Hawaii: the impact of traffic jams on packing

We made it! We spent the night before our flight at an airport hotel to make things simple. Seattle traffic is really unpredictable – and to prove my point, as we drove northbound to SeaTac, there was a 45-car pileup off to our left in the southbound lanes and Interstate 5 was simply closed and people were enjoying and mingling:

Above you can see the luggage I packed for 17 days. It’s a tight fit and so one of the things I do to increase my packing space in that small bag is to load things into Ron’s suitcase when he’s not looking. The key thing is the timing – he’s got to have that suitcase shut and done.

This usually works well and the fact that things fell apart this time is really not my fault but more another issue with Seattle’s horrendous traffic.

I was aware that there would be a change of clothing when we woke up at the SeaTac Coast Gateway hotel. So I had room in an outer suitcase area – store the old clothing, grab the new stuff.

Ron, without consulting me, devised a (somewhat) similar plan. He shared this plan with me at dinner, where in the middle of a packed restaurant, he yanked out his white cotton Costco briefs and held them up for all to see. He’d stored his clean underwear in his jacket pocket, he said, and so he didn’t need to go into his suitcase at all!

And I only have myself to blame here because I asked the follow up question that you are all surely pondering. Does this mean you are going to store your dirty underwear in that same jacket pocket and travel for 10 hours?

So back at the hotel – when Ron made the rational and hygienic decision to open his bag to store his dirties – he found the pair of tennis shoes and floor-length sundress I had added to his bag and he was truly not amused.

We’re spending our first 3 nights on the Hilo side of Hawaii – in a rental near Volcanoes National Park. Here’s our place in the jungle:

Look at our little outdoor tub:

The Big Island has a variety of landscapes and is huge – the size of all the other Hawaiian Islands combined. This map I borrowed will give you an idea – we’re spending 3 nights in the purple Volcano Village area and then 14 nights in the gold Kohala area. It takes 2.5 hours to drive between those spots.

Hilo is rainy and therefore spectacularly green:

Goals here include the Pacific Tsunami Museum, Volcanoes National Park, and the Hilo Farmer’s Market. I once dragged one of my travel groups to a tsunami museum near Kyoto, Japan and so it will be interesting to compare. The Kyoto museum had a live-action video encounter where you could feel/see the incoming flow and what I recall best is being abandoned by one of my (nameless) travel mates when I could not keep up.

Finally, I had quite a few of you reach out and share that cancer is currently impacting your lives as well. Thank you all for telling me. Somehow dealing with cancer turns into a very lonely and alienating experience – and I know it shouldn’t – but there’s the sense that we’re being “excused” from the normal course of life and we exist in some other reality. And while that feels mostly true, I don’t think it’s right. So for those of us struggling similarly, I am happy to share with you, to hear from you, and to tell you I truly understand, even though I can’t do anything at all to fix it.