jumpingfish

So we glided down on Saddle Road in the rain in the dark into the dim, yellow glow of the streetlights of Hilo. We turned right at Hilo Bay, drove by Bayfront Park, passed signs for Liliuokalani Gardens and turned right on Highway 11, prepared for a final climb up toward Kileauea and Ira Ono’s Volcano Garden Arts guest cottage. 

But we were hungry, and there on the corner we spied Ken’s House of Pancakes (jammin’ since 1971).

Frankly, we didn’t know what we were doing. We were just hungry, and the lights were on, and the parking lot was pretty full, so we pulled in for something to eat. As it turns out, we couldn’t have chosen a better place.

The building is a long, one story diner kind of thing. As I remember it (caveat lector), there’s a bar where you can eat if you’re on your own. And there’s a visible kitchen in the back. And there are many booths where you can sit in groups. We sat in a booth. 

The menu was daunting. There was a little bit of everything: breakfast, omelets listed separately from breakfast, entrees, nite meals, island favorites, desserts… We chose loco moco. Trudy had Ono Loco. I had Corned Beef Hash Loco.

Our eyes went wide when the food arrived, and in no time at all our hunger was … poof. It was the best loco we had ever eaten. It was the first loco we had ever eaten. And if I ever have it again, it needs to be at Ken’s.

1. The Summit

We didn’t stay at the top long. We stopped and gawked at the telescopes sitting on top of the world.

And we gazed at a tempting trail along a peak leading to one of the orange cinder cones that dot Mauna Kea. 

There were pockets of snow along the trail, and it led to a summit far off that must have had a wonderful view. But the sun was getting low in the sky, throwing our shadows out onto the slopes.

And I was getting dizzy from the altitude. And we didn’t want to be crawling back down the volcano in the dark. So we walked around a bit more, and took one more good look at the panorama, the southern view of which included the flanks of Mauna Loa, although we didn’t realize it at the time (which is another story).

2. Descent

I breathed deeply to try to make the dizziness go away. We got into the Jeep. And we began our descent.

On the way down, we passed a Suburban with two flat tires. (What horrible luck, but help was on the way.) And we passed two hikers with packs on their backs, hiking rods in their hands and determined looks on their faces. And there were buses and Jeeps carrying tour groups, clearly ascending to catch the sunset.

We descended back into the clouds and mist and rain, leaving the magnificent blue sky behind.

Daytime became dusk. And by the time we emerged all the way at the bottom on Saddle Road where we had started this detour, rain was falling, it was night, the fog was thick, and we had zero visibility.

Still, the road was four lanes now with bright yellow stripes down the side — luxurious compared to the drive up from Kona. And we were going downhill so swiftly that we virtually glided all the way to Hilo.

The fog was so thick as we climbed up Saddle Road that at times we could barely see the stripes on the side. It blew across the grassland and into woodsy thickets hidden in the gloaming.

We drove slowly up the slopes following the route between the island’s two massive volcanos. When we came to the state park, the clouds were lifting, giving us a better view of the land, but the flanks of Mauna Kea were still draped in mist.

There was green here. The slopes were green. Green grass was growing on the ground. And trees and shrubs. But there were periodic reminders that this was not always a pastoral place. The grasslands were punctuated by black flows of cooled lava. In places the land was scraped clear by it with scraggy shrubs poking up here and there and maybe a lone surviving tree standing on high ground in the distance.

We parked the Jeep and walked a bit. Then we got back in and tested the four wheel drive for the first time, almost getting stuck between 4L and 4H in a low area. And then we resumed our climb up Saddle Road.

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.

Although the race the day before conspired to minimize the potential of our free breakfast vouchers, today there was no such constraint. Oh no. Today we could take leisurely showers and then head downstairs to enjoy the eggs and bacon and oatmeal and bagels and pancakes and fruit and coffee to our hearts’ content.

So we sat there enjoying breakfast to our hearts’ content, ignoring the monsters on the wall.

On the far side of the dining room, there was an indoor garden with various low-growing tropical plants and two tall Palm trees (this was El Tropicano, after all) growing up into a skylight that projected beyond the ceiling into an outdoor swimming area on the second floor.

And there were six guys standing around.

No. These guys were definitely not standing around. The were digging with shovels and swinging picks and pounding the ground with a rockbar. Not standing around.

What are those guys doing?

We watched them as they labored mightily, digging a circular trench around each Palm tree.

They’re taking out the trees.

We had seen the trees thru the skylight a few minutes before from upstairs. Their foliage was pressing against the glass. They had outgrown their home. And these guys were digging them out. As it happened, they were transplanting them. The gardener explained that there were two large planters upstairs beside the pool, and they were going to move the Palm trees up there.

You’re going to take them upstairs?

Yes, Their plan was to dig them out and take them up the sweeping spiral staircase that led from the lobby to the second floor pool. But there was a lot of hard, backbreaking work to be done before they got to that point. And we had more of San Antonio to see. So we had to leave the action behind.

Later that day, we returned to the hotel. We had some vouchers for coffee and snacks, so we were stocking up before we started our drive home. As the fair and industrious Trudy surveyed the snacks, I turned to look at the planter where the men had been working that morning. The Palms were gone; a pile of dirt was sitting on a tarp beside where they used to stand; and a woman was sweeping the staircase.

I turned to the barrista behind the counter and asked about the Palm tree procession. One after the other, the barrista said, the six men carried each Palm tree up the spiral stairs.

“I hate to see them do that.”

It wasn’t clear what the barrista meant.

“I mean, are you kidding me? Six of them carrying a tree up the stairs?”

It wasn’t clear what the barrista meant.

“I’m Mexican, too,” the barrista said. “Those six guys can do better than that.”

Probably true. But given the care of their digging and picking, I don’t think the trees could have asked for any better.