A camping trip to remember

We were told about a fantastic and fairly secluded camping spot here on the big island and fell in love once we got there. We had to 4wheel back quite a ways on a tiny dirt road hidden off of the highway. Once we pulled up we immediately found our spot and went out to explore! We were right on Loretta Lynn’s abandoned property in between mansions belonging to Paul Mitchell and the inventor of the pace maker. The whales were jumping nearly every two minutes, the beach was wonderful, and there was a nice little fresh water pond to rinse off in! We thought this was going to be a perfect camping trip.

We called it a night at about 9:30 and all snuggled into our tent to sleep. This was Lucas first time camping in a tent and he did wonderful! I was sleeping great until I heard a loud noise similar to a motorcycle. The noise kept getting louder and louder and the mother in me started to get stressed out that it would wake up Lucas. Before I knew it, the noise was so loud that I started to panic…I knew something wasn’t right. Levi wrapped his hand around my mouth (I’m assuming to keep me from screaming) because the noise was so overwhelming at this point. Later when I questioned him about it he had no idea what I was talking about...he must've still been asleep! lol.

Turns out a helicopter had landed about a hundred feet away from our tent onto the beach. Can you say, insane?! But the craziest part of all is that Lucas slept through the entire thing! I don’t know how on earth anyone could sleep through a helicopter landing next to you in the dead of night, but he was out for the count!

They say that a fetus can begin hearing noises outside of the womb at 16 weeks and after this little incident, I’m convinced this is the truth! I have been feeling the “quickening” for almost a week now but since baby is only about 5 inches from head to rump, the kicks and punches still aren’t too powerful. As the helicopter landed, my stomach felt like bag of popcorn being popped! I sure hope my unborn child has not been traumatized before s/he even enters into this world!

Moments after the helicopter landed a park ranger came over to our tent and stressed that we needed to evacuate as soon as possible. He mentioned that Japan just had a massive earthquake and that a tsunami was headed right for us. He said that is was scheduled to hit at 3:07a.m. and that we had just a few hours to get to higher ground. WHAT?! Realizing that this was serious and actually happening, I immediately hopped on my iPhone to check the news. The headlines were flooded with stories already and Hawaii was indeed in a tsunami warning. We moved Lucas to the truck (still fast asleep) and tore down the tent. We were packed up in nearly 10 minutes and immediately headed away from the shoreline. We were camping with Levi’s mom and step dad, along with his step dad’s family and some of their friends. Everyone had been there for a few days before we came down and they had quite the set up. Worried that they couldn’t pack everything up fast enough, they decided to leave it all behind and hope for the best.

We drove up just to the freeway and everyone in our party pulled over to touch bases. They decided that the elevation we had reached was safe and decided to sleep in their cars until morning. We contemplated driving back to the house, but we were nearly an hour and a half away and figured the roads would be overwhelmed with panicked people. Instead, my little family drove about 20 minutes back into Kona and drove a ways up the mountain. There were evacuation places at all of the schools and at Costco, but we decided to find a quiet spot and re-pitch our tent. We drove until we found a patch of grass (which ended up being in an industrialized neighborhood next to a storage complex) and set up camp...again.

We finally fell back to sleep about 2:30 and were abruptly woken up at 4:45 to sprinklers!! All we could do was laugh...it had been quite an interesting night! We figured there was no getting back to sleep now so we decided to head back towards the beach and see what had happened. We arrived at 6:15 and found a few of our people awake. They had been listening to the radio and updated us on all the devastation to both sides of us. About 30 minutes north a boat harbor had been hit pretty bad and back in Kona on Ali’i Dr (the main tourist strip) the roads were flooded and many shops and restaurants faced some very serious damage. It really hit me at that point because we had spent an afternoon there just the day before walking the strip and visiting the market.

Fortunately, our location was fairly untouched and the camping stuff left behind all remained. We have seen quite a bit of devastation on various parts of the island, including our favorite beach Honomolino, but nothing compares to the hardships Japan is suffering. My heart goes out to everyone over there and I can only pray that everyone in need of a helping hand receives just that.