Many years ago, the story goes, when it was habit for English nobility to practice primogeniture, it was the responsibility of the oldest brothers and cousins to take care of their hordes of less fortunate younger siblings and relatives by hosting them for extended stays. There was no set limit on how long one “should” stay in a particular place. Rather, one evening at dinner, the guest in question could expect to be served a slightly cold shoulder of beef. This was the polite nod from the host to the guest that it was time to leave. Hence the phrase “Giving the cold shoulder.”

In Hawaii, they have a volcano goddess who does that, and she has clearly spoken to us, and told us that it’s time to head out.

Today was our last full day here on the Big Island. We have most of the day tomorrow here — we fly back to Honolulu in the late afternoon and then back to the mainland on a late evening flight that arrives Thursday morning.

As we left our room this morning, Michael, the innkeeper of the little bed and breakfast where we’ve been staying, hurried to meet us. “I don’t know if you’ve heard the news,” he said, “but Civil Defense has issued an evacuation order for Volcano village. It’s OK, though, because the wind shifted this way for a bit and then shifted even further east, so it’s missing us and going for Hilo.” We hadn’t actually heard the news, but we’d seen the plume in the sky — watched it erupting out of the crater and even went back to see the plume glowing in the night, too. The wind had been blowing the volcanic gasses – mainly sulphur dioxide – out to sea, but the long feared inland shift had happened and now the plume had reversed to flow over the island. We’re staying maybe four miles from the eruption sight, so there’s a large swath of directions that would take the plume right over us.

Thus reassured, we set off in the rental car not toward Hilo, as we’ve done many times over, but in the opposite direction, toward Kona. Kona, on the west coast of the island, is resort central. It’s where the bigger of the two airports on Hawai’i is located, it’s got the biggest share in all the tourist brochures, and the Hard Rock Cafe (till June, when it closes because they can’t afford the rent). In short, I thought no visit to the Big Island would be complete without poking over to see what the fuss was about. I even had A Plan. We’d go over, have lunch, visit a coffee farm, hit the beach, and hit the unpronounceable Pu’uhonua O Honaunau National Historic Park on the way back. Simple plan, yes?

If only.

Off we went down Highway 11, the Hawai’i Belt Road. We stopped at the Pu’na Lu’u Black Sand Beach to walk on the black sand (it’s really black — and warm) and watch the Hawaiian Green Sea Turtle who was sunning himself on the beach and seemed in no particular hurry to get anywere (I guess that’s what happens when you live 150 years).

Then it was off down the road, around the tip of the island, and up to Kailua, the main city on the Kona Coast. It’s like Cozumel, only with more kitsch shops and less nightclubs.

We succeeded in finding a place to have lunch, and wandered through a few souvenir shops purchasing trinkets. We keep looking at Macadamia nuts — Mauna Loa makes Milk Chocolate Toffee coated macadamia nuts that are truly orgasmic, and they’re overpriced everywhere. We check the prices routinely, but the cheapest is (so help me) at the Wal Mart in Hilo, which we’re going to hit in the time between when we have to check out of the bed and breakfast and the time that we have to be at the airport.

And then I made the mistake that turned the tide on the day.

You would think that after thirty odd years of being me, I would have learned not to utter thoughts like this one when they come out of my mouth, but I’m just not that bright, and the thought was out before I had a chance to process it.

“I’ll bet they’re cheaper at Costco,” I said.

You see, when we were on Oahu, we did at one point find ourself in Sam’s Club looking for Aloha Shirts (for the luau we went to), and since Sam’s specializes in tacky, it was a natural thought when we stumbled across it in Waikiki. We also noticed the massive quantities of Mauna Loa products they had. There’s no Sam’s on the Big Island, but there is a Costco, and it’s in the Kona area. And oddly enough, Costco is one of the points of interest pre-programmed into my GPS. Ray, whose ears perk up at the idea of shopping, especiallly when bargains are involved, said, “OK.” And off we went.

An hour later, we were pulled over to the side of the road in the rental car in a section of Kailua that people who live there probably never see (with good reason) not speaking to one another. I had yelled obscenities at the GPS, Ray had attempted to temper my irrational behavior with logic, so I yelled obscenities at him, then he yelled back — hence the silence and the fuming.

The GPS had attempted to guide us to a one-block long street in a purely residential area that did not, have a Costco. Ray called information and was connected to a place that seemed bewildered that we needed directions, and was even more bewildered as to how to give them. I plugged in those coordinates on the GPS and we went off to discover ourselves outside of a machine parts company named Cosco. (Minus the T).

I should add that the GPS doesn’t take elevation into account, so it kept taking us up and down the 1,000 foot mountain range immediately east of Kona — through a residential area, and at one point tried to steer us down someone’s driveway. Whoever fact-checked the Hawaii maps did an atrocious job.

After the silence and the fuming, we did locate the Costco (for the record, it’s on the road to the Kona airport between the airport and Kmart), although we didn’t actually go because we’d lost an hour of our day and I’d spent more on gas than we could possibly save on mac nuts. Besides, the Hilo Farmer’s Market is tomorrow, and we plan to hit it for bargain souvenirs before we leave.

Then we went off to the coffee farm I wanted to visit. The GPS couldn’t handle that one either, and we eventually found it in spite, not because, of the GPS. (The coffee farm was in an area that lay in between two maps in our guidebook.)

At this point, we were 0 for 2, so I decided that we’d have a couple of relaxing hours on the beach. Ray later point out that this should have been remarkably easy. “It’s an island,” he said. “Drive any direction, you’ll hit beach.” You’d think so, wouldn’t you? Except on Hawai’i, most of the shores are actually rocks with no sands, which is why the beaches tend to have resorts on them.

I found a beach in the guidebook and off we went, to discover that the “beach” was the size of a sandbox, and had clearly been trucked in. I know this because there was a wall separating it from the ocean. At this point, I declared the day a wash and suggested that we head off to Pu’uhonua O Honaunau and then go home.

Pu’uhonua O Honaunau is a quiet, reflective place. By the time we got there, neither one of us were feeling quiet or refelctive, so we zipped through and left in about half an hour.

As we were driving back, an indicator light on the dashboard of the rental car popped up. Once Ray found the owner’s manual and decoded the symbol (it was an exclamation point – how useless is that?), he announced that it signalled low tire pressure. We pulled over — when I could, which was ten minutes later, and looked at the tires. They all looked fine. We decided to stop at the next gas station to check the tire pressure.

The next gas station was in the self-proclaimed southernmost town in the US — 25 miles away. At this point, you’re out in the middle of nowhere. We pulled in to discover that their air hoses were out of order, but no longer needed a tire gauge: the rear wheel on the driver’s side was nearly flat as a pancake.

So, we added a flat tire to the day’s events. We put the mini on, I tried unsuccessfully to call the rental car office to see what they wanted me to do about it, and drove off toward Volcano.

Apparently in the middle of the day, the wind shifted again. The vog–volcanic fog–was thick as we came up the mountain, and pulled into the B and B. We had dinner in the village at the Thai restaurant. Half the village must have been in there — the rest of the town is closed under a voluntary evacuation order. As of now, the sulphur dioxide levels are back to normal, but the national park is still closed.

We’re both not ready to go back to work, but today maybe helped us get ready to end our vacation.