Big Island north route - and the hulemaka flip.
Trip Start
Jan 14, 2005
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6
7
Trip End
Jan 25, 2005
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Hilo and Kona, Hawaii
Monday, January 24, 2005
On our second-last day on the Big Island, my innate clumsiness manifested itself in a spectacular fashion. Jared and I were pulling up to one of many scenic lookouts and decided to stop to take a picture. Since my door was blocked by shrubbery at the edge of the narrow turnoff, Jared grabbed the camera and headed across the road; I scooted across the seat and hopped out of the van after him. I don't know exactly what happened; I certainly didn't run, yet I must have gained some momentum because when my sandal caught on the lip of a previously-unforeseen bit of asphalt, my fall was absolutely spectacular. I registered the fact that there was broken glass strewn on the ground in front of me so perhaps I instinctively threw myself forward in an extra effort to regain my balance or at least hurdle the hazard.
I went down. Hard. And with enough forward motion that I rolled. In fact, I barreled into the backs of the knees of an unsuspecting tourist admiring the view. I was scraped, though dirty enough to not know whether I was scraped extensively or not. The blood welling up on my elbow was enough to tell me I had at least one bad one. The dirt was a fine, powdery silt that coated wherever I'd touched ground.
Jared spread a towel on the seat so I wouldn't get a lot of dirt or blood on it and we made our way back up the road about a mile to a botanical garden we'd passed. They were helpful and SO nice, and they grabbed their first aid kit and hustled me into the back room. When it became obvious that I could tend to myself they brought Jared in to keep me company (he'd been parking the van) and left me with the kit and a sink to clean up and administer what I wanted. Liberal swabbings of paper towel took the patches of dirt off me, though it took a few revolutions for Jared to spot them all. I washed my elbow then sprayed it with Bactine then poured hydrogen peroxide over it, spread Polysporin on it, and taped a large patch of gauze over it. I wasn't able to get all the dirt out - the fine brown smudge of ingrained silt wouldn't wash off, nor could I take out a couple of dark lumps of gravel from under my skin.
My friends, had I touched ground! When all was said and done, I'd managed to get dirt on both elbows, both legs, hands, back, and butt. When I say "butt" I mean not just on my shorts - I had dirt IN MY UNDERWEAR! My trajectory scooped dirt into the top of my shorts where it had apparently sifted downwards...
I told the guy who'd given me the first aid kit and he covered his face to hide his laughter and said, "Girl, you got yourself good! You did what we call a 'hulemaka flip*'!"
Some people leave their hearts in San Francisco, I'm taking Hawaii home with me.
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So, just to recap picking up where I left off in the last entry, after we left the beach we drove over the north side of the island, stopping for food and when things caught our attention (like the field of roosters individually tied outside their metal tent shelters). We spent the night in a state park then headed to the Waipio Valley overlook and from there made our way down the east coast, where the incident described above took place (note the white bandage on my elbow in the last picture), to Hilo. Mid-afternoon we traded our camper van for a car and retraced our steps across the island to Kona where we're staying for our last night. It's going to be our last chance to shower, pack, and get in some sunshine tomorrow morning and then we're headed back for the deep freeze.
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* For the record, I can't find this term online so I'm not sure I've got the spelling right. Sounds good though, don't it? Much more interesting than, "I fell down and went bang."
