My husband’s a writer, too…He’s guest blogging this piece he wrote about our trip to Hawaii.
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One thing about Americans is that we love guardrails. They are everywhere
, especially on the edges of cliffs. Nominally, this is so people won’t trip and fall off by accident, but the truth is that we are so used to guardrails by now that the absence of one is taken to indicate that it would be safe to jump. Maybe, we think, this cliff is equipped with invisible parachutes. If it wasn’t, why isn’t there a guardrail here? The logic is inescapable. People would just starting walking off the edge, which would probably lead to lawsuits and would definitely lead to a big mess.
So we put them up everywhere, just in case. In other countries, while whiffs of this trend are starting to appear, it’s not nearly to the same level. For instance, here’s a picture of me in Ireland, standing on the edge of a 200ft sea cliff, waiting for a gust of air to send me plunging down to be crushed by the waves below. Nobody cares, except me, because I’m an American and to me this is quite a novelty. Besides, if I’m stupid enough to stand there on the edge of a windy ledge hanging over the ocean, it’s probably not altogether a bad thing that I might fall to my death. After all, the sharks would probably clean up most of the mess.
So when we went to Hawaii recently, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect in terms of guardrails and safety signs. One the one hand, Hawaii is about as exotic as you can get without leaving the country, what with the jungles and not being on the same continent and all, but on the other hand, it is still America… will the strange customs of the overcautious American tourist-destination-operator have survived the long trip across the Pacific?
The answer of course was: “yes.” If American Guardrail Imperialism has stretched all the way across the Atlantic to inspire the Irish to build a giant wall 30ft back from the Cliffs of Moehr so you can’t even see anything any moehr, then certainly it will have reached to the one place in America where there are rivers of flowing lava pouring into the ocean. Otherwise, people like me would be falling like lemmings into either the red rivers of molten rock or into the boiling sea below, depending on which shiny thing caught the eye fisrt.
So when we arrived on the Big Island to find a carefully organized herding operation (with ample parking!) set up a mile or two away from the active lava flows, and we allowed ourselves to be corralled into the viewing area, my involuntary appreciation of the smooth efficiency was well tempered by disappointment – my dream of seeing lava up close would be a dream deferred, at least until we went down to Mexico or somewhere where men are still free – free to kill themselves by accident while on vacation, posing for pictures.
In this area of Hawaii, the ground looks like a solid black sheet of rock, stretching away into the distance. What was once a highway through a forest dead-ends abruptly at a short hill of the stuff – this is the edge of the sheet. There is a golf cart path-sized trail up onto and through it, which has been thoughtfully carved by the civil defense corps for the minivans full of tourists. The signage has the feel of a war zone: warnings of poisonous gas, collapsing cliffs, and, of course, molten lava. Stylized skulls abound. Enter at your own risk.
The morbidity of the signs and the feeling of danger is mitigated somewhat once you arrive at the end of this golf cart road, where, spared by the fire, there is a copse of trees and a large parking lot, all accompanied by a carnival atmosphere as local vendors set up stalls along the way, selling photos, fruit, water, and crafts. Generators are trucked out to power the spotlights hanging over this makeshift shopping center and, of course, port-o-potties are available, if needed.
At the end of a short walk across the rocks, there is a large roped off area where, in the distance, you can see a plume of steam rising from the ocean. As the sun sets, the steam changes from white to red, reflecting the lava below as it pours into the sea. Every once in a while, black or red bits of rock fly up high enough to see, which is taken by the crowd – immersed in a desperate consensual hallucination in an effort to be amazed by the barely visible spectacle – to be worthy of oo-ing, ah-ing, and, sometimes, clapping. It was kind of neat.
Having viewed our fill, we walked back in the dark, avoiding the flashlightless teenagers and stopping to gawk, full of wist, at the photographs of *real* lava for sale in the parking lot, procured by photographers more daring (of lava, and – even more menacing – of Do Not Enter signs) than ourselves.
From here we followed a tip to a milkshake stand perched on the end of another highway that was also dead-ended 10 years ago or so by the same lava flow. This was the coastal road, and it required a few turns through the jungle, following cardboard signs at each intersection. It was raining at this point, and it was very dark and lonely on the road.
The story of this place is that there used to be a town here which is what the road was for. But one day, the lava came and wiped it off the map, except for the milkshake stand which stood on the edge of town. So now there’s this highway through the jungle that ends right there at a lonely cinderblock milkshake stand, lit by flourescent lights which shine on the plastic patio furniture sitting out front, glistening in the rain, and acting like nothing ever happened.
All this we were expecting, but next door, closer to the lava, there was what appeared to be an outdoor tiki bar, lit by Christmas lights, and with what sounded like (and was, it turned out) ukeleles playing, maybe some singing. The bar was clearly closed, but there were about 10 cars parked out on the highway, which had become a kind of makeshift cauld-e-sack.
So we ordered a big milkshake and went over, after asking the milkshake people what was going on and receiving a mumbled reply about a potluck. Out front was a large sign which proclaimed the everlasting permanence of the bar (“We Never Left”) – a defiance earned, I think, by its proximity to utter destruction. In the distance, across the gaping blackness that peeked through the thin line of trees, I could see a school crossing sign poking out of what was now solid rock but which used to be a thing which is as close as one can come on God’s green Earth to living fire. Fire which had decided, miraculously, to spare this tiny bar nestled in the woods on a lonely road next to a lonely milkshake stand. The sense of standing at the edge of the world, gazing into the abyss, was palpable, and the emptiness beyond the trees seemed to gaze back with the indifference and allure that only a force of nature can.
But around the bar was a feeling of timeless, quiet celebration: two men on stools playing music to a few people sitting at a picnic table laden with the remains of dinner. In the shadows, two men sat on a bench, smoking, only their feet and their clouds of smoke clearly visible. As we sat down behind the ten or so people relaxing there under the soft glow of Christmas lights, listened to the quiet singing of the two ukelele players, and watched the barefoot children running back and forth, chasing the leashless dogs, it was easy to imagine all of us sitting there doing the same things on the day the lava came, sipping milkshakes as it flowed around us like a river parts around an island.
Here at the edge of the world, there were no guardrails, but we didn’t fall or jump; we looked out, felt the wind on our faces, and breathed the fresh air. Maybe we dangled our feet off the edge just for the pictures. The edges of things are spectacular and grand places, and here we had, for a few moments, celebrated them with this surreal group in this surreal place, itself a monument both to the allure of the edge that beckons you to venture too close, and to the good things in the world that bring you back.
After we finished our milkshakes, we got up, went back to the car, and drove off, back into the real world, the sounds of ukeleles drifting away into the night.
