First Hitch  Packed my bag lunch, towel and swim trunks and took off toward Honokaa in search of a beach. Most went in the other direction toward Lapahoehoe which was 13 miles and I had no intention of hitching. I figured I could walk the 6 miles to Honokaa. On the way I ran into Tom standing in the middle of the road trying to hitch a ride either direction. He had left an hour and half before I had. He wandered down into one of the gulches and followed it to the ocean only to find that there is about a 100 foot sheer drop. So that ended any hopes of walking to a local beach. Having only been in the country for one day and totally ignorant we decided that we should head for Kona beach [ed. - on other side of island]. And that is how I ended up doing my first hitchhiking. We were picked up right away by two teenagers in a super hot '55 station wagon. They gave us a ride to Honokaa where we had a Coke at Tex's and met "Woody", a Tonga I RPCV who was hitching to the beaches. He was working in Honokaa for a trucking firm and told us about the town. Having no luck so Tom and I began walking and were immediately picked up by a VW bus. The driver and his wife were from Australia and ran a cruise service. They were going to Hapuna Beach, so we quickly decided that was where we were also going. He was racing another VW bus that had stopped to pick up Woody, so we got there in good time. I had my first look at the vast diversity of the Big Island and I was amazed. We had travelled from the sugar cane fields into rolling hills where cattle grazed everywhere [ed. - King ranch, biggest in the world]. We saw the volcanoes in the distance and passed down into Waimea. There we picked up Woody and drove through a desert with cacti growing up the hills.

First Surf  Steadily down hill and ended up at this beautiful beach, not crowded and there I had my first ocean swim. After I got over my initial shock to the salinity I body surfed and was having a good time. Paradise - 6 days ago I was freezing in Minnesota. We spent a couple hours lying on the beach reading and munching peanut butter sandwiches. When 4 o'clock came along Tom and I started our trek home. It is sixteen miles from the beach to Waimea and nothing but desert and up hill most of the way. There was little traffic, but I was undaunted based upon my only other hitchhiking experience earlier in the day I was optimistic. After about a mile we caught a ride in the back of a pick up truck to Waimea. Then our luck changed and the crowds leaving the beach all passed us by. After 3 miles Tom began cursing each car as it went past. We had to be back in time to go to Hilo for a meeting (Tom and I already had a history of missing or being late to meetings in San Jose). I calculated that at our present rate it seemed like we wouldn't make it. But then Woody came along in a car and got us picked up for a lift to Honokaa. Walking from there a truck with Lance and Joan Cross passed us up. That really burned Tom, but we got a ride from a guy from Oregon and his Hawaiian wife and son. They insisted on bringing us right to the school, so we beat Lance and got the last laugh.

First Word  That evening we went to Hilo for dinner and I was surprized at all the red people - I took it easy and didn't get burnt. We all sat down on mats in one room and had speeches made in Fijian and Hindi. Then we were treated to weird food [ed. - I love it now] - interesting to find out that you had raw fish in your mouth. Then we were given a multi-media blitz: 5 slide projects, two movies and three audio tapes playing simultaneously. I layed back and tried to take it in, but man, what a strain. Then I met Jas for the first time - as we got ready to leave he got a group of us together and told us to remember this word: "namastae". So I had learned my first Hindi word but had no idea what it meant.