most of the road is afriggin mess. Single lane. Sometimes dirt. Sometime paved. Sometimes a little of both.
But, this road was the roughest I have ever been on. Huge slabs of broken pavement, ruts, constant washboarding on the dirt parts. Literally we were thrown around the inside of our Jeep the whole time. Of course you sometimes run into a truck coming the other way which made it even more fun.
Then there were the chickens in the road. And cats. And cows.

Oh my.

Snorkle

The B&B folks totally hooked us up with the complete beach gear and sent us on our way. We went down to a little area that they call 'two steps' and I went snorkeling. It was great fun and I paddled around the bay looking at the fish below me. So many fish.

The only irksome thing was getting in and out of the ocean as the "two steps" are part of an out-cropping of rocks and you kind of have to leap into the water and not get caught in a wave and thrown back on the rocks.
When getting out, you want the wave to lift you on to the rocks, but you don't want it to slam your foot into some coral that gives you a handsome wound on your leg.

Someone had taken bricks and spelled out "aloha" on the sea floor.

We also snorkeled with some turtles. And a big headed fish that gave us the stink-eye.

Photos
Here's our photos. Mrs. Robot is kicking my butt in uploading them.

comments[5] | 1/10/2007 | perma-link

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