North by Northwest

View from our deck at Ship's Bay

Only a couple hours’ flight, Seattle and Vancouver are common getaway destinations from the Bay Area.  They’d been on our list for years, but we hadn’t yet been there.  The San Juan Islands, on the other hand, we’d never heard of.  But one day Frieda mentioned to a couple friends that we were thinking of finally checking out Seattle and Vancouver and the husband of the pair said, “You really should go to the San Juans.”  So, Frieda did some research and liked what she found. She thought the combination made for a nice mix of urban and rural.  Next thing I knew, we were on a plane.  

We got into Seattle mid-afternoon on a Wednesday, navigated the confusing, inadequately signed terminal to the shuttle buses for the rental car dispensary, picked up a new Prius, and headed downtown.  Our hotel was between Pioneer Square and the waterfront, and after we checked in and got the Prius safely tucked away in their garage, we set out to explore the vicinity.  The Alaskan Way Viaduct, an elevated freeway, passes along the waterfront and gives everything beneath it a dark, grimy, urban jungle cast.   After a couple of beers at an Irish pub, we wandered past the dock where the Washington State Ferries land to Ivar’s, a famous seafood chain restaurant founded in 1938 that’s a Seattle institution.  This one is the flagship location.  It’s a huge place with views of Puget Sound from an open deck at the end.  We sat inside where we had a window seat with a view of the docks.  It was comfortable and our waitress was, if anything, over-solicitous.  We had some clam chowder, steamed clams, and fish and chips.  Everything was good without being exceptional.  We felt it was a place living on its laurels.  

Deer family

The forecast had called for some rain during the week, so I’d brought a pair of rain boots.  While we were in Ivar’s it occurred to me that I’d forgotten to pack a shoehorn, without which it would be impossible to put on the rubberized boots.  So, we set out for the main shopping district to find one.  We walked all the way to Belltown without success, then circled back.  Apparently, shoe horns are nearing extinction.  The people at Target just gaped at me with baffled looks on their faces.  Finally, we ended up at Macy’s just as they were closing where, in men’s shoes, we found the mother of all horns, four feet long if it was an inch, priced, apparently, by the foot at $4, and checked it out at the last open register.  It took us half an hour to walk back to the hotel, adding another mile to the two or so we’d already walked.  We did not see any cruising cabs.  

In the morning we set out for Anacortes in the Prius to catch the ferry to Orcas Island.  The weather was utterly clear.  We got there early, the second car to line up.  By the time the ferry arrived, an hour or so later, scores of cars had joined the file behind us.  The ferry was huge, holding well over a hundred cars, and got us to Orcas in about an hour.  From the ferry landing to Eastsound, the charming main town, was about nine miles, and then another mile and a half to our B&B, a lovely place with a New England feel called the Inn at Ship’s Bay, it sported a view of the Sound and families of deer roaming the grounds.  After checking in, we drove on down the road to Cascade Lake and Mountain Lake in Moran State Park, both picturesque ponds framed by hills wooded mostly with Douglas Fir, trees that can live as long as a thousand years.  We had dinner right there at the Inn, which turned out to have an exceptional restaurant, including some delightful white wine called Siegerrebe, produced over on Lopez Island from a German grape related to Gewürztraminer.  

 

Friday began with dark clouds and light rain.  I wore the rain boots and we left the car on Orcas and took the free passenger ferry to Friday Harbor on San Juan Island where we had lunch and then went out whale watching.  The captain managed to locate a pod of five or six orcas, maneuvered the boat around in front of them, then just cut the engines and waited.  The pod got to within twenty or thirty feet of the boat carrying on with their gymnastics, breaching and doing somersaults and cartwheels as if they wanted nothing more than to show off for us.  It was spectacular!  Eventually I started to get a little sick as we were getting tossed around quite a bit in the open ocean.  But as the pod moved on and their antics subsided, the captain turned back for the harbor and once we got behind the barrier islands the water smoothed out and gradually turned to glass as the clouds began to clear and the sun peeked out.  We caught the 5:30 ferry back to Orcas and had dinner in Eastsound at the Lower Tavern.  

MacKaye Harbor

On the way out of Orcas on Saturday we explored the left lobe of the island, driving down to Deer Harbor before heading for the ferry to Lopez.  On Lopez, after lunch at The Haven, a restaurant way too good for such an out-of-the-way place, we located the Lopez Island Vineyards to secure a bottle of the Siegerrebe, a wine impossibly both floral and dry.  Then we turned south for our B&B near MacKaye Harbor, a peaceful, remote place on the south of the island.  On the way, we noticed the islanders were so friendly they waved just because they didn’t know us.  

English Bay

In the morning we woke to find a deer family breakfasting on the lawn outside our window, just as we had on Orcas.  Our congenial hosts advised us to get to the ferry early, as it was crowded on Sundays, but we nevertheless stopped at Spencer Spit, a marshland park along the way, for a brief hike.  We still got there early, and had a long wait before boarding for Anacortes.  On the way to Vancouver we had a moment of panic after crossing the border when our data roaming crapped out, leaving us with no GPS, a functionality of our phones upon which we have become utterly dependent, despite having gotten along without it for years.  We had to find a place to pull off the freeway to reestablish it (at $5/day).  Then it carried us safely through the confusion of Vancouver to the Sylvia Hotel on English Bay.  

Laughing Sculpture, Morton Park, Vancouver

We began our acquaintance with the West End by walking down Denman Street to Robson.  There was a Safeway on the corner so we picked up some prepared food to take back to our room.  The hotel had originally been an apartment building so many of the rooms, including ours, had kitchens.  With dinner we polished off a fine bottle of Pinot Grigio our hosts on Lopez Island had given us, and it made us too sleepy for further venturing.  

Monday morning, we walked south along the beach to the Aquatic Centre and caught the ferry to Granville Island.  We got a day pass for the ferries so we could hop back and forth across False Creek, an inlet of the Sound, all day.  We wandered around the island until noon when the Granville Brewery opened, then went in to share a flight of ten beers and some excellent French fries.  Finished there, we ambled over to the Public Market, full of all kinds of fantastic foodstuffs.  We shared the best cinnamon crisp we’d ever tasted, then caught the ferry down to Stamps’ Landing for a view of the distinctive Vancouver skyline before crossing again to Yaletown, a posh area with kind of NYC Upper East Side ambiance, for some coffee and groceries.  After dinner we didn’t feel like more walking so we stayed in and watched a colorized version of the original 1937 “A Star is Born” on TV. 

Steam Clock, Gastown, Vancouver

In the morning we checked out of the hotel and drove to Gastown, a West-Village-like area I loved.  We cruised Water Street on foot, bought some t-shirts, had lunch.  I felt very relaxed there, at home.  Afterward we reluctantly drove back to Seattle, playing Tom Petty songs most of the way.  We returned to the same hotel but for dinner walked in the opposite direction from the way we’d gone before and had a delicious meal at a place on 1^st Avenue called Intermezzo Carmine.  It somewhat redeemed the Seattle experience for us, but we still preferred Vancouver. On the way back to the hotel we passed a bar with live music and the band was playing more Tom Petty.   RIP Tom. 

The Big Island

From our lanai

Before this trip, we'd been to Hawaii only once, back in 2003, when we spent a week in Kauai. It was a tropical paradise, but Frieda’s not much for water sports, and there weren’t any classical ruins there, so we didn't go back. But our friends Bill and Becky bought a place on the Big Island a few years ago and invited us to visit them there, so we decided to change it up this year instead of taking our usual trip to Indian Wells for the tennis tournament.

We landed early Friday afternoon, rented a Jeep Renegade with less than 400 miles on it and drove into Kona to stroll along the waterfront. Alaska Airlines hadn't provided lunch so we stopped at The Fish Hopper to nibble some fish tacos and fried calamari on their open lanai while relaxed, happy people, some tanned, some not, wandered by in bathing suits as the surf smashed against the seawall on the opposite side of the street. One attractive but inattentive couple got well splattered by a perfectly timed wave, but as they were in their bathing suits they laughed it off, unfazed. After filling our stomachs, we headed on out Ali´i Drive to our hotel, the Kona Tiki, a small, charming establishment where the surf pounded a seawall barely 20 feet from the lanai at the back of our unit. The only issue was the parking lot, which had exactly one compact space for each unit and was thrown into gridlock if anyone showed up in an over-sized vehicle. You had to back into your slot to be reasonably hopeful of exiting successfully, and there was no other parking available in the vicinity. We decided to keep things simple that night by walking to the nearby Jackie Rey Grill for dinner, where the marlin was delicious.

Hapuna

 In the morning we pointed the Jeep north through the barren, even bleak, black lava flows of the Kohala Coast, a radically different landscape from anything on Kauai, to Hapuna Beach, a beautiful, immaculately maintained state park with clean rest and changing rooms. Here we broke out the bathing suits and found a shady nook under some thorny little trees to set up camp. The crystal clear water washing the beige sand was refreshing without inducing a chill. That's the advantage beaches in Hawaii have over California: the water is a lot warmer. The sandy bottom was a bit uneven, so you could occasionally step in a hole or stub your toe against a sandy mound whilst wading around, but there were no hidden rocks, no real harm in the offing. Occasionally a fairly substantial wave would roll in, big enough, if you weren't paying attention, to knock you off your feet. On the whole, a quite pleasant experience and we would've stayed longer but for a hoard of invasive teenagers. At least a hundred of them, no exaggeration, appeared all at once and, cackling like a flock of chickens, overran the area. On the way out we saw 4 empty school buses parked in the lot. 

Thermal vents

  Once under way we noticed some squealing and clanking sounds coming from the left rear of the Jeep, despite it being virtually a brand new car, but we continued north anyway, all the way to the end of the road at the Pololū Valley Lookout, where a series of headlands jutted out into the blue distance, before turning around and heading back to the tiny town of Hāwī where, as we looked for a parking space, the noises from the Jeep escalated. Over lunch at a restaurant called Bamboo I wondered if the car was going to strand us there but it proved functional and we made the airport where we exchanged it for a Chevy that was noise-free despite having 27,000 miles on it. On the way we spotted some humpback whales playing offshore, blowing, breaching, and rolling on their sides to slap their fins on the surface. They seemed to be having a jolly good time with each other. 

That night we were awakened about 2 AM by a violent rainstorm. The waves were crashing on the seawall with such fury that the splatter was landing on our lanai. We wondered it one of them would clear the wall entirely and break into our room. If so would we be sucked out to sea? But the rain stopped after a half hour or so and by the time we ventured out for breakfast everything had dried out and there was no sign of the storm. 

Lava tube

After breakfast we headed south out of Kona to Ho´okeana Beach, more of a homespun affair without the spectacular vistas and fine facilities of Hapuna, dark sand scattered with the black debris of lava flows. We put on our suits and got wet, but didn't stay long because we had to push on to the Punalu´u Bakeshop in Nā´ālehu where we were to meet Bill and Becky at noon. The 4 of us had lunch there and then went to a nearby black sand beach and saw sea turtles sheltering in the tide pools before pushing on to Volcano National Park, where we explored the steam vents and prowled the dim, damp, colonic Thurston Lava Tube, before deciding we required alcoholic beverages at Volcano House. We were given a table right by the windows facing the crater, but unfortunately a wall of gray fog blocked our view. After cocktails we ordered a bottle of wine and dinner. It was well past dark by the time we found ourselves navigating the dirt roads into the Hilo hinterlands were they had staked their claim. 

Banyan tree

Tuesday morning, after a walking tour of their lovely property when I was amazed by the extent of what Bill had accomplished, we headed for Hilo to cruise Banyan Drive through Liliu´okalani Gardens. The gardens feature lush lawns and ponds, in addition to the awesomely strange banyan trees, which dangle roots from their branches. We parked and strolled leisurely through them to a fish market where we picked up some ono (aka, wahoo, Bill's favorite fish) for dinner, stowing it in a cooler he'd brought for the purpose. Then we headed north along the coast to check out some choice surfing spots (he is a surfer, among other things) and ended up having lunch in Pepeekeo (love that name!) at a place called What's Shakin', where they served some delicious guacamole made from avocados grown on the property. Then it was up to Akaka Falls, where we found the park littered with scores of fallen logs. Bill explained that they were clearing an invasive species to allow native trees to be replanted. There were 2 waterfalls there, Akaka, at 442 feet, being by far the higher. From there we descended into Hilo to explore the downtown on foot.

  

 

Akaka Falls

The next day we packed a lunch and headed to Coconut Island, a great vantage to survey Hilo Bay connected to Liliu´okalani Gardens by a footbridge. After lunch we set out for Richardson Ocean Park for a quick dip before checking out Rainbow Falls and Boiling Pots. There wasn't enough water coming through the Pots to get them really boiling, nor was the rainbow at the Falls on duty, but these minor absences didn't faze us. We went back to the homestead for dinner but later got the idea to return to the National Park to see if we could get a glimpse of the caldera, which we had completely missed from Volcano House. We got to the lookout on Kīlauea about 10:30 PM and the place was nearly deserted. We could clearly see the lava lake bubbling in the caldera and spewing ropes of molten lava into the air, along with twisting, roiling clouds of gas illumined from below. We could even hear gurgling and belching, and the whoosh, whistle, and occasional blast furnace hollow roar of escaping gas. It was an awesome, elemental sight. We felt we were witnessing something truly primordial, the ongoing birth of our planet.

 

Kilauea caldera

The next day we set out to see Puna. First we went to the recycling plant where a lava flow, a huge 10-foot-high blob of black rock, had stopped just before engulfing it, pushing up against and in some places through a chain link fence along the road next to it. It reminded me of the movie “The Blob.” Though it was frozen in place, you could easily imagine the terror of seeing it on the move. From there we drove down to Alalanui Beach Park, which features a thermal tidal pool large enough for swimming, and tree-shaded lawns. The park is short on amenities, despite its popularity. After a couple of hours there we drove south along the coast through some gorgeous, lush rain forest with plants we hadn't seen elsewhere on the island, to Kalapana, the town that was destroyed in 1986 by lava flows. It's an easy hike from there over lava beds to the ocean, where it's said the air is the cleanest on the planet. On Wednesdays, which it happened to be, an event called Uncle Robert's Awa Bar and Farmer's Market is staged there. Just about every variety of comestible you can imagine is available from booths and trucks, along with liquor and live music beneath a canopy, and as the sun sinks people pack into the place and it turns into a huge, festive party. At one point a woman wearing an Obama mask jumped onto the stage and danced, flashing victory signs with both hands, which sent the crowd into a paroxysm of wild screaming and clapping. 

The best air

Hilo is known as the rainy side of the island and one of the wettest places in the USA but it stayed dry for us. The only rain we had on the whole trip was the 2 AM deluge our second night in Kona and a couple of brief overnight showers in Hilo. Thursday morning we set out for the airport in Kona, taking the northern route through the ranch country of Waimea, a land of rolling green pastures inhabited by horses and cows tended by Hawai´ian cowboys. We stopped for lunch at a place called Village Burger and had the most delicious burgers, made of local grass-fed beef, that we had ever tasted. The flight home was only a bit over 4 hours, since we caught the jet stream as a tail wind, but seemed longer.

Despite its charms, I wouldn't want to live in Hawai´i. It's too humid, for one thing. I prefer dry air. Also too isolated; both the islands as a group and each island from the others. But I was impressed by how different The Big Island was from Kauai, as well as by how much variety it offered in a small area, and this made me a little more interested in seeing Maui. On the other hand, I seem to like flying less every year so....