Tuesday
It’s the close of our third day in Kona, Hawaii. We’ve been staying at a cute but rather divey hotel on Alii Drive. While it’s the main drag in Kona, the hotel is on its fringes and the road at this point is more like a freeway, and the hotel sits on one of its on ramps, with the sounds of traffic roaring by at all hours. In the back of the hotel, and from the back of our room, we open sliding door out to a view of the ocean, and the sounds of water lapping up against the seawall. So it’s a study in contrasts, and I am still trying to figure out which it is: cute place on the water or seedy dive that should be torn down. The truth, no doubt, is somewhere in between. Louise found the place and thought it sounded charming: I think I would have opted for something more, well, more. Chuck and I have a ground floor room that is okay, but it’s kind of weird as the back (the bit with the ocean view) is open to anybody walking by. I feel a bit exposed in this room. There is no Internet connection to speak of – when the wind is right I can get an intermittent connection to a few wireless access points in the area, but none of them last for much more than a few minutes. My sister doesn’t travel with a laptop, and doesn’t see the need for an Internet connection. I want to upload my niece’s wedding photos and am completely stymied. We’ll never be on the same page on this sort of thing.
Yesterday we spent in a variety of activities: Chuck, Katie, and Tony took an aerial tour of the island in a small plane and had clear skies and a breathtaking view of the volcano. I hung with Louise and Angie. Today Louise and I did the aerial tour while Chuck and Tony went scuba diving and Angie and Katie went shopping. The clouds didn’t cooperate today, so we didn’t get to see the volcano. The lava flows have stopped for the moment at any rate; the most you’ll see is steam these days. It’s a beautiful island, and couldn’t be more different from Kauai. It’s larger, for starters, and much of it looks more like the moon than a Hawaiian island. Kona is a small town that is full of athletes (people who are training for, or are trainers for, the Ironman Triathlon that is held annually here. Then there are the beach/surf bums: people living on handouts or scraps, like very unromantic versions of Gidget’s Big Kahuna. There are the tourists (like us) wandering around like lost souls buying cheesy grass skirts and plastic snow globes to take home. Finally there are the natives who resent all of the above-mentioned groups and who can mostly no longer afford to live anywhere near Kona because all of the haolies from the mainland have driven real estate prices through the roof.
Wednesday
Chuck spent today fishing with Tony and a friend who is a professional fisherman here in Kona. He is apparently a fish whisperer – wherever he goes, if he sticks a fishing pole in the water, he catches fish. So sure enough, Chuck and Tont caught fish with him. I went for a long run this morning to the snorkeling beaches a few miles from where we are staying. It is humid here, which normally leaves me exhausted, but that doesn’t happen here. I got back to the hotel and jumped right into the saltwater pool. Ah, life is good!
Chuck’s sister & niece left for home today, so Louise & I took them to the airport, then went to Hertz to exchange our dinky compact for something larger so we don’t have to drive two cars over to Hilo (it’s not us that need the extra space – it’s our mountains of luggage – diving gear takes a lot of space!).
I am now sitting on the patio by the pool, typing this post and looking out at the ocean. A breeze is blowing off the ocean, and a little spit of rain is coming down, but not so much that I want to go inside. It really is just another day in paradise.