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.

Childhood Memories of Hawai'i

As my first official post, I thought I'd start at the very beginning of my Hawaiian adventures - my first trip to Hawai'i.

I was 3 years old, I believe, when my Dad brought the whole family on a business trip to Honolulu. While he did service calls, my Mom, sister and I spent the days exploring. At least that's what I'm told. I have very few memories of the trip, being so young at the time. Most are memory 'snapshots' - incomplete, blurry pictures from moments of the trip.

The first thing I think I remember of the trip is the Honolulu Aquarium. I remember a pool outside the main building, with some sort of marine mammal inside. I recall being able to walk down some steps to an underground viewing area, where you could watch the seals or dolphins or whatever they were from under water. I also remember the inside of the aquarium being cavernous, and believe I recall seeing an Opah - either stuffed or a real one.

My second memory is even less clear. It's of watching a hula performance in a courtyard below us, and I'm looking through bars, like a railing or something. I think I also remember falling asleep there, though I'm not sure.



And the last memory is the one captured in this photo - of sitting on top of a boat with my sister, sorting through clumps of rock and coral and seaweed, looking for crabs and things. I distinctly remember seeing the little creatures crawling around. This picture (and the memory) were on a glass bottom boat trip we all took together (that's my sister smiling for the camera, my Dad in the cowboy hat and mustache, me in the blue shorts, and my Mom's behind the camera). I could swear my Dad was scuba diving during the boat trip, and was one of the people bringing stuff up for us to look through - but I think that's concocted from other stories of this trip or other trips heard throughout the years, and is most likely a composition of multiple experiences.

The most talked about moment of the trip, however, is something I don't remember at all. Apparently, I decided to walk into the deep end of a swimming pool. I just walked over, stepped in, and sank to the bottom, making no attempt to swim or save myself. From what I'm told, this happened at the hotel pool while my Dad (a former lifeguard) was at work, and my poor Mother can't swim. I guess there was a guy sitting by the pool but he made no effort to help. My sister, just a few years older than me, jumped in and pulled me up to the top of the water, saving my life.

She later became a life guard.