Some days, we have a plan. We think we know what we need, and we set out with strategies to Make That Happen. Like last weekend. It was very specific and it involved smoothies, a specific hike, and something else that I can’t even remember now.
Until we realized that we were all thinking of different smoothie places, and everyone was disappointed that the other person had been talking about a different place and no one was going to get what they wanted.
Until we realized that the entire North Shore is waiting for a go for the surfing contest and the traffic was backed up for miles.
Until a couple accidents happened and made the traffic worse.
Until both boys in the back seat started freaking out, because they’d been in the car for about an hour, (which is their max limit because they’re island boys, don’t judge) and since I was between them and they were freaking out, I started freaking out, and we all decided that no matter what was around us we had to get out of the car RIGHT THAT SECOND (ok, that was mostly me and Eliot that decided that). So we searched North Shore hikes and picked the one closest to us and all piled out of the car as fast as we could and breathed in the sweet, sea breeze that wasn’t crowded close with the smell of pretzels and the noise of angry children.
The boys plunged right in the trail, shushing us so we could hear the birds, while both of them defeated the purpose by loudly whispering that they could walk and climb all by themselves.
It turned out to be the best decision of the weekend, partially for the views at the top (which were amazing).
But mostly it was for the giant banyan tree halfway up the trail.
Banyans are originally native to India and related to the fig tree, although they do not have edible fruit like the others.
Even the boys were mesmerized by it, climbing over the roots that had stretched out over the edge of the hill it was on, and talking about it together in their little languages.
Like it and despite their ancestry, the boys are not natives here either, and they know nothing besides this land of sunshine, ocean, and rainbows.
It was one of the most varied trails we’ve done in Hawaii. There was a lot of clambering. (“Good climbing, boys!” Lincoln kept congratulating us all. I’m taking the compliment for myself even though I don’t technically fit the category. You take what you can get.)
After that, there was a long flat trail along the ridge line at the top where the pine needs dropped down on us like sleek green rain.
And then the pillbox at the end, of course, right when we started to worry that we had taken the wrong way. It squatted, perched on the cliff, a concrete fortification, left over from when the military needed the clear view down to the ocean’s horizon.
Inside, dark and close, with only a narrow opening for guns back then, and apparently a fantastic dancing place, as Lincoln inexplicably decided.
So, if for some reason, at some point in your life, you need an escape from the narrow North Shore roads, and would like to view them from a higher, calmer height, this is the place to be. We thought that’s the only thing we needed, but what we actually also needed was to lean against, climb on, and stare at a giant Indian Banyan tree on with a view of the Pacific in the background (and anyone could need that at any time). And, after all that climbing, walking (and in our boy’s case, some crying), a broad and beautiful view of the smooth, watercolor ocean and the tiny figures of pro surfers getting slammed by waves that were not big enough to make the Vans World Cup of Surfing a go that day.
Some days we get what we need after all.
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