Big Island

I took a small trip to the Big Island this labor day weekend to go camping with friends. Somehow the weather is always nice when I am there, and I often hear the comment that the sunshine ” must have followed you over here!”. I notice a lot of people take advantage of rare sunny days to cut their lawn, and the grass areas that are not cut look like they are wilting in the heat. Landing in Hilo, and then driving over Saddle Road to Kona is not my favorite thing, coming from Oahu where anything beyond 30 minutes of any kind of travel is “too far”, but the new road is straighter and it’s new height and easement allows you to see a little more of the landscape. Dark lava fields dotted with green and red vegetation give way to dry cinder cones with brown grass tufts, and then eventually, back to only dark lava the rest of the way to the coast. The fog and temperature change from altitude sometimes encountered on Saddle road is also intriguing enough to distract me from its mind numbing length.

After a short 4x4 trail off the main road near the Kona airport, we are at the beach. There are a few sandy bays, surrounded and separated by dark black lava rock points . Inland we found a few freshwater pools with tiny fish and shrimp living in them.

When camping there are a few things that I really enjoy. Building a fire is probably the most fun and rewarding but, showering outside, and picking out and setting up a sleeping area are the top activities connecting the primal brain circuit. After setting up the home base, exploring the landscape and collecting bits of it to examine later at camp is a good way to remember what the place was like. Taking photographs of nearby areas, and special objects you find, is an easy way to share your mindset with others.