A Different Vacation

Lava flows on the Big Island of Hawaii

Our obsession with Paris has grown over the years, and we’ve been visiting that city first once and then twice a year for nearly 20 years.  As our visits grew more frequent, and our time and income failed to grow as enthusiastically as did our obsession, we gave up vacationing elsewhere. 

While we used to go to New York regularly, we haven’t been there since our visit to see the Christo Gates in Central Park in 2005.  And where we used to go to the Big Island of Hawaii every year for nearly a decade, we haven’t been there in over 15 years.  Until today.

Wailea uplands in the distance

One of the ways we manage our bi-continental lifestyle is by renting our house in Berkeley when we’re living in Paris, and since it’s Berkeley our tenants are nearly exclusively visiting professors who are tied to the academic calendar. 

That hasn’t been an issue so far, but our current renters needed to be in the house in mid-August and our flight back to Paris isn’t until the first of September, meaning we had to leave our house and find someplace to lay our heads in the meantime. 

Typical "graffitti" of white stones on black lava background

R and L and their toddler had wanted to visit us in Paris last Thanksgiving but traveling long distances with a small and restless child for 10 days didn’t seem like a good plan, so we decided back then that we would all go to Hawaii together instead after we got back to California.  What better time than our homeless period?

Ahhh...

And so we’re on an airplane on our way to Kona at this very minute.  I can almost smell the plumeria already.