Driving the north loop

Monday, January 6, 2025

We had a reason to stop and look even before we left our parking lot.

Keith found some awesome audio guides for the island. We (partially) did one today. It said it would take 8-12 hours (depending on what you chose to do). We left by 8:45am and got home at 7pm and we skipped a lot. It was a really good audio guide. It GPSed us, so when we skipped a bit, it automatically adjusted to where we were and kept going. It had very nice (primarily) instrumental Hawaiian music when Ray (the narrator’s actual name, although I called him Steve for most of the day until I suddenly felt he was Larry) wasn’t talking. We definitely went places we would NEVER have heard of or found without his guidance (Andrew and his wife actually made the guide – Uncle Ray just did the narration) (Andrew came on a couple times to say thanks for using our guide and please post on social media about it. I do not know how to do that, and it is best I don’t learn, so, sorry, Andrew).

Ray told us a lot of history of the island, which was great. Since we were in paniolo territory we learned about how 5 cows imported by Mr. (Colonel?) Vancouver started ranching on Hawaii. The cows were let loose to run free and then there were more cows and people went cattle hunting (a phrase heretofore unuttered by me) until King Kamehameha told (First Name) Parker it was his job to wrangle the cows and be in charge of cows. That guy made bank on the deal. He imported vaqueros from Mexico and paniolos from Portugal to train locals to be cowboys. (Portugal is weirdly involved in Hawaii’s past. Ray kept telling us about immigrants from China and Japan and Portugal and the Philippines. It really felt like Ray did not know that Portugal is the other way from the rest of those places. There is a lot of Portuguese sausage around here, so I do think they were around, but I am not sure I understand how or why that was a thing. Anyway, Hawaii had cowboys quite a bit before the United States did).

We went to the overlook of the Waipi’o valley, a sacred place for native Hawaiians. There is a black sand beach that runs 3/4 of a mile along the front of the valley. The signs that “welcomed” us made us extra cautious

All day long there were available bathrooms. It was really, really nice (take that Europe). This one did the best job making sure there was paper. I opened the door and said, “whoa.” The woman who had just left the stall asked what was up. I said that this was really a sight I had never seen before. She came back and looked. We were both amused that she hadn’t noticed while she was using it.

There was a tsunami in 1947 that killed 152 people, mostly children, on Laupahoehoe peninsula. Most of the people lived up the hill, but the school was down at water level. When the waves first receded, the children ran out to grab fish left behind. The second, and then third, waves carried them out to sea. Three boys survived. A young man was washed away but gathered refuse from the buildings that had been destroyed, lashed together planks to make a raft, picked up two other boys, and floated 40 miles north in 27 hours before being rescued. We went down to the beach to see the memorial stone (which was right away when we got down and far from the parking and we never walked back to see it. Huh.) The lava rocks in the water made for lots of water sprays. The color of the water was beautiful. It was hot and sunny and gorgeous. We spent a long time, but a great day is doing what you want for as long as you want.

We stopped by a wooden bridge to look around. A guy there told us how to get down to the stream, and Julie went for it. My “I kicked a bike over onto myself” ankle was hurting and I decided I better not join her. She came back after reaching a sign that warned of FIRE ANTS Do not go farther…painful…bad….don’t.

We continued on our off-the-beaten-track-road. All day long, we were usually alone of the road. It was really, really nice. Keith did all the driving, and we appreciated him. Our shifter on our car (Chrysler van) is a dial. He does not much like it and got a little spicy about it at one point. Other than that, the driving seemed to go very well.

We hiked the half mile loop to see Akaka Falls. We had to pay $10 to park in the very small parking lot. We could have parked on the road leading up to the parking lot and not paid anything. We could have just said we parked on the road and not paid anything. We agreed supporting parks is a good way to spent $10. We also paid $5 each to go. I thought that was an interesting way to go – two separate paying opportunities. We first went to the right to see the other waterfall. It had a name. It might have started with H. Or not. Hawaiian has 12 letters plus the okina (the little apostrophe in some words, like ‘Ohana, so chances are pretty good it was an H). The most interesting part of the maybe H waterfall is that you can’t see it. I think it is weird that they don’t tell you that it is on private land, and they are not allowed to trim back the foliage so you can see it before you walk there and don’t see it. It is only 100 feet high, so too bad private waterfall. We didn’t want to see you anyway. The Akaka Falls are 425 feet high and quite lovely. The half mile hike was really beautiful the whole time and didn’t really even need waterfalls. Julie noticed a purple plant that looked like a curled metal stake. We stalked them and found them farther into their development and it was great. Some folks from the Netherlands stopped to see what we were doing and thought we were utterly fantastic for sharing our find with them (or they said, “That was cool.”)

We did not hike down to see the next thing, a beautiful bay. Time was advancing much faster than we were. Julie saw through the trees and reported beautiful, so she and I hopped out (after Keith pulled over) and tried to get pictures through the trees. The picture is lame. The view was not.

This is a random picture of what we saw going through a neighborhood.

We went to Rainbow Falls. The morning light apparently hits the two falls and frequently sparks a rainbow between them. We were there in late afternoon, so no rainbow. Still, waterfalls are always great.

Boiling pots, so named because the churning water spilling from one “pot” to the next look like they are boiling, was very low on water, so there was no churning. Still interesting.

I was very interested in seeing the lava tubes. During volcanic activity, sometimes the outer part of a flow cools more quickly than the inner part. The hot lava continues to flow through the tube the cooled lava has made, sometimes for great distances, and then leaves the crust an empty tube (or cave). This particular tube was 5 miles long. There were suggestions for what to do to prepare to explore the cave. We all went down the steep steps, but sent only Keith all the way down into the cave. I was afraid I would further damage my ankle and have to be hauled out of there with a helicopter. Weirdly, my ankle made a big click when getting into the car and has been MUCH better since. Phew. The opposite of being airlifted.

We stopped in front of the library to take a picture of the Naha Stone, which King Kamehameha moved in 1789 while he was in his 30s confirming the prophecy that he would be a great king. Please notice how cute those people in the car are.

We went to Cafe 100, birthplace of the Loco Moco, Keith’s favorite Hawaiian food. It is white rice covered with brown gravy, a hamburger and an egg. Doesn’t sound good, does it? Nope. Gary thought Keith was crazy for his exuberant praise of the loco moco (he didn’t admit that until later) but peer pressure got to him, and he ordered one. He liked it just fine. 🙂

We were in the mood for some ice cream, so we went to K’s Drive-In and Liquor store. Huh. We think maybe the liquor store was not drive-thru. This sign really caught my attention.

In Hilo, we toured around a bit after dinner, but the sun was waning so we started across the island on Saddleback Road, otherwise known as the Daniel K. Inouye highway. DKI was a local Japanese American who volunteered to fight in WWII after Pearl Harbor. He showed superior skills and willingness to do what was right. He did really good fighting until he was shot in the arm (which was amputated), chest, and both legs. He was later elected to the US House of Representatives and then the US Senate. He served in Congress for 52 years until he died in 2012 at the age of 88. Many locals still call it Saddleback Rd. I would be proud to call it the Daniel Inouye Highway.

We couldn’t see the tallest volcano on the island (Mauna Kea), because it got dark and foggy. Ray told us to slow down because he didn’t want us to hit an invisible cow. Cows are free range in the area (What? Why? t is a HIGHWAY. There is OFTEN fog. Put up a fence). We didn’t really feel like we were going up, but we sure went DOWN for a long time.

We are in Hawaii. Hawaii is cool.