Hawaii 5.0

What a vacation. The Winn’s wonderful journey to the irands of Hawaii began on a Friday, when they boxed me up, asked the neighbors to pick up the mail, and started driving north towards Delaware. There was a brief stop at the eye doctor’s office for a follow-up from Lix’s lasik, which turned out great. After an uneventful 36 hours at Jarom’s folks’ place, they got up at 4:00 am Sunday morning to head to Philadelphia International Airport, which is Alixa’s second favorite behind O’hare. And thus had begun the 30-hour day. The travel party consisted of 24 humans, including 9 children. And because of the family’s general desire to stick it to the man and not pay the ever-increasing checked baggage fees, each of those 24 people was hauling around at least two pieces of carry on luggage, plus strollers and carseats and bags of food and drinks. It was quite a production. The traveling for the day began with a flight to SLC, during which Kenna and Jenna screamed. It was followed by a flight from SLC to LAX, during which Luke and Juliet screamed. Then we caught our third flight from LAX to Kona, during which Taya screamed. Actually, Jarom can’t remember which children screamed on which flights. Individually, they all did pretty well, but when you put them together in a group there just isn’t much of a break. By the time they had landed on the Big Island, there was some questioning about whether or not this vacation was really such a good idea. This was compounded by the fact that Kona does not look like the Hawaii you are imagining. The image in your mind of a beautiful beach, with palm trees swaying in the breeze and lush, green mountains as a backdrop is not at all what was seen upon arrival. It looked a little more like they had landed on the moon. As far as they could see was a barren black landscape with almost no vegetation to speak of, and a haze of clouds hovering around the twin peaks of Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa. This is because Kona is on the dry side of Hawaii, and gets minimal rain, and because Kona is built on an old lava flow. But a short car ride to the north lay the Mauna Lani resort, where the marvels of modern irrigation could be found. You may now insert your previously imagined picture of Hawaii.

The beach

Golf

The views and the volcanoes

Some dude actually still lives in this house, surrounded by active lava flows

The crew got to their new home for the week at about 7:00 pm local time, which translated to about 1 in the morning for most of them. Jarom had been feeling a little off for most of the day, probably because of something he ate, although he can’t think of what it might have been. Thankfully, his stomach waited until he was off the airplanes before going crazy. Unfortunately, his body did go crazy, and he spent the next 5 or 6 hours getting up every 30 minutes to go to the bathroom and throw up. Apparently he wasn’t very quiet about it either, because it ruined Alixa’s sleep as well. But after purging his body of everything that was in it, he did feel better and was finally able to get to sleep at around 1 am.

Jenna messing around on the screen

It is true that the longer a couple stays married, the more they start to look like one another

A few hours later, roughly 4 in the morning, all of the kids awoke. You see, all of the adults forgot to explain to the kids that we would be moving to a different time zone and that they would be the lucky recipients of 6 extra hours of sleep. So we all arose before the sun was up, because once Jenna is awake in a house, everyone is awake in that house (apologies to Bruce and Nancy who had to share a wall with her.) Breakfast at 5 became the morning routine all week long. It was actually quite amusing to see all of the groggy parents bringing their bright-eyed, bushy-tailed kids into the kitchen. Jarom spent most of Monday trying to recover from his illness, and Lix was kind enough to take Jenna down to the beach. The house had a wonderful beach nearby that was perfect for little kidlets. It was a cove, so there were only the tiniest of waves, it had wonderfully soft sand, and a steady stream of sea turtles who swam in to visit. Jenna has become quite the water-rat, and would probably have crawled straight into the ocean by herself if she was allowed to. She enjoyed playing in the sand, but enjoyed going out into the water even more. She would happily splash around in her giant bathtub and repeatedly dip her finger into the water and then lick her salty digit and smile.

The doorless chopper that ferried them around. Jarom wished he had a gun that he could hang out while they flew around.

The biggest, coolest tree Jarom and Lix have ever seen

Tuesday was highlighted by a trip to Kealakekua Bay (one of the best things about Hawaii is trying to pronounce all of the place’s names), which is supposably one of the top snorkeling sites in the universe. This was done in shifts, as many of the week’s activities were, so that the parents could enjoy their time snorkeling without wondering if their children were going to fall off the boat and drown. Jarom and Lix babysat in the morning, and then swam in the afternoon. The water was clear and warm and full of spinner dolphins and tropical fishes and all manner of coral. It was also as close as either of them have come to England, who apparently still owns a small plot of land on the water there where Captain Cook discovered Hawaii. It was a wonderfully pleasant excursion.

In the pool/hot tub: Above, at a reasonable hour. Below, at 4:00 am.

Jenna and Nate-both seasoned experts in the art of lounging

Wednesday morning half of the family went to the Kona temple to do some baptisms for the dead, including Jarom (in the half of the family, not the dead.) It is a very small temple and fortunately not particularly busy, since Jarom’s mom had forgotten that she had scheduled the visit for Thursday, not Wednesday. In the afternoon the boys and Alixa played a round of golf on one of the most beautiful courses Jarom has ever seen. There were beach views and lava rocks aplenty, and everyone played pretty well too. Thurday and Friday were hanging out days, spent swimming in the pool or at the beach, doing some shopping in Kona for pearls, watching the fish feeding at the nearby hotel’s fish ponds, and enjoying the beautiful ocean breezes and good company.

Jenna's eye, courtesy of Annie's macro lens

The family, big and little

Saturday Jenna got to hang out with Grandma while her parents hopped in a car to drive to the other side of the island where they had scheduled a helicopter tour of the active volcano on the island. The tour that Lix booked was a “doors-off” tour, which is a pretty cool way to experience your first helicopter flight. The tour went over the active volcano Kilauea and the lava flow toward the ocean. It was quite amazing to see how those islands were created. After spending some time out over the lava we headed toward some waterfalls just north of Hilo, and then it was back to the airport. On the drive back to Kona they stopped at the Akaka falls to enjoy the multitude of Japanese tourists and see some water falling many feet. There were also some giant trees that were neat to see. The last stop before getting back to Jenna was a black sand beach that turned out to be a grey sand beach, much to Alixa’s disappointment. Once they got back it was family picture time, which Jarom is always a fan of, and then a fancy-pants dinner at Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse, which was a fitting way to end a wonderful week on the big island. In a day or two I will fill you in on the rest of the trip, but for now I am tired and must take a break.