Hilo Town

Kim, Bodhi and I took a walk around Hilo Town today. It's really convenient to get to the heart of Hilo Town from Karen's house. She's about a five minute walk from the Bay Front. It was a warm Sunday Morning when we packed Bodhi in the stroller and started to head out. The clouds were hanging about so I decided to pack an umbrella. Karen came out of her house, looked at me and said, "You better take two." Karen is one of those Hilo people that must be able to feel the rain coming in her bones. On one of our previous trips to Hilo we were going for a walk from Karen's house to the Bay Front. The sun was shining and it seemed like the day was going to carry on that way. Before we left her house, Karen told us we better take some umbrellas. Kim and I looked at the sky, looked at each other and thought--this woman is crazy. Rain? On a day like this? So we left the house without the umbrellas. 15 minutes into our walk it didn't just rain on us, it poured. So this morning when Karen told us to pack two umbrellas, I had them in the stroller right away.

It's nice to be in a town where most of the shops close up on a Sunday. It really gives a place a deeper sense of real community. It feels like merchants are real people with real families that they would like to be with on a Sunday Morning. It feels like a place where commerce does not drive everything. So as we walked along the Bay Front we looked into the windows of darkened shops. Some of the shops that we had come to know in years past are completely closed up, inventory gone and floor space barren.

A few restaurants were open and the Abundant Life health food store was open as well. We stopped into the health food store and got Bodhi his favorite "yellow smoothie". Next to Abundant Life is a really nice restaurant, Cafe Pesto. We stopped in for an early lunch. We got a table by the window and watched foot traffic pass by as we ate. Hilo seems to really embody the feeling of live and let live. There was so much diversity passing by our window seat as we ate lunch. There were, hippies, homeless, rastafarians, locals, transplants, conservatives, liberals, university students, and a whole array of richly textured asian immigrants. And they are all able to move about this dance floor without stepping on each other's toes. It's amazing to witness.

Bodhi fell asleep in his stroller on the walk back to Karen's place. We are so grateful to Karen for letting us stay with her while we get the cabin on the land up and running. There are no real words to describe Karen's generosity.

I love Hilo Town. With all of its charms and funkiness, I love it. By the way, we made it back to Karen's before the rain.