Mele Kalikimaka! (and now a Happy New Year!) Pardon our long hiatus from updates, but the past two months in Hawaii have seemed to just float by. Perhaps a life of routine (although not a routine life) has given us less to mark time by.

But the dawning of a new year gave us reason for reflection last night, so we resolved to write. Fortunately, the past two weeks have been full of exciting developments, so let’s stop prolonging the prologue and get to the action!

On December 18, Laura’s family came to visit us for Christmas, which conveniently included their first visit to the islands. This week occasioned and enabled (via rental cars) our first venture beyond the Kona area, and we were amazed at the extent and variety of Hawaii. The Big Island is nearly twice the size of all the other islands combined, and contains all but two of the world’s climatic zones, from grasslands on the western slopes to rain forests on the windward side to alpine tundra on the summits of Mauna Kea and Loa.

Our first taste of what Hawaii has to offer began not at the summit of a volcano, but at the Kona Brewing Company. Their pizzas would give Hideaway in Oklahoma a run for its money, but their drinks are the real attraction: brews of all kinds, including a Porter with real Kona coffee and a wheat with Lilikoi (passionfruit). Yum!

The next day we stayed close to home, giving the Cartmills a tour of the farm, followed by a day of snorkeling at Kahalu’u Beach. The water was particularly calm and clear that day, so everyone took a turn snorkeling among the plentiful and colorful fish. We grilled burgers at the beach for dinner, watched the sunset, and enjoyed a relaxing day together—everything Laura’s family had hoped for.

The following morning we set off early for the long drive around the southern tip of the island to Volcanoes National Park. The drive took us into the district of South Kona, through slopes covered with coffee bushes and numerous small farms selling their prized beans. The road here wound back and forth, up and down, traversing the mountainous landscape and likely enlightening many to what carsickness feels like. Eventually the landscape opened up, the road straightened, and we cruised along through treeless fields of grass-covered lava flows. Nearing the southern tip of the island, the trade winds were again able to bring their copious rains, and the forest reappeared, thicker than we had ever seen on our relatively dry side of the island. We took a break at the self-proclaimed “southernmost bakery in the U.S.” in Na’alehu. These entrepreneurs had gone south, but the quality of their malasadas (Portuguese jelly donuts) had not.

As the highway made the slow bend toward the northeast, we also began a slow climb towards the 4,000 foot elevation of the Kilauea Caldera. We passed a cyclist pushing his bike near the summit of the climb, and were thankful that, for today, we had a car. Inside Volcanoes National Park, we marveled at vents spewing steam, gagged on sulphurous fumes at the rim of Halema’uma’u Crater (which, during Mark Twain’s visit here in 1866, had been a veritable lake of lava), hiked with a third-generation park ranger through a rain forest then a lava tube (sometimes laughing at his jokes, sometimes groaning), and finally traversed a lava field toward a rainbow to climb a small cinder cone in hopes of catching a nighttime view of the lake of fire inside the Pu`u `O`o cone. The weather at sunset was uncooperative for viewing lava or general comfort (driving wind, intermittent rain, surprisingly chilly temperatures), but we met a young couple from Eugene, Oregon that only served to confirm our inclinations towards eventually settling there.

The drive home after dark seemed endless, and after a full day of hiking around Volcanoes, we chose to sleep in the following day. At the beach that evening, Laura and I had a most unlikely encounter. While sitting at a picnic table playing cards, Laura noticed a man in a cycling jersey walking into the surf. We always enjoy chatting with fellow touring cyclists and had met a couple from Canada just the week before at the same beach, so Laura was excited to see the man. Then, getting a closer look at his face, she exclaimed, “Hey, we know him!”

The man was in fact a fellow bicycle tourist, but not just any: he was Eric Schramm, the owner of “Two Bicycles and a Map,” the bicycle touring company that had given us permission to join up with their group ride across Wisconsin back in July! By the time we got over to the beach, Eric was already out snorkeling, but we found his wife Kathy on the beach and commenced a hug-filled reunion. We exchanged phone numbers and made plans to hang out later in the week.

The next day, we again made a long circumferential drive, this time clockwise. The landscape north of Holualoa became barren lava fields, with small clumps of yellowish grass the only species gaining a foothold. The grasses later became lush and green, receiving water from streams flowing down the western flank of giant Mauna Kea. Sheep and cattle could be seen grazing in the distance; we were now driving through the famed Parker Ranch. At one time, Parker Ranch was the largest ranch in the nation, occupying 225,000 acres (almost 10% of the the Big Island). Turning eastward, we drove through Waimea, headquarters of the Parker estate, then continued toward the eastern coast. As we progressed, the landscape became more verdant with each passing mile, and soon we were on the lush east coast of Hawaii.

As the prevailing humid trade winds sweep across the Pacific from the northeast, they are pushed upward by the towering volcanic twins of Mauna Kea (13,796 ft) and Mauna Loa (13,677 ft). Cooling as they rise, the winds begin dropping their moisture as rain, creating vast rainfall differentials between the eastern and western sides of the island. For instance, Hilo, on the eastern side, receives four times the rainfall annually as Holualoa, where we live. The wettest spot on earth, Wai’ale’ale, is on the island of Kaua’i and receives 450 inches of rain per year! These climate patterns make the northeastern side of Hawai’i a lush rainforest with deep valleys cut by innumerable rivers and waterfalls.

While in the Hilo area, we visited a number of notable falls, including the well-known 420-ft plunge at Akaka Falls. One waterfall, named Pe’epe’e, was promoted as a good swimming spot at low water flows, but the river was raging when we visited, preventing us from wading across. This occasioned a rainforest bushwhack that saw Laura slide (unintentionally) down a long muddy hill. The photo at right shows the results to her shorts.

In Hilo, we ate lunch at Café 100, a local dive specializing in Moco Locos, a homemade concoction involving a pile of rice covered with fried eggs, Spam, and brown gravy. Many variations spun off of this theme: I had the Kilauea Loco (trade chili for gravy), while Laura chose the Mahi Loco (trade Mahi-mahi for Spam). The food was local, tasty and cheap: everything a traveler hopes for. We got a bumper sticker for our bike (“I ♥ my Moco Loco!”) to accompany the one we got in Maine (“I ate at the Mexico Chicken Coop”).

The remainder of our family’s stay was spent enjoying the unique offerings of a Hawaiian winter: cliff-jumping into, snorkeling in, and kayaking across the turquoise sea. The cliff-jumping came at South Point, which, unsurprisingly, is the southernmost point in the U.S. (well, unless you count territories). The one-lane road to South Point crosses seas of waving grass, interspersed with bent trees struggling to maintain their footing in this extremely windy place. Two sets of wind generators also sprout from this blustery land: a decommissioned one adjacent to the road, some towers with broken blades, others with no blades at all; and a more distant one with tall, more modern generators, spinning serenely in the distance.

At the end of the road (quite literally), we found rocky cliffs hanging above the deep aquamarine waters below. Locals tied trash bags to the end of their fishing lines, combining kiting and fishing to reach waters far offshore. This windswept, freshwater deficient place is home to the oldest known ruins of ancient Hawaiian civilization; despite these difficult conditions, the abundant fishing grounds just offshore were too good to leave. Instead, they carved holes in the rock to tether their canoes, lest the ferocious winds and prevailing currents sweep them off and deposit them in a place for which the were sorely underdressed: Antarctica.

Our party was unprepared to fish, so instead we enjoyed a day of jumping off the cliffs into the sea, climbing back up the rusty iron ladder swinging from the cliff’s edge above. The waters below teemed with smaller fish, and we later jumped off with snorkeling gear then swam amidst a school of needlefish. A deep cave extended back under the cliff, eventually leading to a natural rock ladder that returned to the topside. In the middle of the cave, a large skylight opened up, allowing the brave (or foolish) to leap into the water from above by timing their jump with the swells of the sea to ensure that the pool below was deep enough. After many leaps off the cliffs, Laura’s brother Ben and I finally worked up the courage to make the leap through the skylight into the sea cave. The exhilaration was the perfect finale, and we both made it our last jump.

Further down the coast, a two-mile hike away, was the amazing green sand beach. Although we’d come to South Point to see it, the cliffs and fishing sufficiently distracted us so that we never made it all the way to the beach. However, on a short hike, I did manage to find one tiny section of beach with green sand. The photo at right shows a close-up of the sand.

The grand finale of our family’s time in Hawaii came when we took a trip to Kealakekua Bay. Here, we paddled one mile across the deep, clear waters to the monument commemorating the spot where Captain Cook became the first European to make contact with Hawaiians in 1778. But the attraction of the bay was not really a 20 foot tall white obelisk: it was the best snorkeling in all of Hawaii in the waters beneath it. Here, the crystalline waters teem with more shapes, colors, and sizes of coral than I’d ever seen. These coral, in turn, attract a variety and quantity of colorful fish that truly take your breath away. The whole family snorkeled, even those who were previously not completely comfortable in the sea, and Laura’s mom and dad were able to wander the waters together, hand in hand.

We snorkeled until our brains were overloaded with unfamiliar colors and textures, then kayaked back across the bay, where we encountered several pods of spinner dolphins. Donning my snorkel mask, I plunged overboard, floating among the dolphins, the waters filled with the sounds of their squeaks. We also were able to witness at close range why the dolphins were named “spinners”: several times we saw a dolphin leap straight up out of the water, spinning rapidly about its length in the air before splashing back into the sea. What survival value this behavior provides I cannot say, but to my eye it looked like pure and unashamed playfulness. For me personally, this time in Kealakekua Bay was the most exultant moment thus far of our two months in Hawai’i.

The Cartmills were scheduled to depart on Christmas Eve, but a holiday miracle (okay, a ton of snow in Chicago plus United Airlines’ mismanagement) resulted in massive cancellations, even for folks far from the frozen fluffy stuff. So, we all got to spend Christmas morning together, in one house, with a real Christmas tree! Now before you go imagining a heartwarming scene right out of a hot chocolate commercial, you should realize that the holidays in Hawaii don’t quite conform to the Hallmark image. Sweaters and fireplaces were distinctly unappealing, and the only thing white about this Christmas was the gleam off their winter-sheltered skin while snorkeling at the beach. Yet this experience did prompt us to examine our expectations and attempt to separate the externalities from the essence of this holiday. On the whole, the situation seemed to sift away many of our obligations acquired from Fifth Avenue or Norman Rockwell. What remained were the elements that were inseparable from our understanding of Christmas: family, faith, and joyful giving of simple and meaningful gifts.