April 6, 2016, Wednesday
B woke at 1 a.m. to go star hunting. His absence, the nearness of the jungle, the strangeness of the place, the open windows of the house against the blackness outside, and the eerie creaks of the house amplified by the nighttime quiet set off disquieting alarms in AJ’s mind.
She got up, snuck down the steps to check the locks. The front door was unlocked, the house key sat on the ledge nearby.
“If I lock the door, B won’t be able to get back in, but if I leave it unlocked, I won’t be able to sleep,” she thought, caught in a neurotic, middle of the night conundrum.
She paced the living room and kitchen a while before coming to a decision: she would keep the door unlocked, but lay down on the couch (in full view of the door) and being a very light sleeper, would be alerted to anyone–B or otherwise–coming in.
On the couch AJ wrestled with sleeplessness for about an hour or two, until B came back, apologetic for leaving the door unlocked. He forgot about his wife’s paranoid neurosis, and that it was usually worst in the dark, at night, in strange places. Rain moved in before the light of day and persisted sporadically throughout the morning, so the family donned raincoats, packed umbrellas and set out for Volcano National Park again.
Indoor activities were a good idea, so they went through the Thurston Lava Tube, a domesticated cave made through lava, with electric lights and handrails. This tube is the only tube available for visitors in the park, its sides and floor worn down by curious tourists’s hands and feet, leaving it bereft of all natural cave life. The other tubes are protected from the scouring effect of feet and hands, as bastions for the natural flora and fauna.
After touring the lava tube, they sat longer than usual for lunch at the Kilauea Lodge, a restaurant and hotel in Volcano Village, waiting (or resting, depending on what kind of mood each were in) a long time because of some tiff between waitresses. The food was good, the decor beautiful and inviting but the atmosphere was off-putting. The family felt like the staff just didn’t want them there.
After lunch B parked at a pull-off and they started down the Kilau Ike trail. The trail semi-circled the outside of a volcanic crater, then lead them down the side to dissect the crater amidst steam vents and struggling flora. In all, the trail was 4-ish miles, and as in past family vacation hikes, walking induced brain movement, and brain movement induced strange questions, conversations and arguments.
“Do you want to know the story behind sour Skittles?” TwoSon asked suddenly.
“There\’s a story behind sour Skittles?” AJ replied.
“Well, it’s my story. It’s a dream I had about them.”
“Okay, what’s the story?” AJ smiled, loving these conversations.
“I had a dream about seeing a poster with sour Skittles that asked, \”What is 23 x 6?”
“138,” interjected B low, so TwoSon didn’t hear.
“What is 23 x 6?”
“Hmmm … 138?”
“And you dreamt that? Do you still like sour Skittles?”
“Yeah, but they always remind me about that dream.”
The first two-thirds of the hike was easy, through wooded path, then it crossed a volcanic crater of pahoe’hoe lava. The trail across this hardened flat plain was marked by piles of stones (called ahu). The crater bottom was pocked with struggling plants and steam vents, whose heat originated at unknown depths under the hardened lava. AJ donned and shed her raincoat as the mist grew heavy and light in turn.
The last third of the hike was the challenging part, where AJ’s endurance dimmed. It’s wasn’t that she couldn’t make the hike, she was just a lot slower than the family. AJ slowly, but persistently trudged back and forth the steep switchback trail that lead up and out of the volcanic crator.
The decision about the next activity was put into AJ’s hands and being a plant person, she opted for the Hawaii Tropical Botanical Gardens, located on the other side of Hilo.
Trying to ignore the rain, B, OneSon and TwoSon thread their way along the paths in the gardens, snapping pictures of brilliant flowers and trying not to look miserable while AJ read the map and soaked in all the horticultural glory of the place.
Towering bamboos, massive ferns, freakishly shaped flowers, and slightly dangerous trees filled the area which ended at the ocean with a view of a Onomea Bay, then frothy with crashing waves.
Being warm and rainy almost year around, the flora of Hawaii could afford to grow wild, wonderful colors and plant structures. Michigan flower colors paled next to the brilliant reds, yellows and oranges of the tropical plants.
When the rain started heavy and they couldn’t ignore it anymore, they gave up the botanical expedition, and soaked and soggy made their way back toward Volcano.
Along the way they stopped at the grocery store for potatoes, steaks and broccoli to cook at home. As well as the poorly grilled steak (the grill was low on gas), broccoli (for a healthy vegetable) and potatoes (for a starch), AJ stole some camera-rice and cooked it up, as she preferred it to potatoes.
The rest of the evening was spent fighting the chill and damp with the stove on in the kitchen for heat and amusing themselves with a movie, or games or frantically trying to guess the weather.
Not I 