A couple of things I've learned while swinging through this place:

1. Nobody should stay in a youth hostel while on their honeymoon. Worst decision ever. Not only do you have to discover odd angles to squat to fit your knees in bathroom stalls if you're a woman (while trying not to look at piles of ants feasting on God-knows-what on the floor below)... but at 31, you get a sense that you should be asking for the geriatric ward. What is it about youth that happily okays mildew-y shower stalls and filthy co-ed bathrooms, dishwater-y hot tubs, dirty walls and threadbare comforters? I think back to myself just a few years back and recognize that I would have once considered this "fun" -- that maybe I too might have dressed up for Dominic's going away party (held at the hostel the one night we slept there) -- that maybe I might have dressed up as something beginning with a "P." One gorgeous French girl claimed she was Pocahontas, but she wasn't wearing a costume -- unless you were just supposed to imagine her that way.

Oh, and I got bit by a mysterious bug while I slept there. No more hostel. No no no. But at least the bite is finally calming down. I looked through a book called "What Bit Me," and I'm wondering if it was a mite. Mite be.

2. One should try like the dickens to avoid staying at any place, in fact, that doesn't have much of a website to show you what to expect. The night following the Maui youth hostel, we stayed in a place near South Point that I had picked because of its location -- and because it included dinner, breakfast and possible East Indian music played after dinner. And yeah, we got all that. Plus, the owner runs an organic food store out of her home and doesn't make a profit off sales -- she just orders enough to help feed the community. Sounds cool, yes? Well it was, but... okay, I'm still creeped out that she's somehow following my thoughts or words or something and will know that my paranoia (or is it paranoia???) is raging. Jesse and I are convinced that she and her partner are into alien beliefs or some other kinky spirituality. She has the most Kubrick-y room downstairs in her house -- thankfully, we stayed in another cottage. But the thing is, I feel so silly because everything on the surface was kinda... normal. She moved down to South Point and began teaching Montessori school there -- very cool. And they were incredibly kind and had the nicest cats. But let's just say I was worried that my food would be poisoned and I'd be used in a ritual or something as I slept. And who knows, maybe I was and just haven't remembered it yet. Okay, enough already.

3. Jesse does actually know how to go off-roading. Yay for my new husband! After tearing around on some crazy Hawaiian backroads, we went swimming in the Pacific at South Point at the coolest spot. I avoided the cliff diving, but I did jump into a spot where the water bobbed three and four feet at a time. Imagine floating and feeling yourself rise and fall so significantly -- but without the crests of waves! It was incredible -- such a high, especially because I'm usually such a chicken about these things. Great scene -- there was a sea cave, too, that we could see once we swam about twenty feet into open water, enough to see around the cliff point.

4. I do like hot tubs! There's one at the B&B we're staying at now, and we can walk down a little black gravel path in the dark to get there. You sit in the hot tub by candlelight, and the deck it's on has a roof made of tin. Since it mists or rains all the time at Volcano Village, you get to hear the soft pecking of rain on the tin while you relax. So sweet!!

Okay, I suppose that's enough. There's of course so much more to say! Tonight, we're going to do the night hike at Volcano National Park -- the one where you walk out on the cooled lava rocks before dusk in order to scout out new lava and watch it flow down the mountain at night. Last night we saw the red glow from a distance and hiked back to the Jeep by moonlight. We talked with a ranger extensively and watched lava pour into the ocean through his spotting scope, and I think we've gathered enough tips to do the night hike successfully. I am so excited -- this hike has been on my list of things to do in this lifetime for about 5 or 6 years now -- a long time coming to fruition!