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IF IT'S TEN YEARS, THIS MUST BE HAWAII
Chuck And Sue And Ken And Deborah On The Big Island 

"Its only an island if you look at it from the water"---
            Martin Brody, from Jaws (1975)

In August, 2010, my friend Ken and his wife Deborah took my wife and I to Hawaii. As I write this, that's been about 8 months ago.

Those of you who look gift horses in the mouth are probably asking why it's taken me so long to produce one of my incredibly long travel journals (which have now been approved by the FDA for medically-induced comas). The answer is simple: to talk about the trip, I have to write about my friend Ken.

Someday, maybe, I'll pay tribute to the handful of folks that I call my friends. Most of them I met in high school. I'm sure when they first got drafted into the detail, they didn't realize it would still be a part of their job description all these years later. One of them I even fooled into marrying me.

Relax... Ken isn't that one. But, aside from my wife, Ken is the closest of my close friends. I'm pretty sure saying this doesn't hurt my other friends' feelings. For one thing, they're probably glad Ken's taking the bullet; for another, it wasn't the result of a decision on my part. Circumstance (or, as I prefer to consider it, Providence) just gave us the most similar backgrounds and sensibilities, kept us in closer orbit around each other, and provided the experiences that super-glued our bond.

In my columns, I strive to maintain the consistent level of integrity and veracity that have earned me the Commander McBragg Lifetime Achievement Award for Journalistic Excellence. So by sharing a story in my usual fashion, where Ken is a major player, I run the risk of doing him a great disservice, giving folks an inaccurate picture of the caliber of human being my friend truly is, and trivializing our relationship. But hey... my wife and sons have occasionally undergone the same treatment, and if it were offensive, I'm sure they'd let me know through whatever third party they now use to communicate with me.

So, with the usual disclaimer that You Can't Believe Everything You Read, let's get started.

Sometime in 1999, after about 30 years of friendship, Ken had offered me a job with the company he had started a few years earlier. Everybody told us that one of the quickest ways to destroy a friendship is to have one friend start working for the other, so the common wisdom was that Ken had finally come up with a plan to cut me loose. It didn't work. Ten years later, in 2009, I was still there, and Ken decided to celebrate the decade-long barnacle by taking Sue and I to Hawaii for a week. I tried to talk him out of it, for a couple of reasons:
1. I've benefited frequently and often from the perks of being Ken's friend, not the least of which is the sweetest job I've ever had, so the trip would be unnecessary icing on a 9-layer cake;
2. We were in the last season of Lost and by now I had learned that flights over the ocean never ended well.

Ken was not to be dissuaded, and immediately plunged into the travel arrangements. Schedules were consulted, airlines were vetted, accommodations were considered, and in no time at all a year had passed and we were set for a week's vacation on The Big Island.

Survivors of my past journals know that I usually give a day-by-day account of the excursions. I'll change it up this time and, rather than walk through the trip chronologically, I'll just highlight the main aspects, activities, and adventures in a more loose-knit fashion. It's not because I've suddenly come down with a case of compassion for my readers... it's just that, 8 months later, I've misplaced the grey cells that contain the minutiae of the trip.

First, a little bit about our destination:

Hawaii is the fiftieth state to be admitted to the Union, right after Alaska in 1959. It was actually supposed to be admitted before Alaska, until the island law enforcement elite realized that Hawaii 49 just didn't have the right ring to it.

Like New York, Hawaii is a state with an indigenous language other than English. For many years, that language consisted entirely of vowels, until the populace wearied of gape-jawed conversations, and a few consonants were introduced in 1855.

The state consists of hundreds of islands, most of them ignored. There are eight "main" islands--- Ni'ihau; Kaua'i; O'ahu; Moloka'i; Lana'i; Kaho'olawe; Maui; and Hawai'i--- that get most of the attention, either because of their size or their insane use of apostrophes. The biggest of these is Hawaii (if you think I'm going to wear out my pinkie typing the apostrophe every time, you're crazy). Hawaii (the island) is more commonly called The Big Island, to avoid confusing it with the entire state and probably for some other reasons that won't be discussed in mixed company.

The Big Island was our destination. Specifically, the Hilton Waikoloa Village Resort, a huge complex on the northwest coast of the island:

As you can see, it's a pretty big place... sort of a Polynesian Ponderosa. There are three main towers of rooms; here's a similar aerial view with those towers labeled:

Our rooms were in the Lagoon Tower, which sounds vaguely like a medieval prison, but was actually very nice. As you can see, for folks like myself who think the term "leisurely stroll" is an oxymoron, accessing the entire resort would be a challenge . Fortunately, the Hilton people supply a couple of ways of getting around the resort: a monorail system, and a canal system populated with little shuttle boats:

I'm not sure of the reason for the redundant shuttle systems. I suppose the boats are meant to give off some sort of romantic gondola-type vibe, but the ambience is sort of spoiled when you and your significant other are sitting across from a dripping-wet pot-bellied guy in a Speedo on his way back to his room from the pool. I know this from personal experience... the couple told me so.

The Big Island, I'm told, is the only one of the Hawaiian islands that has active volcanoes, which, inexplicably, makes it a popular tourist destination rather than a roped-off hazmat zone. There's a big peak smack-dab in the middle of the island: Mauna Kea.

I'm told that Muana Kea would be the tallest mountain in the world if you measured it from its base, which is located somewhere below sea level. But that measuring practice was abandoned a long time ago... too many guys holding the "zero" end of the tape measure were lost.

On The Big Island, pretty much everything to the west of Mauna Kea is volcanic landscape; while everything to the east is the green stuff they put in the postcards. So on the drive from the airport to Waikoloa Village, both sides of the road looked like this:

Of course, the resort area itself is full of lush vegetation and manicured golf courses. I'm not sure what miracle of landscaping made this happen, but it's pretty impressive. It's like you're living in a dome city on the moon. I think they must be sucking water and topsoil out of the hundreds of other Hawaiian islands that no one pays attention to.

When we first checked into the hotel's main lobby on Wednesday night, it was pretty crowded. Turns out that the Pokemon World Championships were being held there through Sunday. Pokemon is on the list of things I don't know much about (that list is a 10 terabyte file currently stored in an array of Cray supercomputers buried deep within the Sierra Nevadas), but apparently part of the overall culture involves a game played with elaborate-looking character cards filled with statistics and descriptive text. The lobby was filled with young people in small huddles peering at cards on table tops. At first I thought that maybe fortune-telling was a popular part of the local culture (not unreasonable on an island where mountains unexpectedly explode), but then I noticed the displays promoting the tournament.

The yellow guy is Pikachu, which I believe has replaced Godzilla as King of the Monsters.

It was early evening when we checked in and then set out to find our rooms on foot. It was late evening (and the following day) before we actually found them. There hadn't been much in the way of snacks during the flight over (after I stepped onto the plane, a few boxes of cookies, chips, and crackers had to be jettisoned to make sure our fuel would get us to dry land), and we were a bit peckish. So Sue and I, at Ken's insistence and for the first time in our lives, ordered room service. It was a mistake. The food was fine, but the decadence of it still haunts us... we haven't been able to look each other in the eye since. 

Part Two

If you could pick one word that best characterized this trip (or life in general, for that matter) it would be "snorkeling."

Ken really likes to snorkel. I, on the other hand, had never been snorkeling prior to this trip. (I do, however, like saying the word... snorkel, snorkel, snorkel).

In order to keep the government grant for maintaining an educational website, let me tell you a little bit about snorkeling.

Snorkeling is the technical term used to describe the complex process of breathing through a tube in a non-medical setting. (Hospitals used to use the term until they started receiving calls from panicked patients who noticed a "snorkeling" charge on the itemized bill and demanded to know what had been done to them). Snorkeling didn't gain much popularity till someone discovered that it actually made sense if your head was underwater. Then it soon became the rage among road gang escapees trying to shake bloodhounds.

Nowadays, snorkeling is considered a form of recreational swimming practiced by folks who want to get a prolonged gander at undersea life, but don't see the wisdom of going into the water with high-pressure metal tanks strapped to their backs. Technically, the "snorkel" is the U-shaped tube that goes into one's mouth and, in theory, sticks out of the water while one swims face-down. But the snorkel (noun) is only one of the pieces of equipment needed to snorkel (verb). You should also have:
- a swim mask;
- swimming fins;
- a pair of swim trunks, preferably ones that will stay on while you're swimming.

The simplicity of the equipment makes snorkeling a bit more accessible than scuba diving. Also, technically, you have to complete some training to go scuba diving, but any idiot can chomp down on a snorkel. That's where I come in.

Like I said, I had no previous snorkel experience, but from its inception, it was clear that this Hawaii trip was going to be my baptism (so to speak) into the discipline of remote breathing. In the months preceding the vacation, Ken kept asking me if I would be his snorkeling buddy during the trip, and, of course I agreed. I usually agree to any activity Ken suggests. I assume it's because we're friends, so we have fun doing just about anything, but some have suggested he has a Svengali-like influence on me that causes me to participate in otherwise out-of-character endeavors. On reflection they may have a point... in the past, the man has finagled me onto the back of a motorcycle on the freeway; convinced me to throw myself over a jet turbine to simulate sky-diving; and, when we were stranded by riptides off a California beach, had me towed back to shore by a lifeguard half my size. If he hadn't become a Christian, I'd probably be reminiscing about our stay in a Guatemalan prison.

Ken has the cockeyed notion that his vacations should be spent doing things he enjoys. He enjoys eating, sleeping, reading, watching TV, visiting with friends and family, and snorkeling. If he could somehow install a coral reef in his back yard, Ken's perfect vacation spot would be his home.

He does NOT enjoy sightseeing. For Ken, a picture is worth a thousand miles. His outlook is that people have gone to a lot of trouble to photograph pretty much everything that's worth looking at. So he sees no appeal in taking the time and effort to travel somewhere just so he can say he's seen it in person.

Hey, everybody enjoys different things, so this is a perfectly valid point of view... but it's not one shared by everyone. For instance, I like road trips... taking my car to places I've never been, and looking at everything along the way. If Ken took a trip like that with me, it would probably have the same ending as Thelma and Louise. So you can see that, hypothetically speaking, if someone with Ken's recreational philosophy is grouped with other folks who enjoy sightseeing and they're all dropped into an incredibly picturesque and unique location like Hawaii; well, speaking strictly hypothetically, it might put a damper on Susan and Deborah's plans for a good time.

If, on the other hand, there were someone there to take up the snorkel slack, the hypothetical women could peel off for their own activities without leaving Ken to his own aquatic devices. But where could such a person be found? Someone with no pre-conceived notion of what constitutes an Hawaiian vacation; someone whose putty-like mind could easily be convinced that taking his putty-like body out for a daily snorkel with his friend was the epitome of a tropical-good time?

As I said, Ken had written the job description with me in mind, so I was perfect for the part, except for my utter lack of experience. But Ken was very patient dealing with a guy who didn't know which end of the snorkel to put in which end of his body.

The first day, we decided to take baby steps and stick to the private ocean-fed lagoon inside the resort:

We rented the snorkel gear from a shack located on the little beach that's just out of frame to the right. After seeing me, they upped the security deposit to cover cover the expense of dragging the lagoon bottom to recover their equipment and (for five dollars more) me.

As we suited up, Ken gave me a crash course in snorkelology. Rule #1: don't breathe through your nose. That was a tough one for me. I use my nose a lot for breathing, mostly because my mouth is usually occupied with eating something. Rationally, I knew the snorkel wasn't edible and would allow mouth-breathing, but the lizard brain that controls my reflexes still told my nose to kick in whenever I bit down on the mouthpiece. This is a big deal because if you exhale through your nose while snorkeling, you break the suction-generated seal between your face mask and your face, water pours into your face mask, and you can no longer clearly see your life flashing before your eyes.

Rule #2: If you dive below the surface, be sure to clear your snorkel if you ever manage to make it back to the surface. Apparently, while you're under the sea, water tries to sneak into your lungs through the snorkel tube, and at some point you have to drive back that advance. You do this summoning up elementary school memories of spitball battles and exhaling a sharp burst of air through the tube. The first time I tried this, my lizard brain and I were again at odds. I took a deep breath through the tube, held it, went down for a closer look at the bottom. After about 10 seconds, my lungs were screaming for oxygen, so I went back up to get some more. Unfortunately, my first instinct after holding my breath is to suck in air, not blow more out. While I was discovering how bad the Pacific tastes, I reflected on why so many sports (snorkeling, sky-diving, rock-climbing, dodgeball) involve doing the exact opposite of what your body is suggesting at the time.

At any rate, after a bit of time devoted to a majestically-arced learning curve, I got the hang of it and started exploring the wonders of the ocean floor which, in this lagoon, was mostly suspended throughout the water. There's a lot of people doing a lot of stuff in the lagoon--- swimming; pedal-boating; kayaking; rowing around on some sort of stand-up surfboard arrangement; playing Marco Polo; looking for the bar--- and they tend to kick up a lot of silt that would otherwise be resting peacefully at the bottom. So, visibility-wise, swimming around in it is like taking a dip in a strong pot of Earl Grey tea. Still, you could see something if you got close enough to it to make it feel uncomfortable, and the lagoon was a nice, non-threatening place to break in a snorkel.

Part of the lagoon sea-life that's decided to put up with the tourists are a couple of sea turtles like the one below.

There are signs throughout the lagoon letting folks know that the turtles are for watching, not touching or riding or trying to put in your suitcase. Unfortunately, unlike dolphins, turtles can't read, and the ones in the lagoon treat it like a cocktail party. If you're anywhere near them, they bump up against you or come up underneath you and try to slip you their telephone numbers.

Seeing as how I didn't get intimately acquainted with a lifeguard, we thought the first day of snorkeling went pretty well. So, for the following day, we planned a trip out to a real beach.

Part Three

The first morning of our stay, we had attended an orientation conducted by the Hilton folks. It was designed to let us know about the many non-Pokemon-related recreational opportunities available on the Big Island. I asked the presenter for a recommendation for a good snorkeling location, but I had to lie and say I was asking on behalf of someone else to get the conscientious presenter to suggest any location other than my hotel room tub. She finally suggested Kahalu'u Beach, located down the coast from the resort.

This was perfect, since the Greenwell Farms coffee plantation was relatively nearby. Sue and Deborah, given the choice between watching coffee grow or watching middle-aged fat men lay face down in the water, opted for the beanery.

So we rented a car, dropped the womenfolk off at Greenwell Farms and backtracked up the coast in our rental car to Kahalu'u beach, located in the town of Kailua Kona, home of the hard "c".

The beach was very user-friendly and seemed designed for snorkelers like me who want to be in the real ocean, but don't want it to be too real.

There's the sandy part you see here, which is handy for those of us who need a soft spot to sit during the hour it takes to find our feet and struggle with the swim fins. But once you get out in the water, there's plenty of coral beds in shallow water to explore. There's also lots of colorful fish who've decided that tourists without spears are tolerable.

For a first-time snorkeler like me (well, first time in clear water), it was pretty cool to see all the fish wandering around beneath me. I decided I needed to take some pictures, so I ran back to get the camera out of the car. I didn't bother taking off my fins or mask, so I had to dodge a few spears and nets wielded by some overzealous Cousteau wannabes who thought The Black Lagoon had spit out a new Creature. But I made it back to the water and managed to snap one picture of the colorful undersea life....

.... after which my camera quit working. I called the Canon people later; they told me that not all cameras are designed for underwater operation, and that, lacking oxygen, cameras like mine will freeze up, experience hallucinations, and die in a matter of seconds.

So I gave up on pictures and started swimming around, taking in the scenery. Although the waters off of Kahalu'u beach are pretty sheltered from normal tides, the water still moves a little bit. Not enough to bother experienced snorkelers or most people over the age of 6, but enough to occasionally catch me unawares and push me into some of the shallower areas of the coral reef. By shallow, I mean anywhere where my diameter exceeded the water's depth.

You probably don't know this, but in spite of its beautiful appearance, coral can be pretty abrasive. With me, it was downright rude. Once my stomach started scraping its way along the coral bed, and little pieces of my flesh started floating past my facemask, I decided it was time to quit letting the water push me around, so I grabbed some nearby coral outcroppings to stop my movement. It was a bad idea; it turns out my hands were covered by the same flimsy stuff as my stomach.

Pretty soon, my section of the water was looking pretty festive as I added a few pints of bright red to the coral palette. I decided to get out of the water before I attracted sharks or, worse yet, gave the angel fish a taste for human blood.

Ken accompanied me back to the public restroom on the beach. Fortunately, no one else was in there, so I didn't gross anybody out while I used several rolls of toilet paper to dress my wounds.  I'm sure, though, that anybody visiting the facilities later didn't appreciate the lack of toilet paper, or that the place looked like Freddy Krueger's rec room.

On the way back to the car, Ken kept calling me "old chum." It took me until yesterday to get it.

After picking up the women, we stopped by a drug store. A few Band-Aids™ later, I was as good as new... which might make some of you think I'm exaggerating about the extent of my wounds. But I'm not... it's just that Band-Aids™ are vastly under-rated. They're the duct tape of the medical world, and I'd say that even if I weren't expecting a little something extra from Johnson & Johnson after they see this.

I took some pictures of my wounds to share with you, but decided not to post them. It would be too jarring to have the photo theme go from Rubes In Paradise to CSI: Hawaii.

The next day, we decided to go back to the Hilton Lagoon where supposedly I couldn't get into any trouble; and if I did, the water was murky enough to hide any hemorrhaging. Still, Ken wasn't content without pushing the envelope just a bit by venturing out of the lagoon proper.

To give you an idea of the terrain, I've taken the overhead shot of the resort used earlier, and carefully overlaid some state-of-the-art graphics:

The arrow is pointing at the resort lagoon. Snorkelers who are feeling adventurous or confused can make their way out of the lagoon, through a channel, under a bridge (circled on the map) and into an area that leads to open water (marked by the exclamation point). The passageway under the bridge actually has a rope strung across it.... you know, the kind with floats like what they use in a public pool to separate the shallow tiny-tot area from the rest of the pool. We asked the guy at the snorkel-rental shack if it was okay to swim underneath the rope and go on out to other inlet, and he said sure. I wasn't real confident with getting the okay from a guy whose other administrative duty was soaking masks in disinfectant, but it was good enough for Ken, so I followed him out into the lagoon, over to the bridge, under the rope barrier, and into the big kids' lagoon.

We felt pretty special. Apparently, not everybody gets the okay from the snorkel guy, because we were the only ones out there. At first, that made me a little apprehensive, but the coast guard never showed up and there were no irate locals or hotel employees jumping up and down on shore, so either it was okay to be there, or the Hilton was applying Darwinian theory to keep its guest list manageable.

The trouble was, there weren't that many fish out there, either. Perhaps they had all heard about the human sushi that had appeared the day before at Kahalu'u Beach, and had flocked over there in the hope of a repeat performance. At any rate, we looked around for a little while, then returned to the little lagoon. Back at the snorkel shack, we asked the guy if it was okay for us to snorkel in the koi pond near the resort's Japanese restaurant. He said sure. We started heading in that direction, but then we overheard him recommending lava surfing to another guest, so we decided to call it a day.

Part Four

Ken had heard that the best snorkeling on the Big Island was at Kealakekua Bay (pronounced "bae"). The trouble is, the bay's not accessible by land unless you hike in on a steep  2-mile trail, a trek that takes about 3 weeks for someone in my condition, once you factor in the multiple medevac trips and hospital stays.

After having no luck finding any local jet-pack-rental places, Ken arranged a snorkel cruise with an outfit called Fair Wind. They put you on a catamaran at Keauhou Bay (birthplace of King Kamehameha III) and carry you to Kealakekua Bay, home of the Captain Cook monument. (Don't read that last sentence aloud... it will make the roof of your mouth sore).

We checked in at the dock, but we had some time to kill before getting underway, so Ken went to the gift shop and bought me a nifty t-shirt with the Fair Wind logo on it. He asked me change into it immediately, I think in the hopes that I could masquerade as one of the crew and possibly secure more helpings of food during the trip. Although that seemed an unlikely scenario, I still changed into the shirt... in case of a mutiny, it's always best to be able to take either side.

Pretty soon, the vessel was prepared for boarding...

... but most of the ladies weren't.  It seems that the prospect of using the boat's bathroom (or "head") had driven all of the female passengers to the small restroom (or "john") at the gift shop, and there was still a good-sized line of women (or "dames") there when boarding was announced. I was a little concerned that, like most sailors, Ken and I might end up leaving our women behind, but Fair Wind was apparently used to this situation and made sure everyone was on board before casting off.

After a half-hour or so of traveling down the coast, we chugged into Kealakekua Bay:

We dropped anchor sort of near those two little white boats you see to the right of center, near shore. They left in a hurry after seeing a boatload full of pot-bellied snorkelers approaching, but that was probably just a coincidence.

The bay is actually a state park, the only one in the country that is completely underwater, although there are a couple of California rest stops that may be added to the list if the toilets aren't fixed soon. Because it's a State Marine Sanctuary, and the geography keeps rain from draining down into it, the water is crystal clear and it makes a great snorkeling spot. 

As I mentioned before, this is also the location of the Captain Cook monument:

At 27 feet, it's sort of what the Washington Monument would look like if erected in today's economy. It was erected by the Australians in 1878 to commemorate Captain James Cook, a British explorer who met his untimely end at this very spot. The historical details are somewhat disputed. Some say that when Cook's ship, the HMS Resolution, sailed into the bay, the locals were celebrating a festival dedicated to Lono, the fertility god, and the appearance and timing of the ship's arrival caused the natives to welcome Cook and his crew as gods (so far, so good). Cook and his crew left, but had to return about a week later with a damaged foremast, which apparently is a Lono no-no, because the natives ended up killing Cook and some of his crew.  Some historians have since said that this story is hogwash, and it was just some strained relations and a misunderstanding about a stolen rowboat that led to the fatal skirmish. No matter which story you choose, they both end up with an obelisk on the shore of Kealakekua Bay, so I doubt if Captain Cook is crazy about either one.

While reading about the voyage, I did come across the fact that Captain Bligh was the sailing master on the Resolution before he became captain of the Bounty. Both men must have walked under a ladder together or something.

The snorkeling was fantastic. I was foresighted enough to pick up one of those disposable water-proof cameras that are encased in plastic, and snapped all sorts of pictures of the great underwater scenery. When we got back to port, I dropped it in the nearest trashcan for developing, and as soon as I get them back, I'll share them with you.

You have to hand it to the Fair Wind people: they don't just ferry you out to a bay and tell you to abandon ship. Lunch is included. After letting you snorkel for a while, they ring the dinner bell and barbecue up enough hamburgers and hot dogs to feed three boats' worth of people, so there was almost enough there for Ken and I. It's a convenient arrangement... after everyone gets their bellies nice and full, they can immediately jump back in the water. I noticed that after lunch, many of the folks seem to have gained their second wind, spending more time checking out the ocean floor and not coming up until their friends went down and got them.

It was a great day, and the snorkeling highlight of the trip. If someone like me, who is roughly the size and shape of a navy raft with none of the buoyancy, can have a good time doing this, than anybody can, so I heartily recommend the experience.

Aside from the afore-mentioned locations, there was one other public beach in which we dipped our snorkels. It was near the hotel. I can't remember the name, but it had a lot of vowels and at least one "k". It was the only place we snorkeled where there were actual waves coming right up to the shore. Granted, they were microscopic waves, much like what one would generate easing into a bathtub. But they technically qualified as an incoming tide (the papers are on file at city hall). I watched Ken head enthusiastically and effortlessly out toward open water and I put my head down and tried to follow him, but a couple of things happened:
1. Water kept lapping into my snorkel and eventually nesting in my lungs;
2. My body, apparently outraged by even the hint an opposing motion from the tide, immediately shut down all the shipping lanes running between my lungs and the other areas of my body that require oxygen. My respiration rate correspondingly increased to that of a St. Bernard summering in Palm Springs. Combined with item #1, I was soon floundering in one of the shallowest points on the island.

What can I say? I'm perfectly fit when paddling through still water or going down a water-slide, just like I'm okay walking on level ground. But I'm incredibly short-winded when the terrain or circumstance even hints at pushing back. At the supermarket, I'll park the car at the far end of the parking lot and have no trouble hiking to the entrance; but if there are sacks of groceries involved on the return trip, I usually crawl into the cart and have my wife push me back to the car.

So probably, I could have stood up, strolled out further (where Ken was diving and then leaping out of the water like a dolphin), and tried again, but, frankly, I was too tired, and there was no guarantee that once I got out there, the ocean wouldn't still demand that I put my back into swimming. Ken was in the distance, asking if I was all right and gesturing for me to get out there, and I replied with some sign language of my own to let him know that I wasn't going anywhere. I had a good enough time being gradually nudged back to shore by the waves, and watching my friend have a good time.

He was having a good time, by the way. He had run across another sea turtle (you know... those animals that animal-lovers don't want us to touch?) and was riding him up and down the immediate coastline. I wasn't jealous... I was glad Ken had found another snorkeling companion and I knew the turtle wouldn't permanently take my place as Ken's friend as soon as Ken realized he couldn't fit the turtle in the rental car.

Luckily, it never got that far... the turtle turned around before we even made it halfway to the parking lot.

I don't think Hawaii is known for its local cuisine. I'll probably get in trouble for saying that, especially with all the folks who like pineapple on their pizza, but the fact remains: when I told people we were going to Hawaii, I received lots of suggestions for places to go and activities to engage in; but not one dining recommendation, other than the usual tips to chew with my mouth closed and keep my elbows down while eating.

Ken had clipped out an article from the LA Times travel section that listed economical places to eat on the Big Island, but, with the exception of one place that I'll get to later, the list was more about pampering the pocketbook than turning the reader into a culinary diplomat.

Still, I tried to come into the state with at least a vague concept of some Hawaii-centric dishes. The national dish, I'm told, is poi, given its name by the sound folks make when they taste it. Poi is made from the tarot root (tarot is a starchy tuber, which is a bad description for something edible, but a great name for a comic strip character). To make poi, the tarot is boiled, peeled, and pounded into a paste that is briefly served in a bowl before being taken to the local elementary school's art supplies closet.

Roasted pork seems to be considered Hawaiian cuisine, if you prepare it by burying it for a few hours before unearthing it and serving it on a platter. As food preparation goes, that process doesn't exactly thrill me, and it makes washing up before dinner seem pretty pointless.

And I guess Hawaiian bread is pretty famous... they sell it next to the Twinkies at my local supermarket... but from what I read, it's actually a Portuguese sweet bread, so I disqualified it.

Loco moco sounded promising, though, and not just because I like saying it almost as much as "starchy tuber."  Basically, it's a dish consisting of a bed of white rice (mixed with carrots and peas) and topped with a fried egg, gravy, and some meat. Since fried eggs, gravy, and meat are the only components of the Chuck Thornton food pyramid, I was looking forward to giving loco moco a try...

... especially since I could get it made with Spam. I love Spam, which is basically a salt brick that, via nuclear collider, is infused with something vaguely pork-like and put in a can. The Hormel company has been selling this stuff since 1937 and it's still on the shelves today, so somebody must be buying it, but, except for my dad (God rest his soul) I've never come across anybody who hasn't blanched at the thought of sliding a hunk of Spam out of its can, slicing it up, frying it up, and addressing it as something edible. I don't get to have it very often, because my family can't stand seeing me eat it. In short, Spam gets no respect.

Except in Hawaii. Hawaiians consume more Spam per capita than anywhere else... about an average of 12 cans per person per year, according to whatscookingamerica.com. It was introduced to the island population during World War II by our GIs, who were apparently eager to unload Spam surpluses on the natives. Hawaii appreciates Spam, and last I heard, it is on the menu in some form at the Hawaiian McDonalds, Burger Kings, and state penitentiary.

During my visit to this enlightened state, I wasn't about to pass up the opportunity to try a delicacy like Spam loco moco... and, providentially, there was a restaurant listed in Ken's LA Times article where the Spam loco moco was recommended. So one of the places we visited was the Tex Drive-in, which sits off the highway as you make your way over to the east side of the island.

Once we found it, I took a picture of Sue and Ken and Deborah in front of the place...

... only it turns out that's not the front of the place. I probably should have been clued in by the entrance sign and the propane tank, but I was caught up in the prospect of eating somewhere where Spam was actually on the menu.

Eventually, we found the front of the building:

and had our meal on the patio near one of the big potted plants, where my companions could discreetly vomit while I chowed down on my Spam loco-moco. It was delicious.

In no particular order, here's a few of the other places we ate:

Kamuela Provision Company

Although this sounds like a place where the natives get their Spam, it's actually one of the restaurants at the Hilton Waikoloa Village resort, and was recommended because it sits on an elevated point that allows a great view of the Hawaiian sunset:

Obviously, I didn't take this picture... if I was inclined to snap pictures during a meal, I would have done it at the Tex Drive-In.

I can't remember what I ate here...  with a view like that, I didn't pay too much attention to the food. (I hope the restaurant wasn't counting on that). As near as I can recall, it was pretty good and not particularly Hawaiian; probably some meat that didn't come from a can.

In the picture, you can see a guy in the background lighting one of the tiki torches. This is a nightly ceremony at the resort that starts at the Kamuela Provision Company. This guy takes off his shirt and runs through the entire resort, lighting all the tiki torches on the grounds. I'm sure the Hilton staff are drawing straws to get that job... I didn't see this guy consulting a map or personal GPS unit, and there are a lot of torches in the resort to commit to memory. Plus I'll bet he gets distracted by the occasional wise guy who calls him over to light up a cigar, and there's probably not much of a break before he has to start back around at daybreak blowing all the torches out. I'm sure the guy has an interesting philosophy about the futility of life.

Kirin

One early evening, when we decided it was dinnertime, we were feeling adventurous, so we hopped on the train and took it all the way to the end of the line. Of course, it was the resort monorail, and the "end of the line" was about a five minute ride, but it's amazing what qualifies as adventure when you're on the downhill side of your fifties.  This was another restaurant located on the resort grounds. It's a Chinese restaurant, located at the opposite end of the "lagoon" section where we were staying. We seemed to be the only patrons there, either because we arrived right at opening time, or because my idea of "casual dress" caused the greeter put us in a room away from the other guests. At any rate, it was no reflection on the restaurant... the food was good, but there was no effort to give the Chinese cuisine an Hawaiian spin. There was no Spam Chow Mein or sweet and sour Spam, so, again, I can't really remember what I had.

Huli Sue's Barbecue And Grill

Huli Sue's was another one of the places Ken had highlighted in the LA Times article he had brought along. It's in Waimea on the northern part of the island, and we stopped to eat there on our way back after a long day on the eastern side of the island checking out volcanoes, waterfalls, the Tex Drive-in, and the occasional public restroom. The food was supposed to be good and economical, and Ken's anticipation of sampling the cuisine was running high enough that he allowed me to take this picture of him under their sign before realizing that he was holding a purse. I think it was safe to say that Ken's interest in Huli Sue's was the same level as mine was for the Tex Drive-in.

Unfortunately the anticipation far exceeded the actual event, and the above picture captured the last happy moment Ken would experience that day.

(Over the years, Ken and I have discussed our differing relationship to food. It's obvious by our physiques that we both like it a lot, but, while I enjoy eating, I'm not the real food appreciator that Ken is; I think it's safe to say that one of the first coherent thoughts that form in Ken's brain upon waking each morning is deciding what he's going to eat that day... unless he's made those arrangements earlier. In either case, he starts the day anticipating his enjoyment of the upcoming meal. He's currently involved in legal action to have the "Happiest Place On Earth" motto taken away from Disneyland and given to Lawry's The Prime Rib in Los Angeles.)

Ken found Huli Sue's to be a big disappointment. The rest of us agreed the cuisine was pretty mediocre, but it hit Ken harder than the rest of us This was a mealtime he would never get back, and I think he felt personally betrayed by Huli Sue's and by the LA Times. Sort of like looking forward to An Evening With Leonard Nimoy and then discovering that the show consists entirely of Leonard reciting his poetry.

I had one of the steaks with my choice of two side dishes. The sides offered were fries; mashed potatoes; cole slaw; pineapple rings; baked potato; or bok choy. Of course, fries were my first choice, but I had some trouble deciding on the second. My love for starchy tubers aside, I didn't want to opt for another version of potatoes; and I'm not a big cole slaw or pineapple ring fan. So I opted for bok choy, figuring it was probably some sort of oriental noodle thing.

Of course, as probably all of you who eat your vegetables know, bok choy is a vegetable first cultivated on an alien planet and brought down to Earth to replicate human beings in their sleep. It looks sort of like a green onion on steroids, or perhaps celery with a malignant tumor at its base. I'm told bok choy is of the same species as the turnip... if that's true, there's been a lot of inbreeding in that branch of the family. Although it was tough to approach with a knife and a fork, I gave it a try, but my efforts weren't rewarded with any taste that I could discern, and cutting into my steak was exhausting enough, so I soon gave up on bok choy and sought solace in my fries.

KFC

On our way back from a snorkeling trip (the one where I had performed hari kari on a coral reef), we stopped to pick up some band-aids at a drug store and noticed the sign for this place in a shopping center across the street.  We figured the initials stood for something trendy like the Kamuela Freight Company or Komehameha Fine Cuisine, and decided to give it a try. Not being particularly ethnic-attuned, we thought that the gentleman depicted in the logo looked vaguely Hawaiian, in the same way that Poppin Fresh, the Pillsbury Doughboy, looks vaguely Norwegian.

Once we stepped inside and were bathed in the familiar aroma of 11 secret herbs and spices, we realized that, after all, this was still America, and we could still get Kentucky Fried Chicken.

This made Ken perk up. He loves KFC. (Someday, if I can find it, I'll post my journal of the trip Ken and I took to Metropolis, Illinois, where we discovered a local KFC with an all-you-can-eat buffet, and ate nowhere else for the entire time we were there.) But it prompted an age-old discussion that we've never resolved.

Ken likes dark meat. He doesn't like white meat. I've maintained that I like both. So on the rare occasions where we were the only two ordering a batch of chicken, Ken would order only dark meat, but only after subjecting me to intense coerced interrogation to confirm that I truly had no preference.

This was one of the occasions, because, although the lovely and talented Susan and Deborah were with us, they had decided that the petroleum that drips from the bottom of every KFC container shouldn't be coursing through their arteries.  And before Ken ordered, I made a fateful miscalculation: an exercise in poor judgment that I conveniently blame on the loss of blood I had experienced earlier. Whatever the reason, I made the mistake of suggesting that we mix it up by including some white meat in the order.

That's when we discovered that, although the chicken might be the same, KFC Hawaii packages it in different doses than the mainland. And what followed was a surreal clash of the titans, as Ken and The Colonel squared off for the big white meat smack-down.

Ken didn't bother looking at the menu (he thought he knew it by heart), and opened with a 16-piece order, original, mixed, chicken-only (no sides).

The counter person--- well, countered--- by saying that they didn't offer a 16 piece chicken-only choice.

"Oh," Ken said.

"We have a special on 10 pieces, chicken only," she offered.

"Any white meat?"

"No, legs and thighs."

"Oh." Pause. "What do you have with white meat?"

Chuck (in the background): "Don't worry about it. Legs and thighs are fine."

"We have a 12-piece meal, comes with two sides. Or a 16 piece meal, comes with 3 sides."

"We don't need any sides. Can we get a 12 or 16 piece meal, hold the sides?"

Chuck (in the background, staring out the window): "Don't worry about it. Legs and thighs are fine."

"No, that would be chicken only. We don't hold our sides. My machine doesn't have a button for that."

Chuck (in the background and staring at his feet): "Don't worry about it. Legs and thighs are fine."

"Okay, can we have two of the 10-piece chicken only, but make one of those with some white meat pieces?"

"Sorry, the 10 piece offer is for legs and thighs only."

"The sign doesn't say that."

"Yes it does. Sorry, it's at the bottom of the sign in smaller print. It's hard sometimes for seniors to see."

Chuck (in the background and hiding under a table): "Don't worry about it. Legs and thighs are fine."

"Oh. Well, I got no problem with legs and thighs, but my friend here would like some white meat."

I crawled over to the counter and addressed our hostess directly. "No, really, all dark meat, it's fine. Please don't have us arrested."

Ken said, "Did the menu change? We've always been able to order a chicken-only option of any meal."

The counter-person said, "The menus might be a little different where you come from. You're not from around here, right?"

I said, "No, we're strangers in a strange land, and really, legs and thighs are fine. We don't want any trouble."

Ken said, "So there's no way to order chicken-only with some white meat? I just can't believe that."

"Please," I pleaded, "in the name of everything the Colonel held dear..."

"Well," said the counter-person, "you could have the legs-and-thighs order, and then add additional white meat pieces at the per-piece  menu price."

The four of us hastily convened a Chicken Summit and agreed this was the best solution. We apologized to the KFC staff for being so provincial, thanked them for thinking outside the bucket, and hauled our legs, thighs, and breasts out of there.

I could look on the bright side and say that everything turned out okay, but really, the damage was irreparable. Ken now gleefully trots out this incident (I think he's having leaflets printed) to counter any claim I make about being easy to please when it comes to food. It's been a turning point in our relationship... ironically, I now have to make up preferences in order to maintain credibility. What can I say? Maybe it's this strategic give-and-take that makes the friendship interesting and allows it to endure... or maybe it's just that Ken always pays for the chicken.

The Hilton Waikoloa Resort Luau

Although this doesn't technically qualify as a restaurant, it wouldn't be right for me not to include it as one of our Hawaiian dining adventures.

I think the Hawaiian legislature has mandated 3 things that visitors to their state must do:
- wear shirts with flowers on them;
- accept necklaces made of flowers within 60 seconds of setting foot in the state; and
- attend a luau. 

A luau is a traditional Hawaiian feast. According to someone on the internet, it was started around 1819 by King Kamehameha II, when he broke with religious custom by allowing women to dine with the men at the royal feasts. Soon the women were making a big fuss, setting up seating charts, telling the men which hand to use to eat their salad with, and generally turning the occasion into a regular production. 

Originally, the feast had one of those Hawaiian names consisting of all vowels and apostrophes, but later it became named after a dish that was always served at the occasion.  Made of the beloved starchy tubers, chicken, and coconut milk, luau was a dish that someone kept bringing to the potluck but no one would touch. Eventually, the entire celebration came to be known by the only substance remaining at the end of the night.

Nowadays, a luau is expected to include not only a multi-course meal from soup to nuts (or, more accurately, from starchy tuber to pineapple flan), but also traditional entertainment like hula dancers; torch-tossers; and Don Ho channelers. Any self-respecting Hawaiian resort offers its guests the opportunity to attend a "luau."