The Hawaiian Vacation

I wanted to see the beaches and the dancers and hear the music in person. I wanted to visit the gardens and swim under a waterfall. I wanted to swim in the ocean and see all the fishes. So I booked a week-long vacation and told my husband.

“Ish, we are going on vacation to Hawaii. I like the camping but I want something different.” I announced.

“But what about the kids, they’re too young to enjoy tours and luaus. We can go to the beach here in California.”

“I’ve already asked Cindy, their beloved babysitter if she was willing to take them for a week and her husband is ok with it too. I want to go before we get to old and feeble to do things,” I said.

“Okay if it’s okay with Cindy and Victor. Are John, Diana, and Michael okay with us going without them? We’ve never left them before.”

I already told them and they were already packing their toys. They love Cindy and Victor and get along with their three boys. And Cindy would love to have a girl around for a change.

He answered, “Okay if you really want to go.”

So I packed up the kids clothes, and they took toys and bikes, I had a notarized letter giving Cindy permission for emergency health decisions, and the name and number of the pediatrician and the insurance information.

We flew to Hawaii landing in Honolulu and then taking a short hop to Kauai. The cab driver who drove us to our hotel asked if we were Hawaiian. He advised us to say we were “kamaʻaina” so we could pass as Hawaiians and get discounts at the shops. I did it once and got a muumuu and shirt for almost half price, but I felt guilty about lying so I didn’t do it again.

When we got to our hotel I signed us up for a luau and a tour of the botanical gardens. Ish said he wanted to take a nap.

“What? We only have a week here and I’m not going to waste any time taking naps,” I chortled. “Let’s go down to the beach right in front of our hotel.” I was wearing shorts so I only waded in up to my knees. It was a lagoon so there were no waves. The water was so clear I could see a little crab trying to bite my toes. We got hungry and stepped into a bar and grill right on the beach. We shared a hamburger as big as a plate with alfalfa sprouts instead of lettuce. I had a mai tai and Ish had a beer.

Then we saw a man renting snorkels so we went to our room to change into swim suits and rented the snorkels. The fish were colorful and unafraid of us. They ate frozen peas that the man sold us right from our hands. That night we went to a club right on the beach. They were singing karaoke. I wasn’t too impressed.

We rented a car and went sightseeing around the island. We found a beach where the sand was black. And a café where Elvis hung out when he was filming “Blue Hawaii”. Every restaurant we went to had Hawaiian singers and dancers. I still remember one singer with the voice of an angel a little boy not more than ten years old dancing so beautifully that it brought tears to my eyes.

The next day we went on a tour of a botanical garden. We heard singers in the fern grotto singing the Hawaiian Wedding Song. We walked up higher along a six-foot-wide dirt path with the hill on one side and a cliff on the other side. The tour guide (I can’t remember his name) advised us to stay away from the edge because there had been a rain the day before and the cliff was not stable. A minute later I saw Ish at the edge of the cliff with one foot hanging over the edge.

“Ish stop fooling around. He just told us to stay away from the edge; if it gives way you’ll fall down like Michael Douglas in Romancing the Stone and I won’t follow you like Kathleen Turner.”

“I’m not fooling around, I’m just trying to avoid the mud.” He never listens. When we got almost to the top of the hill there was a large pond fed by a waterfall. We were wearing bathing suits at the advice of the tour guide. So I got to swim under a real waterfall. The guide picked ripe bananas and served them to us on a banana leaf. I was the last one to get out of the water. It was a dream come true. Ish was telling me to hurry up, but the guide told him to let me stay in longer.

After that he took us to a beach near where the native Hawaiians have homes that are leased free to them for ninety-nine years. I suppose it’s as a payback for America taking their land in the first place. At the beach he taught us how to surf with a boogie board. He warned us not to hold the board upright in front of us or the wave would smack us in the face. I was on my board attempting to swim out far enough to catch a wave when I turned around to see Ish getting smacked by the boogie board when it was hit with a wave.

“Why didn’t you tell me that would happen?” Ish asked angrily.

“That’s the first thing he said when we got here, you just don’t listen,” I answered.

After that Ish had no trouble swimming out and catching a wave back to the shore. I had trouble catching a wave. I just couldn’t paddle fast enough to catch one. The tour guide took pity on me and gave me a push so I could catch at least one wave. After a while he went to the local shop and bought us “pupus,” the Hawaiian word for snacks. Most of it was raw fish and octopus. I tried everything impressing the Vietnamese tourists in our group. They asked us to dinner but Ish declined. He told me in secret he had some in Vietnam and would never try it again. He had a turkey sandwich.

Next we went to a lagoon and did some snorkeling. We were lent underwater cameras to take pictures of the colorful fish. Ish took pictures of my butt.

The next day we went on a boat on the Wailua river to a luau. We were entertained by two young men playing and singing silly songs. They even had us join in. “Would you rather be a fish or a big drip like you?” We sang and pointed to the one sitting next to us that wouldn’t sing. We laughed all the way to the luau, where they took the pig out of the ground and served Hawaiian dishes to accompany the pork buffet style outside. We took our plates inside a barn like room with straw on the floor. As we ate sitting at long picnic tables the men sang and played on their guitar and ukulele just as my uncles would at a party in the backyard.

After we ate we walked to the stage that was floating on a pool with an artificial but realistic volcano in the background. We sat on bleachers and watched the dancers. Dances from Hawaii, Tahiti, Samoa, the Philippines. Then they sang a song to the goddess Pele as the volcano erupted. It was marvelous.

I returned to the hotel very happy. We flew back to Honolulu. The next day we visited the Arizona memorial. It was the only thing Ish wanted to see. It was very solemn. It was so sad to see the list of names of all the sailors who died there. Some of them must have been brothers because there were quite a few with the same last name. We gazed into the water to see the ship still under water and oil still seeping from the wreck.

We rode the bus later that night to see the Don Ho show. He sang his hit songs, Tiny Bubbles and a few others. His back up singers accompanied him. Once again there were dancers from various islands. I was in heaven. After the show I bought the cassette tape of his hit songs and I took a picture of me kissing Don Ho. Ish was just a little jealous but he got over it quickly.

When the week was over I didn’t want to leave. Ish tried to console me, “What about the kids?”

“Bring them here we can live on the beach and fish for food,” I answered. I cried all the way from the airport to the plane. Ish took a picture of me with my nose red from crying. When we were on the plane the stewardess asked if anyone would like to stay one more day at their expense because they were overbooked. I raised my hand but Ish held it down.

“Don’t forget you have to work tomorrow,” He reminded me. That did it I came back to earth and stopped crying. I started missing my kids.

It was a wonderful vacation and I don’t regret having to add to the house refinance to pay off the bill.