Green your Beach

Papakolea beach gets its green sand from a cider cone
that has a high content of olivine, a mineral mixture of 
magnesium iron silicate. Volcanic eruptions on this island
contain differing concentrations of olivine, which can be
used as a tag to determine the date and source of the lava. 

KA LAE, HAWAI'I, December 26, 2016—According to the locals, high-season for tourism begins the day after Christmas in Hawai'i and continues through April each year. With Papakolea Beach (aka, "The Green-Sand Beach") being one of the top tourist draws on the Big Island of Hawai'i—one of the Big Three must-see destinations—we thought we'd test this statement by heading to the southernmost point on the island to check out the beach, which gets its unique color from a cinder cone that is rich in Ovaltine, the signature drink of the Christmas season made famous in the movie, A Christmas Story, which played continuously for 24 hours the day before on cable television.

The rental car agent had warned us not to go there. He said the vehicle would be pillaged by hostile locals. We disregarded his advice and found ourselves at the parking area amidst a sea of tourists, most of them dismayed by the fact that regular vehicles cannot drive to the Green Sand Beach, and traveling there requires a two-and-a-half-mile walk along the coastline in buffeting winds. A hoarde of industrious locals had set up shop to cater to the lazy. For $15 to $20 a head, they'd drive you out to the beach in their 4x4 pickups. Business was brisk. There was more green exiting tourist wallets this day than grains of sand on the beach.

On our walk to the beach, we had helped a Japanese family navigate their large 4x4 rental SUV over some of the more treacherous spots in the road, but we lost sight of them about halfway along. Once we got to the beach, two young boys approached us and thanked us for helping their family navigate the giant vehicle.

"So you made it?" I asked with excitement.

"No," the older boy said. "Our father parked the car, so we ran here."

In which I face off with a big wave at the Green Sand
Beach.

Last time we had come here was a decade earlier. There were a half a billion fewer people on the planet back then, and the difference was apparent. While we previously had shared the beach with four other people, when we topped the overlook after our hour-long overland journey this year, we saw that the beach was packed to the gills with tourists.

Down on the beach, the waves were huge. People from Europe ate wraps and drank dairy products, while Asian tourists frolicked in the sand, kicking up clouds of green silica particles that were carried by the fearsome winds into every nook, cranny, and orifice of our bodies, as well as into the European lunches. Despite the winds, the smell of stale beer hung heavy in the air at the northern edge of the beach, and abandoned, forgotten, or discarded articles of clothing flapped helplessly in the wind along the cliff face above us. 

I waded into the pounding surf. The sea was roiling so much that the water was dark brown, apparently because the Ovaltine was being mixed so well in the surf. I wondered whether the Europeans had mixed some of the sand in with their dairy drinks to create a vitamin-packed chocolate-flavored treat. The undertow was harsh, so I forgot about the European drinks and I swam for only a few minutes, keeping my eye on the shoreline. The parade of people in and out of the beach area during that time rivaled the crushes of humanity who entered and exited shopping malls across the country in search of post-Christmas bargains.

We climbed back up to the rim of the beach, where I changed out of my snorkeling shirt. One of the Hawaiian locals in one of the shuttle trucks noticed my massive girth and offered to drive me back to the parking lot for $10. I thumped my chest. "Kamehameha!" I grunted. He winced and ran away.

We took a slight detour on the walk back that took us close to the shoreline. Just off the coast I noticed a pair of whales among the white caps. We watched them with binoculars for 15 minutes, marveling at their size and grace. As we neared the parking lot, a large Hawaiian woman nearly ran us down in her truck full of tourists. A monstrously fat man grinned and slapped his knee at the spectacle of me stumbling to escape the front wheel of the vehicle that was being steered by the Mammon-intoxicated woman.

"You pussies," I hissed at the group of riders.

The green sand was actually a little greener in a little
inlet just south of Papakolea Beach.

We told a walking Japanese couple and a nice family from North Dakota who had set out on the road about the whales we had seen, and they thanked us profusely. I knew that the hope of seeing a whale spout would drown out some of the monotony of the walk and the wind and the crowds. A sad-looking woman asked us, "was it worth it?"

"Hell yes!" I said.

Back at Ka Lae—the southern tip of the island, with the next stop being Antarctica—the ocean below the cliff shimmered like topaz. A pair of buff local boys snorkeled in the blue pool, and a retired marine named Mark told us about the fishing and hunting opportunities on the Big Island as he tended to the two poles he had cast off the coastal cliff. Later we tasted coffee from the Kau district of the Island before driving back north. It was delicious.

While we are certainly here during the high season, any place that has warm tropical winds, brilliant blue waters, tasty coffee, and sweet exotic fruits beats a day at the mall on the mainland. The green sand was stuck in my memory and contrasted with the bright red poinsettias we see growing wild here. It was a great way to round out the Christmas season.

See you on down the road.

Island Bounty

December 25, 2016, WAIKALOA, HAWAI'I—If you are a coffee lover, the Big Island of Hawai'i is a great place. Just a few miles down the coast from where we are staying, there are terrific coffee farms that grow 100 percent Kona coffee. When we picked up our rental car, Jeffrey the agent told us to buy local as much as possible to support the local economy.

We eat an enormous amount of food, said one person.

"Oh, and don't go to Starbucks," he said as we exited the building. "There's so much good local coffee that there's no need to go to Starbucks."

Nevertheless, yesterday, as I went to the market to get some local eggs for breakfast, the Starbucks was jam packed with people eating muffins and drinking huge silos of coffee or people gripping Venti Frappacinos. The price of two of those drinks would have bought nearly a half a pound of fine Kona coffee at the market that was just a stone's throw away.

"Drink local coffee," I said to a quartet of handsome dudes dressed in mainland fashions that they had obviously painstakingly selected for their honeymoons on the island.

"How rude!" one of the Style Boys retorted.

And perhaps it was, so I went home and pondered the matter over another cup of delicious Kona coffee as we prepared eggs and island potatoes. 

The locals sniffed out Captain Cook, decided he was

not a God, so they bludgeoned him to death near

here. This is the true price of fear.

For the gaggle of gay men, the coffee advice dispensed to them by an aging fat man with a sunburn who was wearing an ensemble from Kohl's probably made about as much sense to them as the story of Kamehameha I's rise to power that was written in the Hawaiian language on a plaque at the nearby Pu’ukohala Heiau National Historic Park did to me. Although there are only 13 letters in the Hawaiian language, they are all still very confusing—at least to English speakers.

What was not confusing is how, no matter where you go, mankind seems to build political and social structures that end up with the ordinary doing all the work and paying all the taxes so that the rich and privileged can continue to maintain the lifestyles to which they are accustomed without lifting a finger. Thirteen letters or not, that was the bottom line of the Kamehameha story. It's no wonder the term "Big Kahuna" remains in the English and Hawaiian lexicons nearly 300 years after the Beefy King's rise to power. Kamehameha was named king after he hefted a giant stone, fulfilling a prophesy that bamboozled the superstitious commoners into accepting "unification" that eventually turned them into slaves for the wealthy and powerful. We've seen the same thing today with the appointment of Donald J. Trump as our new leader. He pulled off a miracle, and now the ordinary rabble will march through fire against their own better judgment, working against their own best interests, for at least the next four years.

Big-Island breakfast

As we drove down the coast, I wondered whether President Obama, ensconced for Christmas with his family on a nearby island, was having a similar revelation.

The sight of a whale spout in the brilliant blue waters just off the coast shook me from my stuporous thoughts, so we pulled over and prepared to hike down to the shore—which was about a mile away downhill over unsteady lava-strewn terrain. Just as we departed, a vehicle full of young Hawaiian hooligans—all drinking Carling Black Label at 11 a.m.—made me reconsider our idea. 

"You've got quite a journey ahead of you, Brah," the driver said.

I walked up to the passenger side window. The young woman's eyes were nearly closed, the side effect of morning beers and an intense seaside Wake-'n-bake session, most likely. The couple in the back of the 4x4 vehicle giggled at me. How rude, I thought to myself. The occupants eyed our rental car as I looked on the ground at the patches of broken window glass from previously parked vehicles.

"Yeah, I've never seen whales before," I said. "About how far is it to the shoreline?"

"About half an hour, Brah."

"Good to know. Mele Kalikimaka!"

The sushi rocks at Sushi Rock!

They watched us walk toward the beach in their rear-view mirror. After they got on the road, we turned around and went back to our car.

"They'll be back just after we're out of sight and our car will be ruined," I said to Caroline, motioning to the shattered and pillaged vehicle that had been abandoned at the edge of the road below us. Broken glass, tires, and various remnants of fabric and plastic lay haphazardly next to the useless hulk. We made the decision to find a better spot for whale watching. 

Sure enough, about five minutes down the road, we saw the gray SUV and its occupants heading back down main highway toward where we had been.

We were hungry and anxious to celebrate Caroline's birthday, so we stopped in Hawi for some sushi and a cool drink. The Sushi Rock restaurant was fantastic in every way, and one of the waitresses wore a Santa hat with a faux leopard-skin fringe. Mele Kalikimaka, indeed! We ate a chef's choice sushi special, which meant they shoveled a mystery array of delicious rolls our way—44 pieces in all. It was the perfect choice for Caroline's special day.

We made our way north toward the end of the road. After visiting Pololu beach—a big hike that attracts many to the parking lot high above the valley, but not nearly as many to the stony black beach below—we headed back south for dinner. We had stocked up on tons of local comestibles at the farmer's market in Kona a day earlier, so each of our meals have been fresh feasts. A papaya, passion fruit and local lime makes for a lovely breakfast, and stir-fry is easy and plentiful here. In between we snack on nuts, local breads, and island-distilled spirits. Not only is this place a paradise for the eyes, but for the stomach as well.

The black beach at Pololu, near the northern tip
of the Big Island

Some while back when we first visited the Big Island, a friend of ours remarked that we "eat an enormous amount of food." It's a true statement. We always have, and even though I'm a big person, I will never match Kamehameha's stature, but I'll never turn into a sumo wrestler type, like the 12-year-old kid we saw sucking on a popsicle by the Kawaihae Harbor, where we watched the setting sun and the last spouting whale of the day. 

With so much great local fish and fruit on this island, it's hard to imagine how a place like the Macaroni Grill and other chain restaurants survive here. But then I think back to the encounter at Starbucks, the history of Kamehameha I, and our recent election of Donald Trump. People throughout the ages hate chaos. They like a sure bet. Why gamble on a home-made cup of coffee or one prepared at a local coffee shack when you can be sure that a cup of Starbucks will taste the same no matter where you are on the planet? Why gamble on continuing socio-economic uncertainty when a larger-than-life demigod can assign you a known place in society, even if that place is endlessly toiling in service of the Elites and the powerful?

Fear is a huge motivator, and it stops us in our tracks. It's better to erase the unknowns from life than it is to find out firsthand whether the guy in the gray SUV was coming back to smash your windows and steal your beach towels or whether, fueled by a little early Christmas Spirit and the goodwill buzz of some kind Kona gold bud, he was checking to make sure that no other hooligans were disrupting the vacation of a couple of tourists from the mainland, isn't it?

Merry Christmas, and we'll see you on down the road!

A panorama of Pololu beach near low tide.

A Fraud on the Golf Course

Goats roam the King's Course at Waikoloa

December 22, 2016, WAIKALOA, HAWAI'I—At the King's Course at Waikoloa, John the cart attendant immediately sniffed us out as the frauds we were. We are not golfers. Caroline could be a golfer if she practiced more, and I could be a golfer if golfing didn't require a golf swing, which is something I do not have and likely something I will never acquire. But even by the loosest definition, we are not golfers. Nevertheless, John the cart attendant was gracious. He stared at our shoes and attire—which presented a stark contrast to the dapper, professional looking ensembles worn by the high-dollar Japanese business tycoons who were cementing million-dollar land deals during a casual round of 18—and told us to remember that the score was far less important than whether we were enjoying ourselves.

"Good to know," I said thoughtfully as we headed to the first tee.

Complicating our lack of practice and innate skill was the fact that neither of us were playing with our own clubs. We were using the ratty sets furnished by the condo owner. When we had arrived at the course, the guy at the pro-shop had hopefully inquired whether the owners had something newer than the sets stashed at the course. He winced when we said no. I suddenly understood the guy's look as I stood on the third tee holding a club with a slick and rotting grip, overlooking an expanse of jagged lava to the left and a waste area to the right. And while the King's Course had been dubbed a "Links-Style Course in Paradise" on the brochures, all I was seeing was a narrow chute of green sandwiched between the jaws of hell.

One sleeve of balls later I took a drop near the green. At least I got off with a two putt. As I moped toward the cart, I saw a Japanese man in a perfect Nike golf ensemble standing on the tee box behind us with his hands on his hips. I decided we'd let the vexed man play through, so I waved him toward us. His tee shot was flawless and landed within inches of the pin. He drove up and sneered at us with disdain as he grabbed his putter. Caroline, who had been feeling stiff from traveling, took the delay as an opportunity to loosen up by doing the downward dog yoga pose on the grass next to the green just as the man sized up his six-inch putt. I ran up behind her, grabbed her hips, and dry humped her from behind just as the man was beginning his stroke. The ball shot past the hole as I pretended to ride a bull and waved my ball cap into the air like a rodeo cowboy.

You can find two sleeves of these bad boys out there.

"Yippie cay-aye!"

The golf shark finished off with a bogey and drove onto the next hole muttering a string of what must have been obscenities.

It took me two holes to shake off the idea that I had messed with the wrong person and would suffer reprisal from the Yakuza later on, but those thoughts disappeared when I smacked an amazing drive within 40 yards of the pin on a short par 4. Two shots later I exited the green with a smile and a birdie.

On the next hole, Caroline hit a similarly amazing shot. As we approached the green, we were startled to see a gang of goats meandering near the flag. Caroline nailed the stick with her chip shot, and the ball landed with a thump next to the hole. The sound of the ball smacking the fiberglass pin had enraged a Billy Goat and he thundered up onto the green, taking an offensive stance with his horns pointed menacingly toward our private parts.

"God-damned Yakuza have their tendrils into everything," I muttered, waving the goat off with my putter. 

Lots of places to eat, but this should not be one of them.

The game took an entirely different turn afterward, and we stopped keeping score. As we made our way up the 18th fairway—an exhausting par 5 that seemed to be home to an army of goats—a light drizzle cooled us down just enough for a final push. Caroline hit an approach shot that miraculously checked up just short of a deep, gaping lava abyss that I had dubbed Pele's Asshole. My long putt for par nailed the cup but bounced off, coming to rest inches from the mark. Caroline stood at the edge of the lava bung-hole and chipped a beautiful shot onto the green, finishing up with a respectable bogey.

The course was nearly deserted and the clubhouse and pro shop were empty at the end of the long day. But John the cart attendant emerged cheerfully from the dark garage beneath the clubhouse.

"How'd it go?" he asked with a hopeful grin.

"It's not so much about the score, but rather whether we enjoyed ourselves," I said. "Right?"

I slapped a fine tip into his hand.

"By the way, you guys don't have the Yakuza on this island, do you?"

"Yakuza? What is that? A type of rum?" he asked. "If so, I'm sure it's here."

See you on down the road!

The Tub-O'-Soup Greeting

The cheese soup refugee

December 21, 2016, WAIKALOA, HAWAI'I—In celebration of completing two years of high-pressure work in the Atomic City, we fled to the islands for some rest and relaxation. The temperatures at home had plunged into the low teens, so the thought of being lulled into a state of supreme relaxation by warm winds, humidity, and softly waving hibiscus and bougainvillea flowers was particularly appealing. Instead, our island greeting was an immense tub of broccoli cheese soup.

This culinary orphan had been marooned and abandoned by the previous tenants of the condo we have rented. And while there's a certain generosity in me that gives the previous owners some credit for not wanting the plastic Tub-O'-Soup to go to waste—instead of pegging them as lazy and harried people who hadn't planned well enough to dispose of the item before they fled just minutes before checkout time—I cannot, for the life of me, understand why in Hell anyone would want to eat broccoli cheese soup procured at Costco while staying on the islands in the first place?

Baptism in the sea: Be healed, sinner! Be healed!

It is a magical time in Hawai'i right now. And this island paradise is alive with the holiday spirit. The summit of Mauna Kea is covered in deep snow, and yesterday, while at the beach, we stared up in wonder at the handiwork of the Hawaiian snow goddess, Poli'ahu, who, according to local lore, controls the northern end of the Big Island and keeps Goddess Pele in check there. As people who come from a land of fire and ice, we will not choose sides while on this island, but instead we will marvel at the beauty that has resulted from the interplay of these two deities. Already we have feasted on local lime and papaya, apple bananas, pineapple, of course, sweet Hawaiian breads accented with the purple starch of taro root. Such delicacies would not be possible without the cascade of snowmelt across the harsh lava landscape, and the kiss of the sun. 

Rest and relaxation are in order

Or maybe that's just the rum talking. The drinks on this island are as beautiful as the landscape, and tropical fruits mix well with fermented sugar. The man in the car rental place admonished us from going to Starbucks—sound advice that we would have taken on our own—and instead to support the local economy. It is in this spirit that we laid in a fine bottle of Hawaiian-made Maui gold rum, a mountain of fresh local fruit, deliciously strong Kona coffee grown just down the coast from us, bags of macadamias, and Meadow Gold yogurt—old-school stuff flavored with tropical produce and produced right here on the islands.

We won't be finding the time to eat the broccoli-cheese castaway that welcomed us here, because that's something we can do if we choose back home. Our homage to mainland life will be rounds of golf on the resort course. I am pleased to say that it has only been a short while since I last checked in at work, but already the bags and dark circles under our eyes are starting to fade, we are growing some melanin content in our skin again, and the Vitamin D deficiencies that had resulted from spending our days under artificial lighting are starting to reverse their course. This is no time for store-bought soup.

Aloha, and we will see you down the road!

Andre the Giant has a Posse

LOS ALAMOS, N.M., Nov. 29, 2015—A week ago we left the tropical paradise of Kauai, Hawaii, a mostly unspoiled refuge for wildlife and people. After giving thanks during this year's holiday at home for all of the marvelous accouterments with which we have been bestowed throughout this strange and wonderful journey that we call "Life," I have returned to this blog to wrap up a few loose ends before I return to the daily activities that comprise my normal existence. In case you weren't certain, that's all just a fancy way for me to say I had a few leftover photographs and memories that needed to be burned here. So let's begin, shall we?

We have your back, Andre—all of us.

Some of you may be wondering, "why the title?" It's a good question. Why indeed? To explain, I need to digress for a moment.

For those of you unfamiliar with a visit to the Hawaiian islands, there's a peculiar phenomenon associated with a traveler's arrival and departure to America's island paradise. It's a long flight each way. The flight to the islands is usually filled with giddy excitement, so it's not that big of a deal, except that you usually get in late in the afternoon or early in the evening, so you essentially lose a day. The return flight generally leaves late in the evening—usually around 10 p.m. Hawaii time or so. It's understood that most people will simply sleep during the bulk of the flight and awake uncomfortably at sunrise just in time for a dairy-rich breakfast and a landing at an airport on the mainland somewhere in the Western United States. As the seasoned lesbians on Cap'n Andy's boat so astutely stated, "if you go to Hawaii for a week, you essentially lose two days."

Wailua Falls is more beautiful than this photo would indicate.

For some people, departure day becomes an unsettling experience. Since check-out times at most hotels and condominiums are 12 hours before airplane departure times, the last day on the island can be a limbo. Travelers are forced to stuff their belongings into the rental car and wander for the day. Last time we were in Hawaii, we enjoyed a day at the beach and a cold shower at beach side before dressing for the flight. This time around, we were fortunate to have gotten agreement from our condominium owner to use the apartment all day until we left to the airport.

This meant we gained an entire day back. Because the heavy rains a couple of days earlier had driven us away from the island waterfalls, we decided to visit them on this sunny day. Our morning started with a visit to the falls. Taxi cabs loaded with excited travelers lined the roads. Their passengers paraded to the edge of the lookout for the compulsory waterfall photo. A man on a motorcycle with no front teeth rode to the lookout. A dirty dog peered out of the man's jacket. As the motorcycle man set up an offering of woven bowls on the wall of the overlook, the dog wandered through the parking lot scratching himself manically. We captured our Kodak Moment in front of Wailua Falls and began exiting the parking lot. We kept a sharp eye out for the wandering dog, who roamed behind vehicles while his owner showed no concern for the canine's well being whatsoever.

The Russian Fort is a pile of rubble, its history is summed
up in a few fading panels nearby.

We returned home for a quick bite to eat. The coral cut on my foot had healed somewhat, but not enough to allow for a carefree dip in the ocean for a final day of snorkeling. We opted to drive to Waimea Canyon, also known as "Hawaii's Grand Canyon." Our travels took us to the west side of the island. There were fewer resorts there and a lot of locals. It was a refreshing change. Things here seemed genuine.

On our way to Waimea, we stopped at the old Russian Fort that survived for a short period of time on Kauai before the Russians were kicked out by the natives. The star-shaped fort was mostly just a shapeless pile of rubble. The interpretive posters were sparse on information. They didn't answer the obvious question: What did the Russians do that pissed of the islanders so much that the Cossacks were banished and their fort destroyed? We never found the answer.

A sculpture at Koloa illustrates the cultures that led to the
success of the Sugar Cane Industry on Kauai.

We passed the island's last sugar cane plantation—an expansive stretch of privately owned land that was off limits. Sugar built the islands, but it also did a fair amount of lasting damage to them. What was great about our trip was seeing that the Hawaiians have taken great pride in their culture and have done much to preserve it. The sticky sweet call of inculturation coming from the Sugar Plantations was largely ignored by a key group of islanders, and these folks have remained steadfast in preserving the old ways. Hawaiian greetings, tikis, and hospitality are more than just good tourism—they are authentic, and something I appreciate every visit.

The clouds began rolling in as we began our dizzying ascent toward the Waimea Canyon overlook. In just two short miles we were already 2,000 feet above the beaches. We captured a quick glimpse of the edge of the canyon. Someone had pasted an homage to Andre the Giant on a guardrail post where we stopped. Hopefully the Hawaiian Culture has a posse as active as Andre the Giant's, and the culture will be remembered long after the islands have been successfully pillaged for economic gains by the Corporate P.T. Barnums of Modern Day. Larry Ellison has purchased an entire island off of Maui that he plans to develop into a luxury playground for the Super Rich, according to one of the island locals we met. Ground-floor rooms without a beach view are rumored to start at $1,000 a night—an order of magnitude higher in price than the current beach-view rooms at the resorts on Kauai.

The Waimea Canyon area from a lookout well below the
canyon lookout.

What this means for the future, I can't say, though the concept of purchasing an island and giving its inhabitants the choice to leave or become "employees" of the plantation master seems repulsive in this day and age. I guess it depends on your perspective. But apparently, Ellison and others out there are longing to leave their modern stamps on the world, like the figures pecked into the lava rock by ancient Polynesians.

Waimea Canyon was socked in by dense fog. We didn't get to see its full splendor, but the miasma gives us an excuse to return some day. Back at the condominium, we enjoyed a cool shower, and we polished off the last of the rum in some fine home-made guava coladas. We ate beans and rice as our final meal on the island, despite knowing that the meal's after effects would be unpleasant to us and others trapped in the confined quarters of an airplane.

Like a good traveler, I slept most of the way back. Caroline was not so fortunate; she enjoyed only a few minutes of distracted sleep. The heavy breakfast of milk and milk products was disagreeable, but we ate it anyway. In Phoenix, the flight crew was distracted. Our landing in Albuquerque was smooth. The icy air on our skin was a shocking but welcome contrast to the warm days we had experienced on the island. 

Our view from the lanai at sunset during our
last day on Kauai.

In Albuquerque we picked up our convalescing dog. Had I been able to speak to her, I would have explained that her life is much better than the life of the dog we saw at the waterfall, even though our dog was wearing the Cone of Shame and walking with a limp. Those who know nothing other than their own immediate circumstances lack the value of perspective. Andre the Giant probably didn't know he had fans spread out across the globe, the itchy dog on Kauai probably didn't know that there are other dogs out there who get regular meals and mange treatment, and Larry Ellison probably has no idea that the concept of buying an entire island—just because you can—is patently offensive to the ancestors of those who settled the island in the first place.

Our vacation this year gave us a valuable perspective and and appreciation for all facets of our lives. And in that sense, it was the best vacation we've ever had.

See you on down the road.