Friday, July 15, 2011

Before catching a plane to the Big Island, I wanted to catch a few waves in Waikiki. I rented a surfboard and, while it was exhausting, it was a blast. The waves were so perfect and the water was so warm. It gets pretty crowded with surfers in this one spot in the city so before entering I asked the rental guy how to handle all the other surfers. His answer, “If they are whiter than you, run them straight over and don’t say you’re sorry. Heck everyone wants to kill each other anyway right?” I did run right over a guy too…..and I have no idea whether he was whiter than me.

After a 40 minute flight, the plane landed in Kona on the Big Island. Swooped up a rental car and headed out to find the action. I immediately found myself driving on the road that I’d seen a million times on TV, the last few miles of the run of the Iron Man Triathlon Championships. You know the one, with the lava fields on both sides of the road. Hit Wally’s for a few cheap snacks and cruised through downtown Kona. It looked typical with little restaurants and T-shirt shops. I decided to keep on driving right down the coast, and head for Volcanoes National Park.

Found a great place to sleep near the park…..it was a Yurt. It was cheap, and comfortable….actually quite luxurious. It had directv and a toilet that actually burned your crap instead of flushing it. I went twice in about ten minutes and the second time I could see flames below. I guess it turns everything to ash. Hawaii is quite “green” in general. Solar panels are everywhere and they recycle like crazy.

The guy that owned the Yurts was from Jersey and had been living on the island for 30 plus years. His house reeked of weed and it was clear that most people around were into growing and smoking as much as they could. He talked about some great places to eat and even said that the neighborhood we were in was used for people entering the witness protection plan back in the 70’s and that there were a few still kicking around. The place was in this crazy grid of roads that was eight miles long and completely in the middle of a lava field. They guy who’s job it was to turn old black lava into a flat usable space for houses and driveways was making some money in this area.

On his recommendation, I ordered the local favorite for dinner at the southernmost restaurant in the USA. It was called Moco Loco and consisted of pulled pork with scrambled eggs above it and white rice below all covered with gravy. I actually loved it. There was also a trio of locals playing Hawaiian music for the ten or so patrons. The locals were pretty funny, with their huge, happy, Hawaiian grins on their faces all night.

Back to the luxuyurt for some shut eye.