Big Trip to the Big Island

Summer is bringing travels for the Halvorson boys to destinations as far and wide as Lake Shasta, Mount Baker, Minneapolis and of course Vegas, not to mention mainland Halvorson relatives traveling to Alaska, Scotland and Norway. A fraction combined compared to Granny and Granpa travel days, but getting there.

Hal and I had our own big trip this month, a weekend jaunt to the Big Island to see Hawaiian music artist Kealii Reichel in concert. It was my first trip in over a year and since surgery, and a fitting celebration of my recovery.

We stayed at The Jacaranda Inn, a former Parker Ranch plantation manager’s home that had been purchased by Laurance Rockefeller when he built the Mauna Kea Resort on the Big Island. He entertained guests like Jacqueline Kennedy and Henry Kissinger there. Our family stayed at the fancy Mauna Kea when it opened 50 years ago (only 10 years after Disneyland) because my father had helped with water resource needs during the development process. Now we can only afford the manager’s quarters.

The property is dated and pretty rough around the edges, but the interiors of the room are well appointed and very clean and neat. The bathrooms have been completely renovated and nicer than some upscale hotel rooms we’ve stayed in. Kind of like me. A bit worse for the wear of surgery, but filled with the blessings of a new life on the inside.

We had seen Kealii Reichel in concert on Maui and Oahu over the years, but this was by far his best because it was an intimate setting at Kahilu Theater in Waimea. He bantered with the audience before and during the performance. When he was asked when he would return again, he said he wasn’t sure because he was older now and not planning so many concerts at this stage of his career. He was more interested in appreciating and taking life as it comes. We know the feeling.