You know the drill. First,
recap; now, review:
Highlights. Hawaii is a tropical volcanic island paradise in the absolute middle of nowhere, so it's hard not to like everything. But I would say the highlights of the trip were (1) hiking through arid grasslands down to a "beach" in Volcanoes and encountering a sea turtle in a tide pool, (2) snorkeling up close with sea turtles and all kinds of colorful fish (and even seeing and hearing a couple of spinner dolphins), (3) stargazing atop Mauna Kea and seeing an unimaginable amount of stars and even the rings on Saturn (through a telescope).
Weather. The temperatures were in the low 80s everyday, and sun was out for only about half the days we were there, which made for not-so-great picture-taking at times, but which worked out well for my easily-sunburned skin. The elevation of Volcanoes National Park was somewhere around 4000 feet, so the temperatures were in the 70s during the day, and probably the 50s at night. The elevation of the Mauna Kea Visitor Information Station was a little over 9000 feet, so the temperatures were in the 60s when the sun was up, but quickly dropped into the 40s. After snorkeling earlier in the day, it was a small shock to gain 9000 feet in elevation and lose 30-40 degrees in temperature. But we brought some slightly warm clothes.
Camping. To make the trip cheap, we camped most nights for under $10. This means we had to bring a tent and sleeping bags, which means we had to pay to check a bag at the airport, but it was worth it. But the penalty for cheapness is dirtiness, which builds up faster when you do things like hike up and down volcanoes and eat onion-filled sandwiches. Wendy reached her limit at about the third night of camping, but we still had one more night before we stayed in a hotel. In the future, I'll try to do a better job of planning by interspersing more hotel stays with campground stays. Perhaps I should add one more highlight to the list above: (4) taking a shower at a resort after camping and sweating for four straight days. It was a truly magical experience.
Regions. Since the Big Island is such a "big" place, it was interesting to see all the different microclimates. Of course there were the humid areas on the coast, but there were also extremely windy regions with rough waves crashing on rocks, dry regions with sparse vegetation and fire danger, regions with flowing or newly-dried lava, mountainous regions with occasional snow, green pastureland full of cattle and sheep, and regions with lush vegetation like a rain forest.
Hawaiians. The people of Hawaii are cool people. They're nice, they let you do what you want, and they like to tell you about their cultural history and their beautiful island. But a few patterns I noticed were that (1) many Hawaiians lacked a full set (or even a half set) of teeth, (2) coughing was a widespread problem, and (3) everyone had tattoos. The teeth thing didn't bother me, but being woken up at a campsite by a Hawaiian coughing up a lung and then spitting it on the ground was unpleasant. Smoking pot was also a common activity among pretty much everyone (and pretty much anywhere), and I have to wonder if the coughing had something to do with that, or if perhaps the sulfur in the volcanic fumes could've been a factor. Tattooing was so common, I started to get used to seeing old people with entire limbs covered in tribal markings. It was kinda cool.
Transportation. The island was really easy to drive around. I saw a public bus once or twice, but I doubt that's a good way to get around. The main loop road was fabulously uncrowded and had a comfortably high speed limit. There was a significant dearth of traffic cops, which made driving even less stressful. My one and only complaint about driving was that Hawaiians had a habit of sort of cutting you off and then going slow. But honestly, what's the rush?
Food. It was a really nice treat to eat lots of fresh tropical fruits and trendy little wraps and sandwiches that were actually healthy. Smoothies were quite common, as was "shave ice" a.k.a. juice-flavored ice shavings. There was a winery in the town of Volcano, and there was a brewery in Kailua Kona. Coffee is becoming a major crop for the island, and there were many places to get a cup whose beans were grown in the backyard. There was also a surprising amount of cattle farming, and I would imagine at least some of that meat ended up on my plate because of the high cost of importing.
All in all, it was a really cool trip. We stayed busy most of the time, so by the end, I was pretty tired and ready to go home. And thankfully, we came back to New Jersey when it was 70 and sunny so it wasn't too much of a shock to our systems. The cats were happy to see us; the rabbits didn't notice we were gone.
#travel