Not Even Not Traveling 67: Hawaii - Hilo

Wednesday, December 24

It was our arrival day in Hawaii. Specifically, we were docking in Hilo, a big city on the big island (the one actually called Hawai'i). It was also Diane's birthday.

This can be a tough day, sometimes. I usually feel like I'm not doing enough to make the day special. Fortunately, when we got a network connection, Diane's friends started chipping in with birthday wishes and I could tell she was relieved not to be forgotten.

We are lucky, nowadays, to receive so much affection over such distances. 

Diane and I ate breakfast in our suite. I was feeling ill and feverish, so I skipped my workout, confident that walking around the island on our excursions would make up for it. Diane planned for us to skip the HollandAmerica tours of Hilo anyway. We had rented a car with the idea that we'd make our own excursion itinerary. We could tour the island of Hawai'i, yes, but at our own pace.

"What are you most interested in seeing?" she asked me.

"The volcano park."

"Anything else?"

"Nature stuff. One of the botanical gardens." No one wants to see yet another city on vacation. Well, that's probably just me. When it's a city with entertaining differences and great bookstores, like Portland, I can see some appeal to it. Mostly, though, I want to understand the land I'm visiting. There's nothing better than seeing the land itself or what's left of it, untouched or at the least, unpaved. 

Diane wanted to see Rainbow Falls. Fine my me. For my part, I had memories of hiking to weird plants I wouldn't normally see. Visits to places like the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix were great, so I was the lookout for more oddball flora. We found a promising attraction on the route between the Rainbow Falls and the National Volcano Park - the Pana'ewa Rainforest Botanical Garden and Zoo. It's apparently the only U.S. park located in an actual rainforest. Weird plants, I thought; so that's probably interesting. 

As usual, the spontaneously planned part of our day proved to be the best part. Rainbow Falls was nice enough, although Great Falls on the Potomac is nicer. Our final destination, the National Volcano Park was good because I found the steam vents fascinating. But the zoo we dropped by between those sites was the best. And it didn't even have weird plants.

Hawaii Has Coffee Girls

After the Rainbow Falls, we turned into a strip mall. I was looking for coffee. Diane found a place on her GPS called Coffee Girls. It was pink. The coffee was great. This is recommended, actually.

Hawaii Has Goats

As we turned onto the main drive into Pana'ewa Rainforest, three animals burst across the road. They dashed from trees on my left into the grass on my right, then trotted downslope into a tree-covered stream. We saw them for a few seconds, a small, white goat, a larger, brown goat, and another animal, maybe a donkey. (You would think I could recognize the difference between a donkey and a goat or a sheep but it was fast. And it was grey. And it had four legs.) 

At the time, I thought the three animals had escaped from the zoo. After seeing goats during every excursion in Hawaii, though, I realized that Hawaii simply has a lot of wild goats.

Pana'ewa Rainforest

We arrived fifteen minutes early. We bought our tickets. We waited. Eventually, the gate gaurd told us, "Go ahead." He waved us through the park entrance, which made us detour through the gift shop. As we walked out of the shop onto the zoo paths, we paused. The grounds were eerily quiet. We were the first and only tourists. After a minute or two, we heard someone say, "Hello."

I glanced around. There were no people in view.

"Hello." Thirty feet away, a macaw stood on a perch in a cage. It was staring at me.

"Hello," it said. 

"Hey, they've got a 'Hello Bird!'" I had no idea what a macaw was. It looked like a big, colorful parrot, mostly red with a bit of green and blue on its head. Also, it had a job. No professional greeter at a retail store did this better. 

"Hello." It spoke again as I approached. I read the plaque beneath its perch, which told me about the type of bird.

"You've got a big beak," I said.

"Hello."

"Well, that's enough of that."

"Hello."

It wasn't much of a conversationalist. Still, the macaw was pretty cool. Its single word of introduction felt to me like we had already gotten a benefit from arriving early on December 24. We had only ourselves and the animals in this rainforest. We could give ourselves a private tour.

Well, the rainforest wasn't much. I dutifully read the display boards telling me what was what. There wasn't a lot to see. The paved zoo path and the cages had knocked back the jungle. Only in a handful places did we encounter swaths of green lushness. At one of those, a sign told us it wasn't part of the native rainforest but, instead, a grove of foreign transplants.

The animals, in contrast, each had distinct personalities. We saw a dark swan at its meal, surrounding by golden carp roiling the surface of the pond. Each fish attempted to help itself to the crumbs spilled by the swan. As we walked through a section of rainforest, we heard a hidden, native bird that sounded like a rave club electronics track. It sang just the highest end of a human hearing range, but it hit notes on a descending scale.

We found the white tiger roaming through an acre of grass. She flopped down in the sun for a moment. We walked to our left around her, watching. She rolled on her back and exposed her belly. In a pen behind her, we noticed an orange tiger, pacing. Someone had placed the orange one in a prison, essentially. It paced exactly like a prisoner, too, one who had spent too much time in solitary confinement.

"Maybe that one misbehaved?” Diane suggested as she studied how it was confined. Her idea seemed right. If one tiger had attacked or harassed the other, the zookeepers might have needed to cage the aggressor. There would have been no other good reason, in fact, so we hoped it was something like that.

Farther south on the trail we met more caged birds. The sign said we were looking at an alala. However, the alala remained quiet and tried to hide. Apparently, it's a type of Hawaiian crow that went extinct in the wild. So we were seeing one of the handful remaining. Fortunately, local Hawaiians had started a project to reintroduce the alala in the wild. The program was just then starting to show signs of success. Our bird looked like he remained doubtful.

A little further on, a grey crowned crane stared at us like we had forgotten to bring the coffee. (True enough.) It barely blinked. Crowned cranes all look like mad scientists after a long night because they have spiky heads, a bit like English punks but also like Doc Brown in Back to the Future. They've got wild, bewildered eyes, too.

At one of the fences with a big “animal bites” warning sign, an emu trotted over to meet Diane as she approached. The giant birds got an acre of grass to roam in, like the tigers. I waited for Diane to try to pet the emu but she wisely did not. I think the bird was waiting for that, too.

At the lemur cage, we met animals like the ones in the Madagascar movie. They didn't dance but they had pretty (and recognizable) physiques and fur markings. They turned their butts to us, totally unbothered by their first customers of the day at the zoo.

Farther on, we met two binturong. I hadn't seen any before. The smaller and stronger binturong lazed on a branch in the middle of the cage. Another name for this type of animal is 'bearcat' and I could see why. It was about the size of a lynx but with fur like a bear. Although it seemed strong and tough, it relaxed like an opportunity hunter - basically, like a cat. This particular binturong had a surly expression as it ignored us, half-sleeping. I felt as if we were watching a furry Clint Eastwood in a spaghetti western. This time, he was playing a character who refuses to get up from the couch. He was lazy, but dangerous.

Along the southwestern zoo path, we found monkeys of many types. Each one disdained us in their own unique way. Some showed us their butts. Some got up front and relaxed in exaggerated poses, slumping as if to make it clear they didn't worry about us at all. A few remained preoccupied with the bars of their cage. Others played with their favorite toys.

At some point, I turned a corner and discovered albino peacocks. Diane had mentioned them, I thought, when we had each gone separate directions briefly and then reunited. Here they were, in their big cage. Although there were two of them, they looked rare and expensive, like designer editions of this year's top-end model. As I studied the pair, I became aware of motion to my right. I turned to see what it was and spotted a regular peacock, actually a peahen, strutting free. It wasn't in a cage. Rather, it was roaming the paved zoo paths like a tourist. When my gaze fell on it, the bird held motionless for a moment. It gave me a sidelong glare, as if I had interrupted its visit to its albino relatives and I was the one who didn't belong.

Maybe the peahen came to check out the albino peacocks every day. I wouldn't know. She treaded around me, behind and to my left, where she had a better view of her caged relatives.

"There are more," said Diane. She saw me and stepped close. "I've seen at least two others."

In fact, there were half a dozen free-roaming peahens. We saw them at a distance, sitting in groups of two or three, or we found them in the underbrush along the paths as we visited the smaller animals like the swimming turtles, poisonous frogs, snakes, fish, salamanders, and axolotl. 

I think it was the first axolotl I've seen in real life.

Volcano Park

Back at the Pana'ewa Zoo, the day had been warm, for December. The sky had been intermittently cloudy and bright. When we drove up to the top of Mount Kīlauea, though, we met a different sort of weather. At this elevation, it was a cold and rainy day. And it was still December, of course.

Normally, people can stand on the edge of the volcano caldera and see across it. On this day, no one could. Sure, we could stand in the wind and rain. But we couldn't see through the swirling mists. The air turned grey and opaque in the distance. 

We could still see a quarter of a mile, maybe. It simply wasn't far enough to do more than make out faint, silver shapes halfway across the caldera. On the national parks app, we saw we had just missed an eruption warning. We'd been lucky in that respect. People had been allowed back in. Also, the steam vents in the caldera were billowing at their fullest and probably their hottest, too. But the wind on the rim gusted at high speeds. It was loud. It blew the rain into people's faces from unexpected directions. It billowed the tourist raincoats, knocked down umbrellas, spat moisture into every sleeve, every cuff, and down the backs of anyone who left part of their neck exposed.

Now, I was unaccountably happy about this. I enjoyed the weather. Yes, it was December. So what? It was Hawai'i. I could have hiked around the mountain for hours. However, I could see everyone else's faces around me. I knew they all were miserable. Adults with children were already cranky, of course. So were their children. So were teenagers. Instagram posters gave the entire world a bitter glare. College students, usually the hardest to faze, gave their friends tired, surly glances. People looked exhausted by the wind and rain. 

After an hour of hiking from place to place around the rim, Diane remarked to me, "I'm not enjoying this as much as I thought I would."

As I've mentioned, I have a great emotional immune system, immune to all sorts of hints. Even I caught this one.

"Let's get to someplace with trees," I suggested. I grabbed the brim of my hat as another gust tried to carry it away.

"Out of the fucking wind."

"Um, yes." Although I liked the wind and enjoyed the sight of tourists in plastic raincoats getting caught in the gale, I knew it wasn't enough to entertain Diane. Even when she cackled as she watched a fashionista in a yellow, see-through raincoat turn the wrong way and explode, suddenly, into a crystal sphere of surprise, it wasn't enough. 

"There have to be better hiking locations somewhere around," she muttered. 

Off we marched, back to the tourist center and back into our car. 

Timing: don't go to Volcano Park at two in the afternoon like we did if you want to see the Lava Tube Caves. We decided the tubes should be our next stop but, alas, we did not make it in. We were not even close to getting a slot. The parking lot had filled to overflowing, probably hours before. Park police were shooing drivers away from trying to find a spot in there. We dutifully moved on. But the site after it was full, too. And the next. Tourists who couldn't get into the lava tubes were settling for the sites close by. We had to keep driving. We couldn't get into the petroglyph sites, either. We looped around for miles. Eventually, between our park map and our sense of where we would find a good hike, we navigated to one of the more remote locations, the Hillina Pali Overlook. Sure enough, we found parking and, not far away, a hiking trail through groves of trees that sheltered us from the wind and rain.

We couldn't stay protected for all the miles, of course. Sometimes we climbed barren slopes of volcanic ash, pumice, and basalt, When we did, though, I still liked being out in the weather. 

"How are we doing for time?" Diane asked at a distant point in the trail. 

"It's pretty late. We'll have to head back soon." We needed to drive back to the city of Hilo. After we returned the rental car, we'd have to hike downhill to the docks and re-board the Zaandam for dinner.

"I think I want to call 'pumpkin.'" This is her short-hand term for, 'the magic of this is wearing off and my enchanted coach is turning back into a pumpkin.' Sometimes, when we're at a party, she'll turn to me, whisper 'pumpkin,' and I'll know it's getting late and she's tired. It works on hikes, too. 
 

Not Even Not Traveling 66: Hawaii - Arriving in San Diego

Flying There and Being There

We planned and packed. We rose before dawn. We slept as we flew. Suddenly we were in San Diego and I was talking about computers with our Turkish-American immigrant Uber driver.

It turned out he had written a program to places calls for the Uber / San Diego Airport waiting list. After months of trouble-shooting, he got his hardware and software right. He started getting the best possible spot in the Uber ride list. Other drivers noticed. They wanted in. Now he offers his software as a paid service. The other drivers pony up to get the best spots in the Uber ride list for the airport. So we talked about his software for a while but also hardware. I asked questions about his design and I agreed he had implemented the failover correctly. I couldn't validate the load balancing just by his description but I had to say his app performance sounded like he'd done things right. (Also, I made sure he said he had offline backups and he'd tested them.)

Now our Uber driver was getting his main income from his app. His driving had become his side gig. It was very cool. His scheduler could probably expand more. Due to the way scheduling is different in different airports, he would need a server pair per area but still, that would be fun.

He's got an active mirror, a backup, and he's keeping up with the increased load of his customer base. He's doing it all with homegrown equipment. Also, he was a fun driver.

Segway Tour of San Diego

At our hotel, we checked in early. The staff was nice. We wanted to drop our bags and bolt. We didn't have much time in San Diego and Diane wanted to see as much as she could. She had scheduled a full afternoon of tours. First came our segway ride.

Amy was the tour guide. She's a Navy vet who spent most of her military tour in San Diego. She mustered out in the city. Now she proved able to tell us about the history of San Diego, how the harbor was discovered and named twice by different explorers; how the downtown was a scrub-brush desert; and how none of the plants we saw were local. The last part shocked me a little. San Diego looks lush. Every tree and flower was deliberately imported.

Opinion: Balboa Park was the best part of the tour. We entered over the Cabrillo Bridge, a narrow two-lane road that's more friendly to pedestrians than cars. Inside, we got to see how the park hosts museums, theatres, gardens, biking trails, and of course the San Diego Zoo, the most popular zoo in the country. One of the museums, in there is the Comic-Con Museum. (We did not drive into that one on our segways.) Balboa hosts the San Diego Air & Space Museum, Automotive Museum, History Center, a Model Railroad Museum, the San Diego Museum of Art, and the San Diego Natural History Museum. You could spend a week just visiting the park.

A woman named Kate Sessions started the park, at least according to Amy. Sessions gave her plant nursery to the city, then she donated trees and exotic flowers every year. She's responsible for a lot of the plant life in San Diego. In 1915 and in 1935, the park hosted International Expos; some of the park architecture comes out of the preparation efforts of those. Then in World War II, the U.S. Navy took over the park and made it into a training ground and barracks. (They gave it back.) This is an intensely varied and worthwhile place.

Kayaking Tour of La Jolla

We discovered a few hidden factors involved in a kayaking trip in La Jolla in December.

• It's chilly (see: December)
• The previous kayakers complained to our faces about not having wetsuits
• The tour guides all had wet suits
• And we could rent wet suits

So we rented them. More properly dressed than I'd planned, I pushed-launched our two-person kayak into the waves. I had help from Tumas, our guide. Tumas hailed from Toronto, he said, not San Diego. He had gone to school in the U.S. and decided to get his green card so he could settle in the United States.

Diane and I paddled out into the deeps. Tumas promptly steered his kayak to stay in position between us and the shore. Apparently, most of the problems on the tour have come from kayakers straying too near the rocks.

Tumas pointed out leopard sharks beneath us but, to be honest, I only saw a few ripples and flitting, darkish shapes. Instead, I spotted bright orange fish around us. Those were garibaldi. They didn't dart around. They hung out and nibbled on rocks like stoners nibbling on crumbs from the couch, unwilling to move.

We were the only ones moving (except for another ripple that Tumas said was a seal). The main site we wanted to see in at La Jolla was a series of caves below the cliffs along the shore. The sun was already low. We wanted to get into the caves before it got dark. We weren't allowed to bring cameras in the kayak but trust me when I say the caves were, well, okay. Not breath-taking. Not astounding. They're nice if you like weird light and seaweed. And history. During prohibition, gangsters used the caves for smuggling barrels of alcohol, which they brought in on rowboats.

Back outside the caves, we saw a cloud of diving birds. They had formed a hunting flock, which our guide called a 'kettle.' The kettle consisted of cormorants, pelicans, and a few seagulls teaming up to pick off individual fish from a school in the shallows. The cormorants and pelicans seemed to be having success.

Then at my request, we kayaked southward toward a roost of sea lions. We could see thirty of them. Close on the north side, we saw a couple males threatening each other. Males weigh maybe 1200 to 1400 pounds. They are loud and territorial. They establish their positions on the rocks; a few females join; and that's their social order. Trouble starts when a male encroaches on another's territory.

Two of the males were mad. Our guide moved his kayak between them. The biggest sea lion howled. He swam toward Tumas's kayak. He picked up speed for a charge. Then he dove under the water. A minute later, he popped up somewhere else.

"They're pretty cool, aren't they?" said Tumas.

"Yes." That's why I wanted to get close. I wouldn't have gotten between them, though.

"Notice they don't eat the garibaldi?"

"Yeah. Why not?"

"Garibaldi don't poop like other fish. They excrete waste through their skin."

I thought about it for a second and said, "They must taste terrible."

"Yeah!" He smiled at the thought.