Lawyerish

Taking Flight

In terms of Big Adventures, the grand finale of our Hawaii trip was a helicopter tour of Kauai.  As you've probably gathered by now, I am not the world's most daring individual, nor am I exceptionally fond of flying as a general matter.  I'd never been anywhere near a helicopter, let alone on one; but everyone stressed over and over again how insanely awesome this experience was and how essential it would be to our exploration of Kauai, since so much of the island is either privately owned or inaccessible by any other means.  Still, I was nervous about it -- nervous that I'd get sick or freak out or possibly die -- and after booking the excursion, I came close to canceling it about 250 times.  

Well, thank God I didn't.  It was one of the best things I've ever done.  EVER.  

We boarded our Eco-Star helicopter along with a family of four from Miami (I was somehow comforted that people would bring their kids on the flight; it made it seem safer, as if we couldn't crash if there were children aboard) and donned noise-canceling headsets that allowed us to hear the pilot narrating the tour as well as the music that he piped in to accompany the scenery.

After a brief safety instruction, the pilot fired up the rotor and we lifted a few feet off the ground, hovered for a moment, then sailed forward and rose up into the sky.  That first moment when we left the ground, my mouth fell open and stayed that way thoughout the flight.  The sensation was one of the coolest things I've ever felt; it was like dream-flying, where you can dip and bank and hover as close to things as you want -- you could hardly sense that you were in any kind of mechanical implement because it was so smooth and seamless.  I can't express it, exactly; I imagine it's somewhere between a magic carpet ride and a flying car. 

And the scenery.  Oh, man.  Not five minutes into the flight, tears were pouring down my face.  Between the soaring feeling and the unbelievable views -- craggy ridges!  pounding waterfalls!  pure emerald green fields and forests!  rust-red canyons!  sapphire blue seas! -- it was all just too much to contain.  It was the most alive I'd felt in months, maybe in years. 

We swooped behind a mountain and descended through the low-hanging mist, and as the John Williams soundtrack filled our ears, the Jurassic Park waterfall appeared before us.  It felt like we could reach out and touch it.

We flew over Waimea Canyon and over the hiking trail we'd been on a couple of days before, and the scale of the Na Pali Coast became all the more jaw-dropping when seen from our new vantage point.  Other helicopters entering the valleys ahead of us looked like mosquitoes; birds were infinitesimally small. 

We saw beaches that can't be reached unless you land on them; we saw the distinctive peaks of Bali Hai; we saw Hanalei Beach (made famous by "Puff the Magic Dragon"); we saw Waialeale Crater, which is basically a huge ring of waterfalls coursing down the side of sheer cliffs covered in eye-popping greenery -- and all of it was insanely beautiful. 

It was all over too soon.  Much like the whole trip. 

(In case you haven't had enough already, full photo set is on Flickr.  And that's maybe half of the shots we actually took!)

Kauai Begins

Our last day on the Big Island, we did one last hike in Volcanoes National Park, which took us across yet another lava field, through some forest and up the side of an old cinder cone from a decades-old eruption.  The view from the top was awesome, and that was where I captured the rainbow in the last photo of the previous entry.  There were no unicorns in sight, unfortunately (to my ten-year old mind, rainbows and unicorns always went together -- I mean, obviously).

Later that day, we flew to Kauai and -- after an encounter with the rudest rental car clerk on the planet, who evidently had decided that I was an agent of the devil; she spoke snappishly to me, made us wait over an hour to get our car, and then acted as though I'd just pooped on her foot when I noted that the car had an engine problem and we'd need another (it was the only experience we had In Hawaii that was devoid of the famed Aloha Spirit) -- settled in at the Grand Hyatt in Poipu.  The resort is absolutely enormous; the grounds were beautiful, with waving palms and intensely colored flowers everywhere and a huge waterfall into a meandering lagoon, all positioned on a gorgeous stretch of beach with a coastline of lithified sand cliffs (yeah, I don't know what that is, either, but they looked really cool and that's what the guidebook said they were -- something about wind and sand; I'm not sure). 

The first day we planted ourselves on a couple of covered lounge chairs overlooking the beach and spent about 8 hours reading, sunning (or, in my case, huddling under towels to avoid any contact with UV rays whatsoever), swimming, watching the waves, and sucking down macadamia nut smoothies by the gallon.  Not a bad way to live.

The next day, we headed up to Waimea Canyon and Koke'e State Park to tackle the Nualolo Trail, a hiking extravaganza of 11 miles along some of Kauai's most spectacular ridges overlooking the Na Pali coast.  The trail goes out about 4 miles to a lookout point, and getting there was challenging at times; much of the trail sloped rather dramatically downward, so there was a lot of sliding and clutching at branches as we went through the forest down toward the ridge.  As we got closer to the lookout point, the terrain became drier and scrubbier, and parts of the trail involved butt-clenching foot-wide stretches where lost traction or balance would have resulted in a decisive thousand-plus-foot drop into the canyons below. 

It was worth it, though.

After making our way back a half-mile from the lookout point, we headed toward a different trail, the Nualolo Cliffs trail, which would take us across these ridges and then we'd take a third trail back up to Koke'e.  And then hike another 1.5 miles to our car. 

We went about a quarter-mile down the Cliffs trail, and then came across a sign warning us that the trail was washed out ahead, and that we should proceed at our own risk.  The first 25 feet of the trail just beyond the sign was this TINY section of loose dirt barely wider than my two feet that was slanted at a terrifying angle, with dizzying and deadly drop off to one side (and nothing to hang onto on the other).  I literally would have had to crawl to get across it, because standing on that and risking a slip of the foot was out of the question.  We considered it, and the fact that it might only get WORSE from there, and decided to turn back and go up the way we came down.

Well, THAT was fun, let me tell you.  It was so steep in parts that I had to sit down halfway up a section of incline and gasp for air until my heart stopped feeling as though it might remove itself from my body.  The day was also getting warmer, and we were running low on water, and ooof.  Things got dicey.  We thought that trail was never going to end.  FINALLY, after about fifty more hills than we'd remembered from the descent, we made it to the trailhead.  I almost kissed our car -- a conveyance other than our own feet and legs!  Imagine that! 

We drove around to check out some of the scenic views of Waimea Canyon, then busted a move back to the hotel, where hot showers and big fruity drinks awaited us.

Luaus and Lava

We went to a luau on the Big Island -- I mean, how could we go all that way and not, right?  It got off to a shaky start involving not one but two hot, bovine queues (one to check in, one to wait to be seated) comprised primarily of families with at least three children (more on that later -- Hawaii was absolutely awash in families with loads of kids, which wasn't tremendous for us considering the reason for our trip), not to mention that they'd run out of flower leis by the time we made it to the front so I had to settle for a sad shell one.  But after we sat down and were handed mai tais (strong ones -- and by the way, all of the waiters were men wearing nothing but sarongs and puka shell leis), things looked up.

We were seated across from two single women in their late twenties who turned out to be the daughter of one of the singers in the luau band and her coworker.  They were really cool and offered us some great tips about local stuff. 

The band played Hawaiian songs and then we watched the shirtless, saronged men haul the kalua pig out of the imu (basically an oven in the ground), and then we heaped food on our plates at the buffet and sat down to stuff our faces and watch the show.  The food was awesome (I am now going to be on a quest to find kalua pig in New York -- any leads? anyone?) and the show was, too.  It was a showcase of Hawaiian and Polynesian history and culture through music and dance, and it was much more...I don't know, serious, I guess? than I'd expected, demonstrating the anthropological significance of certain dances and songs and chants and...stuff.  And dude, the hula dancers sure can shake what their mamas gave them, holy wow, and the men did a lot of really cool chants and drumming and stomping about. 

There was also a fire-twirler.  (This is the only photo of the whole thing that came out; nighttime photography remains an elusive skill.)

(I feel like I'm doing the equivalent of inviting y'all over and then subjecting you to a five-hour slide show of my recent vacation -- is it that bad?  Is this intensely boring?  I'm not digging for compliments, I'm totally serious.  I feel like I'm boring you.  Of course, I've got to continue recapping until I'm done because at this stage of my life, if I don't write it down, I won't even remember that we WENT to Hawaii, much less what we did.)

So, ah, anyway.  On Easter Sunday, we drove to the other side of the island to Volcanoes National Park.  You ascend several thousand feet between two mountains and pass from the scrubby, dry side of the island to the bright yellow-green rainforesty side, while cutting through a ranching town that looks like it should be in Wyoming.  I almost drove us right off the road as we approached Hilo and tried to take in one spectacular view of the lush coast dropping off into the royal blue Pacific below after another.

In the park, we hustled off to this hike I wanted to do, which was maybe 4 or 5 miles through a jungle and then down into and across the floor of a massive crater, which resulted from a volcano eruption in 1959.  The crater was enormous and the landscape was like another planet, and all across the floor there were these vents emitting steam from the still-hot depths lurking below. 

That evening, we drove to see the current lava flow.  I'd seen photos of people walking within inches of flowing lava in our guidebook, but apparently today's eruption is unpredictable enough or emits enough toxic fumes that you can only see it from far away.  You park on this road that was destroyed by another eruption and hike across a rocky lava field and then pull up a seat to watch the fireworks as the lava hits the sea.  You can't really see the fiery glow until after dark, but you get the general idea here (again, after-dark shots didn't come out worth crap).

Afterward, we headed back to Volcano Village, a tiny town that's literally in the clouds much of the time and is lush with tangled jungle from the near-constant mist.  It was dinner time and after so much hiking and lava-viewing, we were starved.  It was also pouring rain and pitch black and we weren't always completely sure where we were.  We drove and drove and DROVE through the fog and rain and dark; we thought we were going to be in that car for the rest of our lives.  We were also concerned that, on Easter Sunday, in this tiny town in the clouds, there wasn't going to be much dinner to be found after 8pm. 

Well beyond our collective tolerance for driving under these conditions, we finally came upon the turn-off to Volcano Village.  We headed toward the little town, which was the opposite direction from our cabin; we had no idea how far down the road it was or what would be there when we found it. 

After a few minutes, a sign appeared, and then the warm glow of lights, and then a cozy white lodge came into view.  It was like a beacon for our poor, beleaguered souls.  I worried that we weren't dressed well enough or they'd already have stopped serving dinner, but we parked the car and scurried inside and were welcomed into a warm, wood-paneled room with a roaring fireplace and plenty of available tables.  We sat down and warmed ourselves with soup and Easter ham, and one of the hostesses set before me a tiny basket filled with chocolates.  I nearly wept with gratitude. 

The whole thing was so perfect that I am almost convinced that it doesn't really exist, that it was there for only one night, lit up and homey, and that the next morning if we'd driven by, we'd have only seen a rickety, broken-down building with smashed windows that was being reclaimed by the forest.

The Snorkel Debacle

I have decided that I would like to have a concierge available for use in my daily life.  I know it's not that difficult to make plans and dinner reservations and book stuff online anymore (although if the phone is involved, forget it; can't deal), but it's so much nicer to have someone do it for you.  I made full use of the concierges for this trip (I might not have, but they emailed me multiple times in advance of our visit and asked if they could help, so who am I to argue?), and wow, was that lovely. 

I suppose lawyer types used to (and sometimes still do) use their secretaries to do personal stuff like this, but I would feel like the world's biggest tool asking mine to call a restaurant to change our dinner time or to specify our preference for a table on the lanai.  Like, who am *I*?  She's not my personal assistant; I don't have an entourage, for pete's sake.  Anyway.  I don't think the personal concierge is up there with personal chef or on-call masseuse as the household staff I'd want most, but still. Tempting.  

One of the activities that's pimped on the Big Island is kayaking across a big, scenic bay to a monument dedicated to Captain Cook and then snorkeling the reef nearby.  We're no strangers to paddles and fins, so this seemed like an ideal way to spend a good chunk of one day -- see some cool fish, have some lunch on a lava beach, hang out with a guide and hear some local lore, that sort of thing.

It started out great; the day was warm but not too hot, and the morning mist that clung to the high hill overlooking the bay had begun to dissipate by the time we begun our crossing via kayak.  It was us, a guide, and a family of four from Seattle.  We'd hoped to see some spinner dolphins en route to the monument, but that didn't happen; we did see a nene, which is a peculiar-looking goose only found in Hawaii, and heard some good stories about Hawaiian history.  

When we got to the rocky shore on the other side of the bay, we negotiated some fairly exciting surf and pulled our kayaks onto land.  Our guide led us through the tidepools, showing us some of the sea life hanging out in there.  The footing was tricky at times, but all was well.  Then it was time to snorkel.

Once we were ready to roll, our guide had us clamber out to some rocks in about a foot of water; we were supposed to don our fins and then "float" through the shallows until we were out over the reef in deeper water.  Nice idea, except that the waves came pounding into the rocks about every ten seconds.  As soon as I sat down to put my flippers on, a giant wave socked into me, and I slid across the rock on my butt.  I slammed my hand down to try to balance myself, and the rock ripped my palm open.  It hurt like a bastard.  I was not thrilled, but didn't want to wimp out just because of a cut.

I managed to get my fins on and started to crawl out into the water, attempting to "float" over the rocks inches below.  Again, a series of huge waves crashed into me and it was like I was on a giant cheese grater as I was scrubbed over the rocks again and again.  I got big, bleeding scrapes on my thigh; my ankle bashed into some coral and welted up into a huge bruise; my shins looked like they'd been sprayed with pellets.  I did manage to get far enough over the reef to see some cool fish, but frankly, I've seen better snorkeling, in places that did not involve being repeatedly scrubbed over the shoreline and the reef itself.  I'm finicky that way.

The crowning touch was when it came time to exit the water; once again, we had to hoist ourselves onto a scraggly, sharp-edged rock in the direct line of the waves to take off our fins, and once again I was thrown hither and yon by the surf.  At that point, I'd HAD it, and when I skidded across the surface of the rock and my BUTT was scratched and scraped all to hell, I started screaming like my house was on fire.  Also, hysterically sobbing. 

Joe, the guide, and the dad from the family of four all made their way over to me and helped pull me through the surf and over the rocks and back onto the lava beach (after which I noticed that the dad had a massive gash in his own leg, which was weeping blood into the ocean, so I felt real cool having my massive overreaction over a few scrapes).  I managed to calm down once I was safely ashore, and the guide helped me put Neosporin on my cuts (I took care of the ones on my butt; that would be going a bit beyond the call of duty), then we ate lunch on the warm rocks and the situation improved. 

Kayaking back in the rain with open butt-wounds while sitting in a pool of salt water and having to paddle on choppy surf with ripped-up hands was not a highlight of the trip, but we eventually made it back across the bay and then on the way back to Hualalai we found a little antiques store that sold Tropical Dreams Macadamia Nut Ice Cream (I don't think I fully appreciated macadamia nuts before this, but now I am mildly obsessed with them), and finally we were back in the warm embrace of the Four Seasons, where we sat out on our terrace overlooking the lagoon and the ocean beyond and ate burgers and drank beers, and all was well. 

Next up: we hike a volcano and see live lava flowing, and are saved from death by starvation at a restaurant that I could swear was fashioned by God above. 

Return from Paradise

For years, I resisted the idea of a Hawaii vacation; I imagined a chain of islands covered in high-rise hotels and awash in bloated tourists wearing loud shirts and fanny packs.  I have heard that Waikiki Beach is, in fact, pretty overdeveloped and overcrowded; but I couldn't have been more wrong about the Big Island or Kauai. 

Sure, there were lots of other tourists there, but it didn't matter.  There was so much to see and do beyond parking ourselves on the beach (though we did plenty of that, too), so many diverse landscapes and gorgeous vistas, and on the whole it was really quite different from what I'd pictured (aside from the requisite palm trees and sunsets and tiki torches, which were all welcome parts of the landscape). 

Our plane touched down on the Big Island amid a vast lava field.  I think I may have shouted, "LOOK AT THE LAVA!" because, dude, how cool is that?  LAVA.  We'd hiked to the base of Arenal Volcano in Costa Rica and clambered along a relatively small strip of lava rocks, but on Hawaii it was, like, EVERYWHERE. 

I mean, that's the island -- it's basically a series of volcanoes and the land is hardened flows from those, so you've got these moon-like landscapes of black rock of all different textures and sizes and it is just so amazing.  Some of it still has wrinkles (a technical term) in it as if it had stopped flowing moments before, and some looks like cracked asphalt, and some is jagged and pumice-like in texture. 

Oh, and thank goodness I didn't pay $20 apiece for us to have a lei greeting at the airport, as I would have felt like a complete chump when we arrived at the hotel moments later and the woman who welcomed us placed a fragrant, fresh-flower lei around my neck and a kukui nut one around Joe's. 

The Four Seasons Hualalai was off the hook.  The grounds were almost impossibly edenic, the room was gorgeous and luxurious without being over the top (we even had an outdoor lava rock shower, plus the bath products were L'Occitane -- love), the food was fantastic, and the staff seemed like they would give you their firstborn if you'd asked.  Also, there were sea turtles basking on the beach almost all the time. 

It was overcast for the first day or two, but then it lightened up and the blue of the water was almost overpowering.  We explored some rocky black sand beaches and some wide, powder-soft beaches, and then on the second full day we went for a kayaking/snorkeling tour that I will tell you about next time. 

Suffice it to say for now, there were injuries involved, which (although they were minor) is not something I've experienced in my previous snorkeling excursions.  There also may have been hyperventilating and/or screaming.  And now I've built it up way too much, but at the time it was relatively unpleasant, but as low points go, it wasn't terribly low and the rest of the trip more than made up for a mildly distressing snorkel outing. 

More photos on Flickr!

Lawyerish: Out!

I'm out of here, y'all. 

Despite my usual practice of packing light (which invariably results in me borrowing or purchasing items I should have brought but tossed out of my suitcase at the last minute), I managed to stuff an entire giant rolling duffel bag with all my cover-ups, beachy dresses, hiking/zip-lining/helicopter riding clothes, vacation reading (The Wapshot Chronicles, The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit, Prep (second time around, love that freaking book), something by Elizabeth Berg that I can't remember, and Tom Perrota's The Abstinence Teacher) and 250 bottles of sunblock. 

I may have to throw something away if I buy any souvenir tiki idols or jars of macadamia nuts.  Or muu muus. 

On the other hand, there is always the possibility that I won't have to worry about suitcase space because I just won't come back.  Surely Hawaii must need more lawyers. 

See you in a couple of weeks, people.  Thanks for everything.  Really. 

Three! More! Days!

I know you've been waiting with bated breath to find out what I decided to do about a gradual, subtle tanning product to ready my translucent skin for the tropics.  After poring over your many suggestions, I went to our corner Duane Reade expecting to spend some time choosing between a number of options; but, because this is Duane Reade, they in fact had precisely one (1) item that fit my needs:  Nivea Sun-Kissed Firming Lotion (which they don't even have on drugstore.com, making me wonder if (again, because this is Duane Reade) it's a product that was discontinued years ago after causing several hundred people's skin to peel off in sheets).  

I slathered some on my legs after showering, shaving and exfoliating, making sure it was evenly applied and trying to avoid the dreaded streakiness/splotchiness of which many of you spoke.  Then, as I went about my day, I began to realize that something smelled...odd.  Sort of like meat.  As if I had rubbed hamburgers all over my legs. 

I tried it again the next day, and I actually started to see some subtle, non-orange, non-splotchy color -- plus since it's a lotion first and foremost, it feels like my regular moisturizer, not sticky or chalky, which I had feared -- but I couldn't get past the meat smell.  I would have expected perhaps a chemical-ish scent or maybe a cloying perfume, but HAMBURGER?  Really? 

Bottom line, I have suspended its use until we get to Hawaii, where I can slap on my sunblock over it and mask the smell with the usual beachy aroma of Neutrogena Dry Touch SPF 5,872. 

I can't tell you how ideal the timing of this trip is, since I just survived a more than hellish week at work and have been at such a mental/emotional low point lately that I felt on some days as if I were military-crawling through life, snaking my way along the pavement to and from the office.  My God, we need this.  I may actually weep and kiss the ground when we land in Kona. 

(Did you know, by the way, that they don't greet you with a lei when you get off the plane?  Evidently you can PAY someone $20 apiece to give you a Traditional Aloha Lei Greeting, but it's not like the Brady Bunch where it just happens automatically.  I feel slightly betrayed by this.)

In other news, I bought a pair of FitFlops.  I feel like kind of a goofball for buying them, but I swear I am not wearing them with even the remotest hope that they will tone my butt and strengthen my core.  No.  I bought them because I can't walk around that much in most flip-flops as they lack sufficient arch support for my pronate-y feet.  These have nice cushioning and support, and they look cute enough.  In fact, I took a long walk with the dog today and could have practically JOGGED in these bad boys.  For that comfort and longevity, it's worth suffering people's quiet judgment about my unrealistic hopes for body conditioning via flip flops. 

Assuming this week is not as brutal as last, I'll check in again before we jet away on Thursday morning.  Oh, happy day!