My first time on Hawai'i as an Adult

One night in early 2003, I left my yoga class and headed to a (now defunct) art gallery for an opening hosted by 'Gay City'. I knew some people going, and decided to swing by before grabbing dinner and going home.

That night at the gallery show, my friend Gary asked me if I wanted to stay for free in Hawai'i. He'd rented a house that was incredibly cheap, and had already booked his flights and a rental car. I just needed to get my own flight, pay a bit if I wanted to use the car, and handle incidentals like food and drink. It was a bit unlike me, but I went for it - and even scored a seat next to him on the NWA flight. So in April, we flew to Hawai'i.

Our final destination was the Big Island, at a house in the Puna area, but we had a long layover in Honolulu. So we grabbed a bus to Waikiki beach and sipped some cocktails while watching the hordes of people sunbathe, play frisbee, and otherwise frolic. It seems a bit packed, but the drinks were good and it felt good to be in the sun after a long Northwest winter.

When we arrived on the Big Island, it was already very late - so we had to find the house in the dark - during a rainstorm. As we made it to the Kehena area and turned up the street, we found the roads were covered in toads. Big toads. Bigger than your fist toads. Hundreds and hundreds of them. Gary did his best to not hit any, but there was really no way to move the car without doing so. We finally got to the house, unpacked, and settled in.

The rest of the week was a wonderful blur of laying on Kehena beach, driving into Pahoa to get groceries at the natural food store, renting movies at the video store, sipping Coronas, and going on day trips to the Kapoho tide pools, to various waterfalls, up to Volcano, and into Hilo.

It was truly a paradise, and I fell in love with it. Hawai'i became the meter stick by which all the other islands had to be measured up to, for better or for worse.

And that's how my love affair with Hawai'i began.

And interestingly enough, that night at the art gallery was when Gary introduced me to a guy named Dan... who I later married... on the Big Island.