Day One – Arrival in Hilo to Spencer Beach State Park

We touched down in Hilo, the largest city on the Big Island and second largest after Honolulu in the state, after a red-eye flight from the mainland.  Bob and Bob, the welcoming committee from Happy Campers rental company greeted us outside the terminal with traditional Hawaiian “leis” - shell necklaces for the guys and real plumeria for the ladies.  After being driven back to “headquarters”, a garage about a mile from the airport, we were introduced to “Mahana Pu’u”, our home for the next week. 

Each of the 8 VW Westphalia camper vans offered for rent by Happy Campers, all just slightly larger than your average mini-van, is named.  We got more and more excited for our adventure as we were shown the features of Mahana Pu’u (which means warm hill), including how to fold out the back seat for sleeping, operation of the propane cooktop stove, and how to roll down the windows with a crank.  The van came equipped with bedding, bath and beach towels, cooking supplies, camp chairs, emergency kits (including numbers to call if we had trouble with the van), and lots of other thoughtful amenities (think coffee press and fish identification cards) and we were tickled by all the out of the way storage nooks where each item was neatly and securely tucked away.  The crowning moment, however, was when Bob showed us the pop-up sleeping compartment.  The kids scrambled up and immediately began making plans to alternate nights sleeping in the “top bunk”.

After signing the paperwork and making certain agreements (Do:  Have fun.  Don’t:  Break a wheel axle by taking the van on the Saddle Road) we headed north out of Hilo.  The Big Island is circled by a mostly two-lane belt highway that goes by various names and passes near enough to almost every place any visitor would want to go.  This makes it nearly impossible to get lost, but also very hard to pass slow moving traffic (i.e., us).  I checked the rearview mirror each time Mahana Pu’u eased into a grade to see a line of cars stretching out behind us to the horizon.     

Our destination for the first night was Spencer Beach State Park, on the northwest side of the island.  This park was the one place the guide books universally identified as kid-friendly, quiet, and clean.  Though, when we pulled into the horseshoe shaped parking lot we were underwhelmed – it dawned on us that what we had signed up for was, essentially, camping in the parking lot.  After a few passes, we settled on a spot with the least oil stains and the best view of the ocean.  We were determined to make the most of things, and it didn’t take long for our initial disappointment to fade.  The kids were excited to snorkel so we donned our gear and waded in.  There was good coral and plenty of fish, and after an hour of being pulled in one direction or another by my son or daughter who wanted to show me the yellowest or the skinniest fish ever, we hauled ourselves out of the warm waters and dried off. 

While we grilled burgers on the propane stove that we had rented as a $10 extra with the van (an investment that would prove to be well worth it), we tried to match the fish we had seen with our fish chart.  After our bellies were full, and with broad smiles, we worked together to snap on the privacy curtains and collect our things from where they had already become scattered around the interior of the van.  With order thus restored, and after a quick trip to the surprisingly clean restrooms, we popped up the sleeper, turned the kitchen bench into a bed, and turned in for our first night.  My wife and daughter drew the long straw and got the top bunk.