But. I am a woman that is usually trustworthy, so I'm going to really give this the college try. Also, speaking of college, mine is closed for the foreseeable future due to COVID-19. So...I'll give it the ol' college until a global pandemic try.
Here we go! Day one, Big Island trip, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand go.
We woke up at 4:30am after going to sleep at 12:30am, Gabriel didn't want to get up, getting ready was a blast, of course. Derek's friend came and picked us up, we sat in traffic for 45 minutes, got through TSA fairly painlessly, and then sat and waited for an hour and a half to leave.
Two hambones and some cheese.
The loves of my life (not an exhaustive list).
Three atheists and a piece of religious jewelry: WHY edition.
Flight was fast, maybe 30 minutes, nice and easy.
The clouds were REALLY pretty, and since I'm a grown ass man, I decided I was gonna touch some cloud tits.
There's a rainbow in them there woods!
Coming in to the island during the ascent showed off the amazing reefs, and I mean, honestly...I have told all of my friends that coming in to Hawaii Island feels and looks like landing on an entirely different world.
These are just cell phone pictures, so of course they are garbage, but that blue is true to how my eyes saw it, and I couldn't believe them. It is the deepest, bluest blue I've ever seen. And then we flew over land, and I have never felt so alien.
Wild. Amazing. I loved it. I told Derek that I expected Maui to be just like Oahu, and I was so surprised to find it so different, and then my idiot brain expected Hawaii to be just like Oahu and folks...it REALLY isn't. It's just...it's just Hawaii.
We went and picked up our rental car, and I found myself annoyed to discover that our credit card was declined because they put an EXTRA two hundred dollar hold on it to give back to us when we return the car, and that pissed me right the fuck off. This wasn't disclosed on Priceline, and this makes two trips in a row where we've been blindsided by hidden fees and bullshit. Getting our car took about 45 minutes, but we got a nice Malibu. Not important, but the detail stays.
First on the list: Pele's Well.
Ho.
Lee.
SHIT.
This little natural wonder is fucking AMAZING, and I am so excited to get the photos up in this blog.
Gabriel got out for a couple of seconds, took a short video for his dad, and then jumped back in the car to sit on his phone while Derek and I played at landscape photography for an hour. Pele's Well is the fucking coolest, I really loved it. Sunset is going to be a far better time to photograph it, though. Here's to hoping we get back there to do it. (Bad news from the future: we did not make it back to Pele's Well for several reasons, chief among them the weather was fucking garbage)
I was a little wary of the wave swells at first, and I got a bit bolder after every photo and as each new angle idea occurred to me. Not bold enough to do what I wanted, mind you, but bold enough to dare to dream I could be bold enough to do them. My anxiety told me I was going to get sucked into the well and die. As stated in prior blogs, I am only interested in figurative death. So. Nothing crazy for me. Yet. I can't say where my head will be at if we visit before we leave.
I write this from the future: Here are the photos from Pele's Well. I am VERY disappointed in them, and I hate them.
First up: a video of Pele's Well in action. It was taken on my cell phone, because I wasn't smart like Derek and I didn't use my fucking pro grade gear. I am Simple Jack.
Look at all of that rushing water! Getting ready to suck me into the depths. NOT TODAY, PELE!!!
He's so dreamy. We only took one tripod with us, because we didn't want to check our bags, and my tripod was the only one that fit into our carry on. So we had to take turns with using it. I had taken my turn, so Derek got to move on to taking his.
The water really does move so quickly. There's a place on our island called Toilet Bowl that works similarly (I mean, LOADS of places on these islands, really. These shits are full of lava tubes that fill with water. Fuckin' lousy with tubes), but we haven't gone there yet. We keep meaning to, but uh, gonna have to keep pushing that back. THANKS CORONAVIRUS.
WHAT A HOT MAN PIECE.
And now back to your regularly scheduled programming from the past.
I write this from the future: Here are the photos from Pele's Well. I am VERY disappointed in them, and I hate them.
First up: a video of Pele's Well in action. It was taken on my cell phone, because I wasn't smart like Derek and I didn't use my fucking pro grade gear. I am Simple Jack.
Look at all of that rushing water! Getting ready to suck me into the depths. NOT TODAY, PELE!!!
He's so dreamy. We only took one tripod with us, because we didn't want to check our bags, and my tripod was the only one that fit into our carry on. So we had to take turns with using it. I had taken my turn, so Derek got to move on to taking his.
The water really does move so quickly. There's a place on our island called Toilet Bowl that works similarly (I mean, LOADS of places on these islands, really. These shits are full of lava tubes that fill with water. Fuckin' lousy with tubes), but we haven't gone there yet. We keep meaning to, but uh, gonna have to keep pushing that back. THANKS CORONAVIRUS.
WHAT A HOT MAN PIECE.
And now back to your regularly scheduled programming from the past.
Then we headed to Costco to stock up on breakfast foods and snacks, and it was a god damn madhouse. Lines all the way to the middle of the store. Ugh. But it went fast enough, and then we grabbed a bite to eat at Costco's cafeteria. I've mentioned before that I throw veganism away on trips, because keto and vegan can't happen affordably. So I had three turkey pesto and provolone melts, Derek ate half of the bread that I ate none of, and the boys shared a pizza. It was good to finally get food in my belly, I was cranky.
Professional crank.
Because Hawaii is so big, and we flew in to Kona, we had to slam all the Kona side activities in at once, so next up on our Kona side itinerary was the painted church. It's no secret to anybody that I don't believe in god or religion, but I fucking love a church. I don't know why, I've just always loved them. This church was especially gaudy and I was enamored with the photos I saw of it online. We made the 45 minute drive, and set about photographing the church. I remember putting the tiny anecdote in about our Maui trip, and me photographing the church from a certain angle, and people aping my style. Derek and I always have a laugh when it happens, because it happens a lot. And it happened again today. I laid down on the floor to get a good shot of the ceiling, and a man in there whispers to his companions, "she's got the right idea!" and then copied me when I wasn't "looking". I noticed, and it made me and Derek laugh. Quietly, though, because we're civilized sometimes.
(photos added the 22nd, this blog was started ON THE FUCKING 12TH)
Looks normal so far, nothing gross or out of the ordinary (no more than religion, anyway), and then....
BAM MOTHER FUCKERS!!!!!! A DESIGN NIGHTMARE!!
I really liked the cemetery. It was weirdly ominous. Like...just a sea of white crosses and ziggurat graves. It would have seemed very Buddhist, if not for all of the crosses.
This painting was titled, "The Handwriting On The Wall". I read it, it says, "Thanks, Jesus, I hate it."
THERE HE IS, THAT COPYING MOTHER FUCKER!!!!!! I hope you got a good shot, sir. I could not get a photo of him aping my style, but this is the shot I got from the position I was in that he later copied:
I hope he found it more worth his time than I did.
Man. The absolutely batshit gaudiness of this church makes me so fucking giddy. The palm trees really fucking sell it.
I just loved the graveyard. I wanted to hop over and take better photos of the mausoleum, but that seemed about as gauche as the painted insides. I'm an atheist for sure, but I am also respectful (uh...when there aren't tourists around to judge me, that is. God can fuck right off, it's the judgement of strangers I care about!)
Derek and I assume this is the old steeple, though, I mean, weather conditions and poverty levels of Hawaii being what they are, this could just as likely be the replacement steeple. I thought it looked really cool, and it smelled like death. Dear fucking titty Jesus, it stank evilly. Like decades of must and rot and dank and decay. I had wanted to take a shot inside of it, but I made the mistake of not assuming it would not smell like fetid toilet water and wood and went int, nostrils open to any ol' smell that came near them. I caught a whiff of it and gagged a little and didn't bother trying to get my hands inside the bad place. Let that be a lesson to priests everywhere.
On our way back to the main road that would get us where we were going, we saw a house that would have completely faded into the background and been less than memorable if not for the gate:
No biggie. Just some (hopefully?) decommissioned bombs.
Less than ten minutes away was Pu'uohanua o' Hōnaunau, so off we drove. Hawaii Island is such a strange and interesting place to be, because it just...doesn't look like an island. It looks like everywhere BUT an island, at least where we've been so far. A lot of where we were driving yesterday looked like upstate NY, or the Pacific NW, anywhere but a lonely archipelago in a tropical region. It's a fucking wild place. For a very easily digested piece of history, Pu'uohanua o' Hōnaunau is a place of refuge. Before the colonizers came over and said that everything the Hawaiians had going for them was heathen garbage, there were laws in place called kapu. These were no fucking joke. Super serious, and breaking them was like, a capital offense. You'd more often than not be put to death, it was a whole thing. BUT, you could seek refuge at Pu'uohanua o' Hōnaunau and no harm would come to you. Running from war? Head on down to Pu'uohanua o' Hōnaunau and get your second chance at life for FREE! Or something like that was the general advertisement on tv at the time. Being a fairly significant place in Hawaiian culture pre-European contact leaves the area a tourist attraction in a National Park, because that's how life works, I guess? I had expected something a lot more subdued than what was there, and while the area was gorgeous (Two Step is attached to it, and I'm super excited to snorkel there) (MORE bad news from the shitty future brigade: We did not snorkel Two Step), I felt agitated by the commercial feel of it. I was hoping to visit somewhere that I could really see and feel the weight of significance the area held, but instead I did not, could not, and instead I just wandered the area vaguely annoyed. But that IS my raison d'être, so I guess it's no stretch from the norm. We DID see several flocks of vibrant yellow tangs in the water (Two Step is supposed to be the best snorkeling in the entire chain of islands, after all), and that was a lovely pick me up from my irritation. I did like that there were markers all around that had blurbs about the significance of any given area or thing (like I learned about lava trees! So fucking cool!!!), but what I really really liked? The lava field. Derek and Gabriel explored more of it than I did (they saw an undulated moray eel!!), but I got very engaged in trying to take photos of the lava.
I am not so well versed in Hawaiian culture that I know who these represent. The information at the park was pretty fucking elusive, as well, so if you know what/who each totem represents, I'd love to know, too!
I really liked all the little circles in this pond. I am not sure if it qualifies as an actual aquaculture fish pond, as it isn't connected to the ocean in the ways I have learned about. It is a little pond, and it does have fish in it, but my knowledge is limited so for now, it's just a pond.
The lava field!!!!! How. Fucking COOL!!! If you look really hard, you can see Gabriel and Derek in the very far distance. Looking for eels! Not intentionally, but they ended up finding them.
I know. I KNOW. It's lame when people like, take their cameras and make a big deal about photographing texture. I see people doing it all the fucking time and I always roll my eyes and groan. Like really, Karen, the texture of that trash can is moving you? AWESOME. But I couldn't fucking help but get sucked in myself. Lava is fucking WILD. Like...it's new and interesting everywhere you look at it.
(photos added the 22nd, this blog was started ON THE FUCKING 12TH)
Looks normal so far, nothing gross or out of the ordinary (no more than religion, anyway), and then....
BAM MOTHER FUCKERS!!!!!! A DESIGN NIGHTMARE!!
I really liked the cemetery. It was weirdly ominous. Like...just a sea of white crosses and ziggurat graves. It would have seemed very Buddhist, if not for all of the crosses.
This painting was titled, "The Handwriting On The Wall". I read it, it says, "Thanks, Jesus, I hate it."
This one is "Hell". I personally believe it is Hell, but 2x worse.
THERE HE IS, THAT COPYING MOTHER FUCKER!!!!!! I hope you got a good shot, sir. I could not get a photo of him aping my style, but this is the shot I got from the position I was in that he later copied:
I hope he found it more worth his time than I did.
Man. The absolutely batshit gaudiness of this church makes me so fucking giddy. The palm trees really fucking sell it.
I just loved the graveyard. I wanted to hop over and take better photos of the mausoleum, but that seemed about as gauche as the painted insides. I'm an atheist for sure, but I am also respectful (uh...when there aren't tourists around to judge me, that is. God can fuck right off, it's the judgement of strangers I care about!)
Derek and I assume this is the old steeple, though, I mean, weather conditions and poverty levels of Hawaii being what they are, this could just as likely be the replacement steeple. I thought it looked really cool, and it smelled like death. Dear fucking titty Jesus, it stank evilly. Like decades of must and rot and dank and decay. I had wanted to take a shot inside of it, but I made the mistake of not assuming it would not smell like fetid toilet water and wood and went int, nostrils open to any ol' smell that came near them. I caught a whiff of it and gagged a little and didn't bother trying to get my hands inside the bad place. Let that be a lesson to priests everywhere.
On our way back to the main road that would get us where we were going, we saw a house that would have completely faded into the background and been less than memorable if not for the gate:
No biggie. Just some (hopefully?) decommissioned bombs.
Less than ten minutes away was Pu'uohanua o' Hōnaunau, so off we drove. Hawaii Island is such a strange and interesting place to be, because it just...doesn't look like an island. It looks like everywhere BUT an island, at least where we've been so far. A lot of where we were driving yesterday looked like upstate NY, or the Pacific NW, anywhere but a lonely archipelago in a tropical region. It's a fucking wild place. For a very easily digested piece of history, Pu'uohanua o' Hōnaunau is a place of refuge. Before the colonizers came over and said that everything the Hawaiians had going for them was heathen garbage, there were laws in place called kapu. These were no fucking joke. Super serious, and breaking them was like, a capital offense. You'd more often than not be put to death, it was a whole thing. BUT, you could seek refuge at Pu'uohanua o' Hōnaunau and no harm would come to you. Running from war? Head on down to Pu'uohanua o' Hōnaunau and get your second chance at life for FREE! Or something like that was the general advertisement on tv at the time. Being a fairly significant place in Hawaiian culture pre-European contact leaves the area a tourist attraction in a National Park, because that's how life works, I guess? I had expected something a lot more subdued than what was there, and while the area was gorgeous (Two Step is attached to it, and I'm super excited to snorkel there) (MORE bad news from the shitty future brigade: We did not snorkel Two Step), I felt agitated by the commercial feel of it. I was hoping to visit somewhere that I could really see and feel the weight of significance the area held, but instead I did not, could not, and instead I just wandered the area vaguely annoyed. But that IS my raison d'être, so I guess it's no stretch from the norm. We DID see several flocks of vibrant yellow tangs in the water (Two Step is supposed to be the best snorkeling in the entire chain of islands, after all), and that was a lovely pick me up from my irritation. I did like that there were markers all around that had blurbs about the significance of any given area or thing (like I learned about lava trees! So fucking cool!!!), but what I really really liked? The lava field. Derek and Gabriel explored more of it than I did (they saw an undulated moray eel!!), but I got very engaged in trying to take photos of the lava.
I am not so well versed in Hawaiian culture that I know who these represent. The information at the park was pretty fucking elusive, as well, so if you know what/who each totem represents, I'd love to know, too!
I really liked all the little circles in this pond. I am not sure if it qualifies as an actual aquaculture fish pond, as it isn't connected to the ocean in the ways I have learned about. It is a little pond, and it does have fish in it, but my knowledge is limited so for now, it's just a pond.
The lava field!!!!! How. Fucking COOL!!! If you look really hard, you can see Gabriel and Derek in the very far distance. Looking for eels! Not intentionally, but they ended up finding them.
I know. I KNOW. It's lame when people like, take their cameras and make a big deal about photographing texture. I see people doing it all the fucking time and I always roll my eyes and groan. Like really, Karen, the texture of that trash can is moving you? AWESOME. But I couldn't fucking help but get sucked in myself. Lava is fucking WILD. Like...it's new and interesting everywhere you look at it.
We left the park and made our way to our hotel. Hostel? What's the difference? Derek just explained it to me, and where we are staying is hostel-esque, but more a hotel. "An Inn, I think, is more correct" were Derek's exact words. Whatever it is we're staying in, it's lovely. Our room is super fucking cute and clean, and our friend's family owns it, so they were VERY gracious and gave us a very nice discount on our accommodations.
Anyway, the drive to Honomu from where we were was almost 3 hours. Gabriel crashed the fuck out:
even I had to crash for a 20 minute nap. Derek and I looked into all of the gulches at the hundreds of waterfalls tucked away, and I found myself thinking that maybe we should cancel all of the typical sights and just go for the gulches. We don't love being typical tourists, obvs, and I always want to get shots that other people aren't getting.
A note on that, now that I've been home and have looked through my photos and regretted the story I am about to share:
I told Derek on the second day that I wasn't even going to try and take "pretty" or "artistic" photographs, I was just going to photograph for posterity because there was too much ground to cover to waste time really investing in any one shot. I fucking HATE that I went with that, because all of my photos look boring as fuck. Not a gorgeous one among them, just your average Josephine tourist shots. God. Fucking. DAMMIT.
A note on that, now that I've been home and have looked through my photos and regretted the story I am about to share:
I told Derek on the second day that I wasn't even going to try and take "pretty" or "artistic" photographs, I was just going to photograph for posterity because there was too much ground to cover to waste time really investing in any one shot. I fucking HATE that I went with that, because all of my photos look boring as fuck. Not a gorgeous one among them, just your average Josephine tourist shots. God. Fucking. DAMMIT.
We got to the inn kind of late, checked in, unpacked, and went straight out again for dinner.
We went and had burgers at a little place in Hilo whose name escapes me and I am too lazy to look it up (Hilo Burger Joint. We drove by it a few times during the rest of the trip). I ordered a bunless burger, and I was up sick to my stomach all night. Waves of nausea. No fun. No fun at all. As much as I want to rail on the beef, I think it was the salad. It felt weird in my mouth and it kind of made my throat pucker after eating two bites. I didn't eat more than four bites total, that's how weird it was to my super finely tuned palette that is not finely tuned at all.
The. Fucking. CUTEST. And the inn is so tucked away and quiet. It's the perfect place to escape if you don't want hubbub. The little coqui frogs were ALWAYS singing. I took a little video! But at night, so you can't see anything. You can only hear the frogs.
There. That was our first day on Big Island. Full disclosure, I have taken the first day and well into our second day to write this blog. I was so exhausted and felt so sick last night that I couldn't be bothered to write anymore. I'm heading on to day two now, and hopefully I will be caught up enough to do this once a day until we get home.
Full disclosure the second: I am uploading the photos and adding little notes on March 23rd, a full four days after we arrived home. I'm lazy, and shit has been crazy. Assume for the rest of the blogs that they are a mish-mash of time frames. I stopped writing actively on day...uh...four, I believe.
Full disclosure the second: I am uploading the photos and adding little notes on March 23rd, a full four days after we arrived home. I'm lazy, and shit has been crazy. Assume for the rest of the blogs that they are a mish-mash of time frames. I stopped writing actively on day...uh...four, I believe.
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