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Thanksgiving Day 2008

HAWAII, Nov 27 - Thanksgiving Day 2008 turned out to be atypical in many ways. It started unusually, with a sighting of a huge cruise ship entering the Hilo harbor.  It progressed at a volcanic rate that landed us at the southernmost tip of the United States by noon.  And it finished with an Italian dinner on the west coast of the Big Island.  Turkey?  Not for us.  Not this year.  We'd seen enough of those at various resorts around here. J  So an Italian meal with tiramisu as its finishing touch was just what the doctor ordered for this Thanksgiving Day 2008.

But let's start at the beginning...

This is the first thing we saw this morning when we opened the curtain and looked out of our balcony.  A giant cruise ship slowly entering the harbor.  It was a sight to behold.

The next thing we noticed was that there was actually some sunshine in Hilo. Yesterday, it rained most of the day and through the night.  So seeing the sun illuminate those huge telescopes atop Mauna Kea (14,000-ft peak - middle) was a heartening sight for the two desert rats from Arizona.  By now, we had already decided to cut short our stay in Hino and return to the west coast of the Big Island. And we did it by circling the island via a southern (volcanic) route (see map - right).  Our route is marked in brown/beige.

The only active volcano in the U.S. has been spewing out lava and enlarging the Big Island ever since 1983.  I took a picture of it in those white clouds just over the hill in the left frame.  The flower girl is pointing to it in the middle left shot.  Directly opposite it, on the other side of the road, Maun Loa's gentle green hills represented a stark contrast to the dark lava fields on which we stood.

Our next stop was a black sand beach at 56 mile marker on Hwy 11.  The scenery was beautiful.  Strong trade winds from the northeast were wildly crashing the waves against the black lava rocks...

We spent nearly an hour here, horsing around and rock and shell-hunting...

We even saw this giant turtle, and looked for crocodiles in the nearby marshy swamp. :-)  Finally, I took a close up shot of some interesting rock designs that lava maker made (right).  You can let your imagination go in interpreting these images.

We then headed straight down to the southern cape of the Big Island, which also happens to be the southernmost tip of the U.S.  Along the way, we enjoyed beautiful ocean views from about 1,500 ft elevation (two left shots), and interesting local sights, such as that old theater with the giant turtle on its roof (middle right), and the allegedly southernmost bar in the U.S. (right).

As we took a windy, bumpy single-lane road where we caught this sad sight (left) - rusted out windmills now being guarded by a herd of cows.  :-) Our 12-mile trek to the southernmost tip of the U.S. was well worth the trouble.  The scenery was nothing short of spectacular...

Enjoy!

A little farther down the treacherous slope atop the high cliffs, we came across this unusual site.  No, those were not the gallows (left and middle left), though they may look like them.  Those were apparently wooden portals built in the old days to lower cows to the ships below, which then took them to market.  Nowadays, they are being used as jump off points for daredevil dives and jumps.  The girl in the middle left shot to which the yellow arrow points was about to jump off.  Seconds later, after a loud thud, she was in the ocean (middle right).  She then had to pull herself up on the ropes some 50-60 feet to the top of the cliff.  See what I mean by daredevil?

The lighthouse on the left actually marks the southernmost point in the U.S..  I stood there at high noon today (middle left).  Not far from it, there was a crude sign in the rocks stating the same fact, with Elizabeth heading toward the waves in the distance (the little speck in the middle right shot) as the waves crashed into the rocky lava cape.

As Elizabeth and I had this shot taken, we talked about how many people in the U.S. can say that they spent the high noon on Thanksgiving Day at the southernmost point in the U.S.  None, of course, was the answer.  We were the only ones there.  We were the southernmost Americans at that moment.  We both grinned, pregnant with poignancy of the sentiment.  "It's a Thanksgiving Day to remember," I remarked.

As we walked on, we came across an ancient burial site, not far from the actual cape.  The original Hawaiian natives evidently knew how to pick the places of special significance, I thought, thinking back about that petroglyphic site we saw two days earlier.

And then we drove straight north along the western coast of the island to our hotel on Waikoloa beach.

We got there in time to enjoy a spa and a lovely sunset that dropped the curtain on our Thanksgiving Day 2008.  The day, that is, but not the night.  For, we went on to that Italian restaurant for dinner.  The closest we came to having a turkey were chicken scaloppini that came with my shrimp and pasta dish.  And thus ended a Thanksgiving Day for the record books.

Aloha!

To be continued...

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