Road to Haleakala

Thoughts running through my head as we drove to Haleakala on a vacation.

It had all the suspense of a roller coaster, and none of the thrill.

The road had only been paved for the first thirty minutes or so, a mindless winding drive of small hills and coastlines, peppered with strip malls, horses and houses. The ride had lulled her into a familiar nausea, head aching, stomach unsettled and threatening to make a mess. She leaned her head against a soft brown jacket, staring at her right hand, fingers twitching and shaking. It was always like this for long drives, at least when she wasn’t the one driving. Closing her eyes, she slowly drew in air and released it, trying to calm her nerves. That was about when the paved road ended.

Bump bump rattle THUNK-UNK bump bump bump bump.

The side of her head impacted with the window, another solid thunk that was lost in the noise of the gravel the white jeep was steadily rolling over. The mountain loomed far ahead, the promise of cliffs and hills making her even  more queasy. Letting out a small whine, she grabbed a teal towel that was nearby and shoved it against the window, resettling her brown jacket pillow as she curled into a ball, squeezed her eyes shut, and prayed that the ride would be over soon.

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Her vision was swarmed with a palatte of tans and browns, pale fawn tufts of grass covering rocky shores and cliffs like fur. It appeared velvety and soft, and her fingers itched to touch it, but her mind knew it was course and rough grass, dead grass. It was hay. Rolling her eyes to the left showed barren plains, more of the hay-grass waist high and bent to the wind that roughly pushed it down. Almost evenly spaced, dusty dead trees stood spread out, all leaves and flowers long gone. The only green in the plains was the weeds by the edge of the road, a road that went from being covered with filled-in potholes, to tire-worn roads of gravel and red dust. The suspension of the car squeaked as it rocked side to side, back and forth, bucking against the little pebbles that upset its course. The long flax grass looked like hair to her, and she wondered if the stalks were really shriveled nyphs waiting for water, their hair snapping in the breeze in ripples and waves. How barren it all looked, how desperate. The cliffs that rose up looked like clay, like someone had run their wet fingers down and picked it together, so smooth and rounded and natural, but unnatural. The jeep hit a pothole and dipped, her head threatening to hit the top of the car. She shut out the world and curled back into her protective ball.

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The world came to life again with more bumps and rattles and squeaks. She supposed she’d gotten used to the movements, the suspense of going up a small hill, and that weightless tickle in her stomach when the car dipped down shortly before evening out or pulling up. If she relaxed a little and let her mind go, she could almost imagine the bumping ride as a rocking boat, almost lulling. Her ears popped painfully, and she was suddenly(and painfully) aware that her hearing had just now returned to her. The sickness from before had quailed into a minor ache in the back of her head. The palatte had not changed much, still tands and browns and yellows. They had gone up quite a bit though, to her right was sheer and jagged cliffs, a measly metal barrier meant to protect them from going off the edge on hairpin turns. Below, a blue-green-gray ocean beat relentlessly against the earth with no mercy, powerful waves going one after another, seeking to crumble the barrier of rock. Her eyes swept up the slopes to her left, the flax-haired plains having become more clustered with trees of dark brown and odd golden color. It looked as if the trees were upside down, so bare were they, each branch a twisted limb reaching in every direction. She felt her eyes closing again, lulled into a peace by the now-familiar movements of the car. The white Jeep took a turn sharply, and she lurched, latching onto the handle on the door, eyes drawn to two white crosses on the round of the curve, names slipping in and out of her mind but the multitudes of flowers staying. People had died here. Had they taken the turn too fast? Was their car not able to compensate for the sharp turn? Or had they too been lulled into a trance-like state by the bumping and rocking, and simply were unable to turn at the right time? Her heart was sympathetic to the fear they must have felt, knowing as they fell that they were going to hit rocks and water, or if they were unlucky, roll down the side and then fall into the water. She hoped their deaths were painless. Fear took over and she leaned her head against the jacket-pillow, seeking the safety of unconsciousness.

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Plains and dead woods edged with cliffs had given way to a tropical jungle. Large empty riverbeds were flanked by lush trees, greens and yellows and oranges and reds, splashes of purple and pink and white flowers. How beautiful it must be when it rained, and water dripped off of every leaf. The transition was so quick, and just like that she was in cow pastures and horse pastures, staring at animals who seemed so sure of their footing, where a human wouldn’t really be stable. Old walls akin to the Irish rock walls criss-crossed the land, and she wondered which culture brought that particular thing over. When had it started? The jungle swallowed them again, and spit them out onto a road with no safety rails, and a deceptive cliff covered in plants. If they fell, it would be just as steep as if they were falling to the ocean. Curled in her seat, she felt the Jeep lull her into sleep again, the headache and nausea returning as they continued to climb upwards. It had been two hours now, they were sure to reach Haleakala soon…. 

And the jungle spit them out onto rocky terrain once more, leaving them to wonder if they would ever reach their destination