Hospitality

Hawaii is a hospitable state. Its people have a quiet demeanor, a sweet lithe to their voice, and an unhurried cadence to their speech. In my interactions, I kept waiting for the opposite. Finally, I gave up and lowered the volume of my voice.

In the eleven days we spent on Oahu and Kauai, and the eleventh day sitting on our rented condo’s porch having breakfast, killing time prior to reporting to the airport, I was ready to sit and go no where. Leave the car parked and maybe put shoes on in the late afternoon to search for sustenance.

But it was too late. The mainland beckoned. I was not sure why. There is a christening, and some long ignored administrative duties that needed to be done, and I should check on the house to make sure the heat is still on, but if I tried I could put it all on the backburner.

I did not. A 500 mph dash across an ocean and a continent waited for us just as Hawaii’s hospitality will have to wait for another season to ply its magic. That is if we ever come back.

It was time to leave. I hated to. I’m not sure how long it would take me to tire of Kauai but I’d like to try. The state’s bird should be the large tattoo festooned ukulele toting male of the species. Their soft lyrical voices are ever present. Kauai has the distinction of being “The Garden Island”, which means that in a chain of garden-y islands it is the wettest one. It rains everyday on Kaliki 4200 meters above the plains of Kauai.

We met a grandfather from Iowa sitting on a black rock at Ha’ena Beach Park lamenting the two weeks of his vacation spent in the rain. And while he spoke, the cliffs behind us became engulfed in clouds. We fled south, the rain clinging to us. Clear ahead and to the sides but some how the rain kept the windshield wet until we left Anahola in our wake.

The next town was Kapaa, a cute roadside town famous for its two hour traffic jams. But we skirted the traffic both up and down the island using our well won skills acquired by decades of Chicago living.

There is no where to go on Kauai once you have been everywhere and I do not think that being everywhere on Kauai is such a mean feat. Would it drive me nuts? Just the thought of it seems confining. Would a cheap ukulele and the sweet demeanor of the people allay these fears? Like I said, it would be nice to try.