Turns out tsunamis are over-rated. (BTW, the @$$#%!# next door just sparked up his morning cancer stick which I pray will be the straw that breaks his lungs into tiny bloody clots. Real-Time, kiddies!)
We drove around to the Eastern side of the island yesterday and had ourselves a time. Hilo did not get wiped out in by a tsunami (this year) but it certainly wiped us out by day’s end.
Short-form, we drove through several distinct eco-systems ranging from the sparse lava-beds North of Kailua Kona to the Northern California-like altitudes of Waimea, home of the original Hawaiian cowboys (Paniolos) who rolled in here about 1833 to clean up the out of control descendants of the gift cows given to King Kamehameha I in 1793. The paniolos were experienced hands of Central American descent and I have to wonder if they and the native Hawaiians had a moment when they first met in which someone said “So, our guys got here on boats. Was there a Northern land-bridge we maybe should have taken?”
As a side-note, I’d like to say that Waimea had the cleanest, freshest air I think I’ve ever breathed in my life. Seriously, it smelled like it was about to snow and it hit me like I imagine a hit of crack would. And this was in the middle of a strip mall parking lot.
From there we continued along the coast through the tropical rainforest leg of the trip and down to the Port/Beach/College town of Hilo. We passed the Other Airport and a bunch of kids drilling for some athletic thing at UoH, Hilo and went to the zoo. It was modest as zoos go, but it had all the parrots, monkeys, and free-roaming peacocks one could ever hope for, as well as a white Bengal tiger who looked like he knew he had it good. The Kid got to play in the petting zoo and I bought him a plastic turtle who’s become “Timmy.”
From there we hit Ken’s House of Pancakes where they take good care of you and bad care of your arteries. I briefly checked out the only comic book store listed for The Big Island (Syzygy Comics) and discovered it was only open Thursday through Saturday for a total of about ten hours. I could totally dominate here.
On the way back we swung through a couple of Scenic Attractions, which is really a redundant term out here. If there’s anything on this island that isn’t either scenic or attractive I have yet to see it. Anyway, we carried the now unconscious Kid down to the tallest waterfall in Hawaii (Akaka Falls) in an area that had greenery so huge we felt like we were extras in “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.” No lie, I was looking over my shoulder for velociraptors the whole time.
We wrapped it up with a stop overlooking the Valley of the Kings, non-Egyptian, a coastal flood plane that about forty people insist on living in anyway. As a resident of The Earthquake State I’m not allowed to mouth off on this point.
We got back late after I dropped The Wife and Sister-In-Law at a bar called Durty Jake’s and drove Sleeping Kid back to the condo. The girls eventually staggered home in a lady-like fashion and I asked no questions. Married guys understand.
Eventually I’ll tack up some pictures to illustrate some of this stuff but that will have to wait until I’m no longer at the mercy of Oceanic Time Warner, the new front-runner for Worst Internet Service in the World. Honestly, they need Dogg the Bounty-Hunter to crash their board meeting and shake them like a nabbed perp, screaming his trademark “You need to get out of this business! YOU’RE NOT GOOD AT IT!!!”
