Back from the Big Island

Sigh….I have the post-vacation blues.  However, I am fortunate enough (and grateful) to have a day of transition before it’s back to work for me.  We saw everything that I’d hoped to see, except for rainbows.  That was because of the haziness caused by the volcanic activity that was going on right then.  In fact, the day we arrived, the rental car shuttle driver announced that residents of a subdivision in the path of the lava flow had been evacuated.

I vacated…my body & mind from home.  I was immersed in Hawaii and transported via my senses: the bright-yellow birds we encountered before we even left the rental car lot,  the sound of the palms swaying in the breeze on our lanai, feeling the searing heat of the lava as it flowed six feet away (and what a difference it made, just stepping back a foo or two!), the neon-turquoise beauty of the shallow water contrasted against the deep blue of the deep water.

I like that the Hawaiians refer to lava flow as the goddess Pele, and the metaphor continues as they describe the viscous flow as fingers, reaching out.  Standing next to Pele and seeing the bright-orange lava with its quickly-cooled black crust on top, I felt her slash away at my beauty, drying up my lips with her searing heat; she is one hottie.

Waking up the songs of rainforest birds when we stayed in Volcano Village, I didn’t know where I was, they were so unlike anything I’d ever heard before.  They seemed particularly beautiful and especially trilling, but it may have simply been my state of mind.

I had worried that my husband would be swept away by the beauty of Hawaii (and consequently ignore me) but I realize now that I was the one who was transported.

After eight focused weeks of weight loss through exercise (swim, bike, yoga) and sensible eating (no sweets except for fruit and Valentine’s Day truffles and many meals of beans& rice  broken only by homemade and vegetable-laden homemade soup) I arranged my storming of the Kona coast carefully the night before through Google maps: arrive at airport, proceed to Costco for bulk water supplies & bulk macadamia nuts and then quickly in succession — Kailua Candy Company and onward to Mrs Barry’s Kona Cookies!

The only disappointing thing about going to Kailua Candy was that it was our first day on an 8-day vacation, one that would include lots of driving around in a car; there was just no way that anything we bought would survive the trip.  We bought a low-priced sample box and vowed to return before we went off-island.

And Mrs Barry — oh, she did not disappoint.  Crisp cookies that were perfectly browned, butter-licious coconut shortbread (oh, I still regret not buying more when we had the chance), and new-on-me coffee cookies with chocolate chips. We were the only people in the store at the time and liberally sampled from the Free! dish.  I still can’t believe we only bought a dozen.

We sat in the car to munch on cookies while we planned our next move…and in that time a guy (obviously a local) had parked & had made his multiple-bag purchase (a dozen per bag) who joked on his way past, “Are you two going to sit in your car and eat all your cookies?” and we responded in unison, “Yup.”  It made him chuckle.

Poor Jeff was in his jeans (I hadn’t thought to tell him to wear one of the pairs of SPF pants with zip-off legs that we had bought expressly for this trip) and was quite uncomfortable in the sun’s mind-staggering heat.  He was ready for a shower, so we decided to hightail it to the B&B.

I had been a bit unsure about the quality of this B&B, because its price had been so low.  I still don’t know why they charge so little, but for three wonderful nights we had a gorgeous, extremely spacious, well-appointed one-bedroom apartment with a giant picture window and lanai facing the ocean.  Though I didn’t notice, Jeff realized the only thing missing in the kitchen was a stove/oven, but they had helpfully given us use of an enormous gas barbecue, complete with a side burner.

The funny thing is that while trying to decide which “suite” to book, I had read that the one we stayed in was suitable for four people, so I had dismissed it as too large for our needs.  [Passable for four, as two would have to sleep on a full-sized futon in the living room, but fantastic for two].

Fortunately for us, the other two suites were already reserved, so we had to take the larger one.  I couldn’t be any happier about it.  The next-largest didn’t have a private lanai and the smallest didn’t have an ocean view at all (it was the apartment below ours).

We had freshly-ground Kona coffee and a freshly-baked loaf of bread placed into a basket with assorted breakfast stuff delivered to our place every evening.  But later in our trip, we’d have Kona coffee beans to grind every morning in our coffee maker!

On our three breakfasts there, we had one loaf of banana bread & two of pineapple-coconut — just heavenly.  And Jeff ate his first-ever papaya and mango while there, too.

We caught every sunset except for the two while we were on the other side of the island in Volcano Village.  Our first night in Volcano, it was gently misting, and the second, it was overcast.

Though I remembered from my last trip to the Big Island the necessity of changing from my NoCal clothes stat at the airport, I couldn’t imagine how much I wanted my clothes off.  It was like my feet were suffocating in my sox & shoes (I knew better than to fly with flip flops & Hawaii wear — it just gets too darn cold at 35k feet) and it felt so good to take off my long-sleeved t-shirt layered over my black tank top.  Phew!

As Jeff remarked after I peeled the layer off, “You already look more Hawaiian.”  We had only disembarked and walked down the stairs to the tarmac at that point — another 50’s style relic that lives on in Hawaii, like the entire city of Hilo.

By the time we arrived at our B&B we were stuffed with cookies, which meant that it was time for macadamias.  Oh, I go through this every time I go to Hawaii…I consume so many macadamias in my first 24 hours that I simply don’t want to eat any more for the remainder of my trip.  This time was no different.

Our B&B hostess must have laughed when she saw our two enormous boxes of six-pack Mauna Loa macadamia nuts, because they were the exact brand that she left in our breakfast basket.  I guess we’re lucky she even left them, since she knew we had them.

Jeff read the nutrition label on the side of the nut can tut-tutting over the fat content.  “Don’t be a killjoy,” I pleaded, “I only eat them in Hawaii.”

So we showered with the coconut-mango shower gel and shampoo, and  moisturized with the coconut-mango lotion.  Everything associated with body products smelled like dessert.  I warned Jeff that he might be awakened by me licking his arm.

Then we just rested in that beautiful bedroom, listening to the birds flirt and luxuriating in a king-sized bed.  Then our thoughts turned to sex.

Then we went to Hapuna Beach for the sunset, one of the prettiest beaches on all of the Big Island, and turned in for the night.

The flight over had been interminable, so when we finally touched down, it felt like we had time-traveled when we landed around 12 noon.

Time to build an ark

Pretty much rained non-stop here all day….and the forecast is to continue this way through the weekend.

Good thing we stocked up on popcorn.  Ordering pizza and snuggling by the fire seem to be in order.

Romanesco

Fractal vegetable! I bought this at the farmer’s market because it was beautiful and I had just learned about what a fractal was mere days before.

Isn’t that great about life? I remember as a kid that things like that happened to me all the time; I’d learn a new vocabulary word, and then read it in “Time” magazine later that afternoon. It was part of constantly being exposed to new things, which was a daily experience in my excellent public school system.

It tastes & is white on the inside like a cauliflower, so I roasted it in the oven like I do my cauliflower. Yummy! The sugars inside it carmelized like a cauliflower.