I have decided my dad’s problem. Everything, and I mean everything matters. Whether the person in front of him driving signals will piss him off enough to set him on an hour long rampage of huffing about and flooring it out of every light with wheels spinning. This guy honestly has no respect for relaxation and the speed of life in Hawaii. Then again, I’ve never seen him use his turn signal when there wasn’t a cop nearby. He hates my grandpa, I guess because they are so exactly alike.
Today we decided to drive the northeast loop of the island, via Waimea, the Saddle, Hilo, Honoka’a and finally Waipio. The saddle was amazing, as it always has been, but today we got to see a whole new perspective of the tropics: snow. Snow in Hawaii. I’ll be posting some photos of this phenomenon over the next few days, and I hope it’ll hit you as hard as it hit me. It was beautiful. I had my GoPro mounted on the hood of the car the whole way, although the video file split in the middle for some reason (not sure why). That will be on YouTube to bore you to tears soon. However, there is one thing I got with the GoPro that might not bore you, and that’s the Old Mamaloha Highway. A winding road built in the days of sugar farming, winding its way through deep chasms and gorges along the north coast, it will not fail to impress. A lot of it was one lane wide (although the brilliant County of Hawaii put a double line down the middle of it to divid your car into two halves).
Further along we visited Lapahoehoe Point, a dramatic and melancholic piece of land down another beautiful winding road. Back when the bigger tsunami hit about 50 years ago, an entire school full of kids was swept out to sea and never seen again. Today I don’t even know why someone would want to live here, what with the extreme nature of the waves around here.Their explosions frequently measured over 30 feet and sounded like constant thunder. Some numbnut put in a boat launch here, and even behind the monstrous breakwater there is 4 food chop. I would pay to see someone successfully launch anything other than a military landing craft from that ramp.
One grumpy hour later, we were overlooking the superb Waipio Valley, which I hiked to at the age of either 9 or 10, prior to the trail unfortunately being closed to the public due to and earthquake in 2006. Frankly, I would do anything, including trespass across the “private” (every god damned square inch of land in Hawaii is “private,” they could learn a bit from Canadians) land that leads to the trailhead. Good memories and anger at my parents for rolling their eyes verbally (if you know what I mean) to a guy who was planning on hiking to Waimanu, which is in fact one of my life dreams. My parents just don’t believe that anything beyond what they would be willing to do from the comfort of their thirty thousand dollar rental car. Jesus, travelling alone with me would be frightening. Anyways, they gave this guy shit indirectly and then started talking rudely about a local guy who was talking to his dog and having a swell time. My parents don’t understand what simple happiness and leisure is.
I was relieved to discover that I had thrown in a pair of headphones with my camera in the backpack, and I plugged myself in to some Louis Armstrong so that I wouldn’t have to hear my dad’s bitching about how stupid the car was and how slow the speed limits were and how narrow the roads are and so on. I just want to enjoy life, stop complaining about everything. It seems like you make up 100% of what I complain about, so I don’t know if I’m a hypocrite for wanting you to shut up, but I’d say I am because I only get pissed about one thing while you get peeved about everything.
Dinner was fishlike substance, let’s not get into that. Also, I love palm trees, I want a pet one that I can name Earl III (Earl I & II were the original pianos at my school, I don’t know why). If my dad doesn’t stop being such a wet blanket about everything I swear I’m going to steal something while in Hawaii just to watch him go nuts again.
