tsunami pier (meh)
lunch at Ken's
came back and took a nap (YES)
Slept until 7 and then went to dinner (Pineapples for the worst service EVER)
That was it, what a whirlwind.
I've made it clear that I plan trips pretty fucking well. Like, when Derek and I determine that we're going somewhere, I start doing research into where we should visit, what we should eat, what times are best to take photos of any specific thing, the usual. When we were living on the mainland, I would look for abandoned things to check out, asking my fellow urbexers if there was something I shouldn't miss the opportunity to explore. I really dive in because I know my time in any given place is super limited, and the likelihood of me going back to these places is slim to none. I have to make the most of it.
For Hawaii, the first thing I found that I KNEW Derek and I needed to go to was Papakōlea Beach. Now, Derek and I like to go to the beach here on island. We love a good day spent at Waimea (thanks for ruining that, CORONA), but before we went to Maui, we agreed that it would be silly to go to a beach there because we have an entire island of beaches here. We felt the same way about big island. Do we want to spend time lounging at the beach? Yes! Are we going to waste travel time on that? No. No we are not. So when I say that I knew we had to go to Papakōlea, it should tip you off that there's something incredibly special about this beach.
It's a green sand beach.
For really real green sand. There are only four green sand beaches in the entire fucking world: Talofofo Beach, Guam
Punta Cormorant, Floreana, Galapagos Islands
Hornindalsvatnet, Norway
Papakōlea, Hawaii island, Hawaii
A short lesson in what makes them green? Olivine. These beaches are fucking lousy with the shit. Olivine is heavier than the other elements eroding in the cinder cone, so it stays put while the other shit just washes away, leaving a lovely green beach.
A thing in the world that's exceptionally rare, that also isn't terribly touristy (it's trafficked, for sure, but it's not as touristy as, say, Waikiki), with a great hike and stellar views? Sign me the fuck up. I'm exceptionally privileged, and I am aware of this, so I want to make sure I experience the most interesting things I can with my mobility. Papakōlea is more than the once in a lifetime thing that, like, going to Maui is. Papakōlea also offered unique rarity. Not many people can say they've been to a green sand beach. I can count myself among the relative few. I told Derek I'd love to go to the other three so I can say I've been to all of them....if we get Germany, I'm definitely aiming to visit the one in Norway. Galapagos may be hard to swing, but I'm not dead yet. We'll see how the chips fall.
A note on colored sand beaches:
The world is fucking FULL of beaches with wild colors of sand. Again, I count myself exceptionally lucky to have visited a red sand beach, a black sand beach, a white sand beach, a grey sand beach, and a green sand beach. Plus more sand colored sand beaches than I can count. I've added purple, pink, and turmeric orange to my bucket lists. If you're interested in looking at some places that have colorful beaches, check out this list, inexplicably curated by Business Insider. I've been to several of the places on it.
I want to make another note about extreme points of the united states, because I got kind of sucked in to a list of them and was stupidly delighted to learn that I have visited a fucking massive amount of the most extreme points in America. I told Derek that I felt kind of cool to have visited so many different colored sand beaches when most people have only been to beige sand beaches, but that I felt lame for feeling cool. He told me that I shouldn't feel lame at all, it's kind of an interesting conversation piece. So I'm just going to go ahead and lean right the fuck on in to that and share the most extreme points of the united states that I've been to.
Of the northernmost extreme points, I have visited:
Seattle, Washington: the northernmost city of over 500,000 residents in the US
Chicago, Illinois: the northernmost city of over 1,000,000 residents in the US (never would have guessed!)
Most of the extreme northernmost points in America are in Alaska, which should come as a surprise to precisely nobody. Minnesota and Washington also have extreme points, and while I've been to Washington, I have no idea WHERE I've been in Washington, since my experience there was a pop in, pop out kind of deal.
Of the southernmost extreme points, I have visited:
Ka Lae, Hawaii: Southernmost point in the united states
Nā'ālehu, Hawaii: Southernmost town in the united states
Hilo, Hawaii: southernmost city of over 25,000 residents in the US
City and county of Honolulu, HI: Southernmost incorporated place in the US (Hawaii's only incorporated place...which I didn't know! Neat!)
Key West, Florida: Southernmost incorporated place in the contiguous united states
Miami, Florida: the southernmost major metropolitan city in the contiguous united states
San Antonio, Texas: southernmost city of more than 500,000 residents in the us
Of the easternmost extreme points, I have been to ONE place:
Boston, Massachusetts: Easternmost city of more than 500,000 residents in the united states
Most of the easternmost points belong to the US Virgin Islands and Maine, but a surprise was seeing Alaska on the easternmost points list. What a funky list of extremes!
Westernmost points:
Eureka, California: westernmost city of more than 25,000 residents in the contiguous states
Portland, Oregon: westernmost city of more than 500,000 residents in the United States
San Jose, California: westernmost city of more than 1,000,000 residents in the United States
The big players in the westernmost extremes for the US are, no surprise, Washington, Oregon, and Alaska, though Hawaii does make the cut as having the westernmost geographic center in the us.
Highest and lowest points:
Mount Elbert, Colorado: highest point on the Continental Divide of North America
Mauna Kea, Hawaiʻi: highest island summit in all U.S. territory and the entire Pacific Ocean
Winter Park, Colorado: highest city limits in all U.S. territory
San Juan County, Colorado: highest U.S. county based on a mean elevation
Alma, Colorado: highest town in all U.S. territory
Leadville, Colorado: highest city in all U.S. territory
Woodland Park, Colorado: highest city of more than 5,000 residents in all U.S. territory
Santa Fe, New Mexico: highest city of more than 50,000 residents and highest state capital in all U.S. territory; highest state capitol in the United States
Colorado Springs, Colorado: highest city of more than 100,000 residents in all U.S. territory
Denver, Colorado: highest major city of more than 500,000 residents in all U.S. territory
Colorado: highest U.S. state based on an average elevation of 6,800 feet (2,100 m)
Eisenhower Tunnel, west of Denver, Colorado: highest point on the Interstate Highway System
9th Ward of New Orleans, Louisiana: lowest surface point in eastern United States, at −7 feet
New Orleans, Louisiana: lowest city over 250,000 population in all U.S. territory and Western Hemisphere, with an average elevation of −1.5 feet
As a caveat, two of the highest places I've technically been to, but not been TO. Mauna Kea...I've been to the base, but not the summit. Same with Mount Elbert. Been to the base, but not the summit. I think I still get them on a technicality, but in the interest of full disclosure, I haven't been to the top of these places. I'll let the lawyers decide what counts and what doesn't.
That was a fun deviation for me! Sorry if it sucked for you.
Getting back on track here. I would say I can't believe that I wasted so much of my blog on meaningless shit, but honestly, this is ALL meaningless shit to everybody but me, so fuck it.
Derek and I woke up at 5 am, packed our gear up and left by 5:15, then made the two hour drive to Ka Lae, the southernmost tip of the island (and as my stupid list above demonstrates, the southernmost region of the entire united states. Neat!) so we could begin our hike.
The weather wasn't really all that great, and we knew that going in but decided to hedge our bets and not miss out on the beach JUST IN CASE the weather ended up being nice. When we got out of the car, the sky was grey and cloudy, the wind was fairly whippy, and the air was ALMOST cold. It teetered on cold precipitously, but didn't quite make the plunge. Being the idiots that we are, we made our way onto the 2.5 mile trail...without sunscreen, and without water. Fucking morons.
The trail up to the beach was silent, cool, and quite nice. We were alone, all we could hear was each other, the wind, and the waves crashing against the rocks.
I won't lie to you...I took literally DOZENS of photos of the trail as we walked it. Both to AND fro. The light was completely different on the way back because the sun DID make an entrance (and I did get a sunburn since I am a feckless fucking idiot and didn't bring sunscreen for the return trip), and it made such a difference in the terrain, but really...almost all of it looks like these shots. Here we are, about a mile into the way there:
But it really isn't all that dissimilar from the start of the trail. Though the terrain did get a lot more grassy the closer we got to the beach, which I find odd, in retrospect:
If you look in the mid-left corner, you can see the tippy top of the rock formation at the edge of the cinder cone where the green sand is!! I was so elated when I saw that cresting over the horizon, even though I felt fucking BAD about our chances of having a rain-free walk back to the car. It was really threatening to storm, at least that's what the meteorologist in my anxiety addled brain was screaming at me. And then....
...we were....
THERE!!!!! I was so fucking excited to see the beach, and then my excitement was momentarily dashed to discover were were not the only people on the beach as I had hoped we might be, leaving at such an hour. But it was just a small group of three and us, so really, not bad at all.
The view behind was? Pure fucking sci fi.
This entire place was pure sci fi. I didn't edit the colors in these photos at all. It's fucking wild.
It's almost 9 am when this photo was taken, and there was zero sunshine to speak of, so the landscape, while impressive on its own merits, LOOKS blah as fuck.
But fuck if I wasn't excited to get down to the beach. The way down to the beach looked a little daunting, from where I was, and then....
I saw that it wasn't, aside from the staircase that may have been more effective if it had just been a slide.
Down through the vagina caverns I went! And then, I was at the bottom. Right at the beach, where I was met with a sign:
If you're reading this and planning a trip to the beach, DO NOT TAKE THE FUCKING SAND. That shit doesn't belong to you. I know mother fuckers are taking this shit, and it isn't yours, it's everyone's. So stop being selfish and fucking leave it alone.
GREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEN SANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNND!!
Mahalo for no graffiti, but I guess old ass rope and fishing line and whatever is fucking fine?
PS IT ISN'T, CLEAN THE FUCK UP AFTER YOURSELVES AND STOP MAKING OTHER PEOPLE DO IT.
We didn't bring the tripod, either. We really and truly are forgetful and moronic. I did my best with a rock and a firm grip, but these long exposures aren't as tack sharp as I wanted them to be, and my options for where I could take long exposures was pretty limited without my tripod.
How fucking cool is this shit? Green fucking sand. Green sand!!! For really real!!
I had wandered around down at the bottom for quite some time, while Derek had been meandering around at the top. I was starting to feel really thirsty and hot, so I was going to make the trek back to the car all by myself. Then, I thought better against it and instead made my way around to take photos of the other side of the bay.
The sun had finally come out, but I really was starting to overheat. Given how finicky my dumb dumb body has been since I fried my brain at Pedernales Falls a few years ago, I have to be VERY careful about how hot I allow my body to get. There is no place to get shade on the way back to the car, either. Derek suggested I take a dip in the water, because it was nice and calm and it DID look inviting, but I didn't bring a change of clothes with me and I didn't want to be covered in mud dust on the way back. So I just waited it out.
Now. The olivine that makes the sand super green is ALSO littered in the lava rocks all over the bay. We noticed them on the way in, but I wanted to get down to the beach first. While Derek was still down at the beach would be a perfect time to get in all of my macro attempts of all the shiny greens in the rocks.
There's a place here on Oahu called Diamond Head, and the short story for the name was the top of the crater glittered so much that the colonizers thought it was covered in diamonds. It wasn't, just olivine. So if you ever hear the term Hawaiian Diamond, it's some form of olivine, like Peridot. Or just olivine itself. Anyway, the rocks here glittered in the same way that I imagine Diamond Head glittered to the greedy Europeans when they set foot on the islands. Just look:
Isn't it beautiful?? I kinda wish I had had some water so I could have "polished" these up a little bit, but they're still plenty lovely as a dusty green mineral in a dusty black rock.
While I will lecture people to no fucking end about removing the sand because it belongs to all of us, it WAS hard for me to not take this little handful I gathered for photos. It's just so pretty. I didn't take it, of course, but the temptation was there.
Derek caught up with me and we started heading back...hot, tired, waterless, sunscreenless, hot, and waterless, plus hot. It wasn't overcast anymore, and the heat was picking up even though it was only about 10:30am.
Coming from the green sand to the vibrantly orange dune-like landscape of the...whatever kind of landscape it was we were hiking back on? This photo isn't edited at ALL. Nothing. Not even cropped. Look. How. Fucking. ORANGE.
Does this count as having been to a turmeric orange sand beach??? Maybe it should. This shit is WILD.
I found this little piece of driftwood, and I really liked it. This place is so fucking full of texture!!!
WHAT FUCKING PLANET AM I ON???????
One last goodbye to Papakōlea. I wish I had been there with more sun, and more tripod, but what a fucking sight to behold regardless.
Back to the wild plains of Hawaii:
Again, not edited, nothing done to this at all, and it is just the fucking orangest orange that ever oranged.
There's a scene in my very favorite literature movie adaptation (sorry, Little Women. I just read LM Montgomery more often, and Anne Shirley is better than Jo March. Although....I am open to debating if Gilbert Blythe is better than Theodore Lawrence. You know what...no, I'm not. Gilbert Blythe wins every time. He was my first literature crush. Laurie can suck it), Anne of Green Gables, where she and Diana Barry are standing on these beautiful cliffs, looking out over the edge of PEI, and the wind is sweeping the....fuckin...wheat? I have no idea what it is, something tall and wispy and wheaty looking...but the light is very warm and most of the way back really reminded me of that scene in the movie adaptation. Which obviously I couldn't share with Derek, as he thinks those movies are lame as fuck and obviously he never read the books to understand why I love them so.
The many many tire track paths didn't remind me of Anne of Green Gables, though. That reminded me that people are super lazy.
For as long as we were walking along the plains, we were abruptly met by more alien landscape:
Nothing looked like anything. Everything was so strange looking, even seeing the ocean provided little sense of being able to contextualize the landscape.
We made it back to the car, drank a fuckload of water, I used a portapotty that...well, some monster took a shit in the urinal instead of the literal shitter hole. Like...who the fuck are these people?? On the way back to the hotel, Derek and I saw a blown out pier/bridge that we thought looked really fucking cool, so we tracked down how to get to it, circled back, and took the little jaunt out to it. It WAS really cool, but unfortunately, my photos do it zero justice.
A small bit of history on this pier:
From the best research I could do, the pier was built in the1880s to aid in the sugar industry on the islands (booooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo). Here it is, circa 1880 (thank you, Jackie Caplan-Aurbach for keeping up this page!)
After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the military was like, "alright, these fuckos aren't going to fuck up anymore of our shit, NOT IF WE CAN HELP IT!" and then they promptly fucked up their OWN shit, bombing the honu'apo pier. Take that, Japan!!!
We really showed them. One can never be too careful!
It was rebuilt after the war (just...what a fucking waste of material. All around), and then in 1960, a tsunami hit that just devastated the pier (Hilo, too. If you're keeping score) and that was the final nail in the pier's coffin. Those brilliant minds that blew it up to save it were like, fuck it, let it crumble into dark mother ocean and we can wash our hands of it. And that is the shorthand of the dumbest story of a pier that I've ever heard to date.
It was really cool to explore it, though! I found this neat little rotted out stump. It looked like a melted candle!
EAT MY ROT, YANKEE CANDLE!
There's my hot hot husband, taking photos of a little hermit crab (it was super cute).
I REALLY loved this little cave opening. It looked like a mouth, and I was instantly sad I couldn't do any mermaid shots on it. I have a cave here that I'm aching to try a mermaid shoot on. I guess when all of this coronavirus nonsense is over? Whenever that is.
Hawaii island has all of these signs up that let you know when you are leaving and entering a tsunami evacuation zone, which is not at all terrifying. As Derek and I left Whittington Beach Park, I was not at all sad to leave the tsunami evacuation zone behind. Byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.
We were absolutely starving, so we made our way to this shitty looking diner called Ken's. Whenever we drove by it was always packed, we had read that it was amazing, and the run down look of the outside made me positive this greasy spoon was going to be a highlight of our food tour of the island.
It. Fucking. WAS.
First of all, the menu is so fucking huge that looking through everything takes at least 20 minutes.
You can't tell, but this menu is literally 7 pages long.
I wanted that snowcrab omelette, but there were too many quotes and asterisks and I wasn't sure what was going to be what. So I opted instead for a NY Strip, eggs, cottage cheese, and....
KIMCHI. Literally the best fucking kimchi I've had in a restaurant that doesn't specialize in Korean food. If it hadn't been 2 dollars for the tiniest little morsel of kimchi, I would have ordered about eight more dishes of it. It was so fucking delightful.
Just glorious.
As you might imagine, we were fucking exhausted from our five plus mile jaunt that morning, and our jaunt around the pier, and our gastrointestinal jaunt around Ken's, so we headed back to the hotel for a nap and to catch up with Gabriel. We brought him lunch, we napped until about 7pm, and then we woke up and needed to go eat more food, but we had no idea where to go. Derek suggested Pineapple's again, and I said that was fine, so off we went. Now, Derek says he suggested Pineapple's in jest. That he was not interested in returning there at all, he found it overpriced for what you got (fair) and that the food was middling at best (at BEST). I had the same opinion, but when I said sure and he didn't assure me he was kidding, we both just went with it.
And had a terrible time.
I ordered the poke again, and then I ordered the mahi mahi salad with almost EVERYTHING removed, and none of their sesame ginger dressing, just ranch on the side. Instead of that, they brought me my salad with everything on it, including the dressing, AND ranch on the side. Aw! Thoughtful! So many extras! It took literally thirty minutes for the server to come back and check on us (we get that he was busy, but thirty minutes seems absolutely absurd), I reordered, and then they brought me ALL the dressings on the side. Which was very funny, and seemed a little passive aggressive, but I laughed for sure. So did Derek.
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