Big Island

Started: 2025-01-11 23:01:46

Submitted: 2025-01-12 00:20:51

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Heading to the Big Island of Hawaii after Christmas for an extended family holiday

Our family holiday rotation this year meant that we visited my parents for Thanksgiving and would visit Kiesa's parents for Christmas. But instead of going to Bellingham for Christmas we decided to meet in Hawaii the week after Christmas, to let the full-time residents of the Pacific Northwest see the sun and escape the gloom of winter. Julian expressed interest in seeing volcanos, which inspired the whole trip, and we got lucky that the Kīlauea volcano started erupting just before Christmas. I was excited that I didn't have to visit gloomy Bellingham at all, but there are people in my family who miss seasons and want to spend more time in the cold.

We had planned to go to Hawaii the week that included New Year's, because I ended up with two holidays that week; then it turned out that my employer gave everyone off the whole week of Christmas as a reward for hitting a big milestone (and to give us a chance to rest and relax and come back refreshed in the new year because there's still much more work to be done). So I ended up with little to do and no travel plans for the week of Christmas (and by the time I discovered that I had the week off it was too late to make plans to go visit snow).

We flew United from San Francisco to Kona on the morning of Monday, the 30th of December. As we were getting ready to leave for the airport we learned that Julian had grown out of his shoes, so we found new shoes for him in the closet. We parked at the BART parking garage in San Bruno, which is almost as convenient as the on-airport long-term parking, and much cheaper because BART is trying to monetize its pre-COVID capital investment in large parking garages in any way it can. We bought food for the plane, walked past the flight to Honolulu, and joined the confusing scrum of people waiting to board the flight to Kona. We boarded the plane, a 777-200, and waited to eat until we were actually in the air, because the best breakfast food we could find in the airport concourse was (vegan) banh mi, which would benefit from using our tray tables.

As our scheduled departure time approached we learned that we would be delayed while the crew was "trying to resolve a catering issue". A follow-up announcement clarified the issue as mechanical problem with a galley cart that they couldn't leave without because it would affect the weight balance of the plane. We heard regular updates as catering dispatched a new galley cart in a truck. Once it was obvious that we were not actually departing imminently I pulled out the breakfast sandwiches, and we all finished eating well before it was time to depart. Finally the galley cart was loaded and secured and we were on our way for Hawaii, about an hour late.

We took off from runway 28L, giving us the most direct departure path to Kona. As we climbed we banked to the left, and when we leveled we were flying over the ocean. I saw the Farallon Islands in the distance, and then they were gone and there was nothing to see but the Pacific Ocean stretching to the horizon.

On the plane I watched the movie Tetris (an amusing story about licensing the video game from the Soviet Union, but now I feel like I need to cross-reference the real story) and an episode each of Ted Lasso and Time Bandits, all of which I downloaded on my iPad before leaving home. The plane did not have seat-back video monitors; instead it had clips to grab a phone or tablet at eye level, which worked fairly well in practice.

777-200 wing over Maui

The next time I saw land was five hours after departing San Francisco on our descent into Kona when I saw Haleakala, the eastern volcano (and highest point) on the island of Maui. On final approach into Kona the view out the window of relatively recent lava flows looked like a volcanic wasteland, which did not seem like an auspicious beginning for our week on the island.

Looking out the window landing in Kona

We disembarked into warm air under the bright tropical sun, on an air stair pulled up to the side of the plane. (The forward cabin door had a scissors lift; by the time I exited the aircraft the flight crew were riding the lift down.) This is the largest aircraft I've ever exited using an air stair, so I felt like I needed to commemorate the event with a selfie.

Jaeger on the tarmac at Kona with a 777-200

We walked through the open-air airport concourse, claimed our luggage, caught the rental car shuttle, and picked up our car for the week, which turned out to be a soft-top Jeep Wrangler. We drove into Kona to eat tacos for a late lunch (even in our new time zone, two hours behind Pacific Time, it was the middle of the afternoon). We drove to Costco to get food for the week and met up with Kiesa's brother Tristan, his wife Jessica, and my nephew Caleb. Kiesa and Jessica picked up food while Tristan and Caleb joined us to drive to our Airbnb condo for the week in Waikoloa Village, a half-hour drive north from Kona. We found our unit, which was really two, three-bedroom units that had been joined together to create one super-sized six-bedroom unit. This turned out to be more space than we actually needed because we had originally planned for Kiesa's parents to join us, but Kiesa's grandfather caught COVID the week before so her parents stayed home to take care of him.

We figured out how to get parking passes and pool access from the resort office, then headed for the pool. I was dressed for travel (leaving Santa Cruz at dawn, then flying across the ocean), which was too warm for the warm-and-dry leeward side of the island. I dangled my feet in the pool while the boys played in the water until it was time to eat supper. After eating we settled in for the night, with our whole vacation ahead of us.