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HI

Hawaiian Adventures

One of the big questions I get is “Why Hawaii?” People usually understand the thirst for adventure, but not necessarily the destination. The last few days serve as a testament to the reasons why. 

All of the islands of Hawaii have their own reasons. We are presently on “the Big Island,” which is also called Hawaii. 

While most of our days are spent working on the farm, we are able to go exploring on our days off. Fortunately, we met a wonderful friend, Alyssa, who lives in Kona. She had the secret ingredient to exploring: a car! With our contagious sense of adventure, we made a solid team. This time, we headed south.
THE POOL

Our first stop was a temperate swimming pool just inland of the ocean. Only a small barricade bridged the gap. It was the perfect place to swim, as the water was warmer and calmer than the usual rip roar of the sea. We swam around a while, and Alyssa had brought her new mask, so we were able to snorkel some too. Although it was not as impressive as the reef we snorkeled in last week, it was fun to look for shells and swim with the fish. One of the locals had brought some pretzels for the fish to snack on, so we were able to see a school of tangs, flitting about. “You should see them when I bring an avocado!” he told us. Maybe one day.

THE BEACH

After the pool, we stopped at Uncle Robert’s. While it used to be quite a bit smaller, it still has a fairly quaint community feel to it. There was plenty of laughter, good food, and a few friendly pups there too. We got a smoothie bowl, picked up a hitchhiker, and headed to our next destination – Kehena Beach. This was a fairly secluded black sand beach. It was a fairly steep hike down to a shoreline of about 75 yards, with lava rock cliffs along the back of the beach. People were scattered about, playing instruments, swimming, and sunbathing. It was a beautiful place to enjoy the Kai (ocean water). Oh, and another unique aspect of Kehena Beach, it was clothing optional.


It was a pretty primal and wonderful experience. The environment felt mostly safe and non-judgemental. As I have said, my bucket list is shrinking every day.

THE LAVA

Our final destination for the day was one of the main reasons for coming to Hawaii – the lava! A popular spot to enter Volcanoes National Park is from the front entrance toward the crater, which costs $20 per vehicle. That sounds cool, and we plan to come visit there soon. Instead, we went in the back entrance. It’s free, but you have to work for it. The hike from the parking lot was around four miles each way. It is a pretty unusual sight on the way in. The land is barren and unlike anything I have seen, recent mounds and patterns of dried lava. 


Sure, I see lava here all the time, old lava. Lava rocks cover the earth here almost everywhere. This lava rock was fresher, blacker, and looked like an enormous pan of brownies, fresh from the oven. Walking down the road, we saw several homes built on the terrain. One even had a cooler set up by the road to sell cool drinks. Even with a bike rental at the parking lot, most people were having a tough time getting down the road in the heat. Most days are only in the 80s (Farenheit), but the sun beating down and radiating off of the black lava field did not make it any cooler. We entered the park along the way and after the four miles, turned to head toward the lava flow. I felt the heat before I saw it. Although it was not the explosively erupting giant pits of lava you might see on National Geographic (thankfully, I might add), it was pretty amazing to see. The sense of power you get from experiencing the raw heat of nature is pretty humbling. 


Here, I am basking in the heat and glory of When I have access Wifi, I will try to post a video of the lava flow.

It was so great to experience Hawaii in its raw form. The walk back, though tiring, was exhilarating. Still full of wonder, we watched the clouds turn as the sun set and the moon rose, and that moment alone was worth all the trouble of getting here. 

HI

First Week

Our first week on the Fire Island Kids goat farm and things are going well, all things considered. 

Goats are some of the more mischievous pets one can own, and they are always trying to escape or cause trouble in one way or another. One of my projects this first week was working on new shelters for the male goats. It rains here most afternoons, so they need some protection, but they destroy things quickly – I thought I was tough on gear. Because the shelters are heavy once they are built, I was assembling them inside the goat pen. While I was building, they were trying to tear it apart. Every time I turned around, they were climbing on top and knocking it over, or knocking the tools and screws all over the place – and then acting innocent, of course. 


We also discovered that goats (non-fixed goats, I should say) and chickens make a lot of noise. Chickens especially tend to make noise with little motivation. If one lays an egg, it screams about it. If one is about to lay an egg, it announces as much loudly. Sometimes, they will cluck and holler for no reason, and other times they will join in with others making a racket. Fortunately, we have some earplugs, as we are staying in the loft of the barn. 

After working for a week, Andrea and I took our weekend up north to Spencer Beach to go camping. Unlike our camping adventures in Michigan, the weather was in the eighties and sunny during the days, and in the high sixties (Farenheit). We were able to simply hang our hammocks, no sleeping pads or anything, and sleep right on the ocean breeze. It was a perfect night. 

After hiking around and exploring the area, we saw a couple of historic heiaus – historic temples. These specific ones were pretty important and sacrificial temples, one of which (Luakini) was the temple that King Kamehameha built to fulfill the prophecy of ruling all the islands, where human sacrifices also took place. 

Although we would love a car to explore the island more efficiently, we gained some experience taking the bus around and hitch-hiking. Before living here, Andrea had never hitched. She said she would still just hitch with me but is feeling much more comfortable about it. I would like to do an informational post about hitch-hiking because I think it is often misunderstood, but in Hawaii, the hitch-hiking community is pretty great. A lot of people hitch around until they get a car of their own, so they are more likely to give rides once they do. Where I would try to hitch for hours in some places on the mainland, I can get a ride within a few minutes here. With any hitching though, traveling takes longer than usual, so we spent a good portion of our weekend exploring parts of the island on the go. 


A lot of the island is barren and not what most people would call “beautiful,” but it is an incredibly unique part of the world, and the big island alone contains 8 of the 13 climate zones. Even when it seems like lava rock is everywhere, there are some of the wettest spots here too (Kauai hosts the world’s wettest), so there is plenty of life. 

There is plenty of life here on the farm too. Every day brings excitement and new skills to be learned. Life is simpler here in many ways, but it feels great to be adventuring again.