Let’s continue the Hawaii story, now running on perilously close to a year in the telling!…
1. Driving By The Airport
From satellite you can see it. A black fan of lava running down the slopes of the island into the sea. Kekaha State Park is on its northern edge. Kona Airport is on the south. And Queen Ka‘ahumanu highway runs thru it.
As far as we could see up the slope to our right and as far as we could see toward the ocean to our left, there was nothing but black wasteland. And wasteland does not do it justice. This was a land of piled up, pitch black lava. Great dumptruck loads of it, it seemed. One after another, as if some great expanse of highway somewhere had been ground up and dumped in this place for disposal.
Certainly mother nature would have no cause to create something like this. Piles of sharp black stuff as far as the eye could see. But look at it from a satellite view, and there’s no denying it. Dump trucks were not involved. Mother nature did indeed create this vast, sharp, forbidding, black, desolate, bleak, withered, pile-after-pile of a place.
2. On The Beach
The fair and industrious Trudy had a map in her lap.
“Here it is,” she said after we’d been driving a while, pointing to a road that ran toward the ocean. “This must be it. Turn here.”
We drove along yet more barren land, although the black had given way to brown. And we came to a dirt lot where other cars were parked.
An obvious path led toward to the shore. Out of the sun. Past a place drinking fountain where we stopped for a moment. Into a woods that sprang up out of nowhere. With soft ground under our feet.
There was a breeze blowing in the tres. There was a blue lagoon with rolling surf washing up on a sandy shore. Just yards from that unforgiving wasteland, we had entered a gentle world of greens and blues.
We walked in the shade along the beach looking for a sign of the petroglyphs. And not finding them, we sat for a while and watched the waves washing up on the shore. And then Trudy looked at her watch and wondered aloud if we needed to keep going, because we had a long drive ahead.
3. Climbing Into The Saddle
Today was Kona. Tonite would be Volcano on the other side of the island. Our route would take us along Saddle Road, which the guide book had cautioned us about but the Jeep rental guy had encouraged us to take. This is the road that cuts across the island between the peaks of the two volcanos. We didn’t know what to expect, so we left behind the blues and greens of the bay and returned to the Jeep.
Lunch was in Waimea, a funny little sandwich shop that we were grateful for. In the middle of town, we turned right and drove across highlands and eventually came to our objective: a two-lane asphalt strip that disappeared into the distance.
The harsh lava wastes were behind us. The beaches and breezes were behind us. Here clouds descended down upon us and surrounded us in a thick fog. Wisps of it drifted across the chaparral. As our Jeep began the gradual climb, the fog got thicker.
Somewhere out there off to our left was Mauna Kea. And somewhere out there off to our right was Mauna Loa. We could see neither. At times, we could barely see the telephone poles beside the road.