A Day of Driving

Good thing I hiked the mile to the car rental place (more like a junk yard half a mile down a forgotten road lined with abandoned, burnt vehicles and foreboding, dilapidated shacks and bungalows). The proprietor had made a mistake. He said that he didn't have a car for me. But he must have felt bad that I'd walked down, because all of a sudden he did have a car. A sweet, dirty, sun-faded silver Nissan Sentra. Perfect.

Think gas is expensive where you live? Try $3.64 for Regular! But that's not that bad when you compare it to milk. Here, a gallon costs almost $6. Yikes. I spent an hour walking around the grocery store in shock.
When you're faced with paying exorbitant prices for things, you come to realize quickly what you need and what you don't. Like seven dollar Taro chips. And twenty dollar pound of Kona coffee (although, like good wine, it's okay to splurge once in a while).
All you really need is two apples, a mango, two apple-bananas (delicious!), a bottle of water and a pack of sesame crackers to get you through the day. Not every day, but maybe every other. We'll see...

Ah. What a sweet ride!

It's pretty hilarious how ramshackle it is. But the radio works, and there's a good station that, though a bit commercial for my taste, plays great hits from the sixties and seventies. Perfect for a drive down the Hana Highway.

I went to a place called Na'ili'ili Haele, which is actually private property owned by the Hawaii Sugar Company. But I read about this hike that leads to four consecutive waterfalls, so I trespassed.

The waterfalls weren't really flowing, so that was a bit anticlimactic. Nonetheless, I found a rock, sat down and listened to the falling water in peaceful solitude. Perfect.
Driving on East along the Hana Highway, I loved seeing fenced off roads with their 'keep off' and 'no trespassing' signs obscuring the mysterious path over a hill or behind a wall of trees.

And how could you not love a view like this?

After today, I can say I've rented a car, I've given a seven-year-old hitchhiker a lift, and I've gotten lost in the labyrinthine roads of Ha'iku and Makawao. But those are stories for another time.