The 28-mile post marks the start of the steep switchback to the summit, and the car began laboring at about 5,000 feet of elevation. At that moment, we popped through the clouds to see Mauna Loa soaring over a blindingly bright white blanket of fog. You'll need four-wheel drive to get to the summit. After a picnic lunch at Mauna Kea State Park, we went south on Highway 180, which everyone calls the mauka road. Our destination was Holualoa, a former plantation town that has scarcely changed since my childhood or, indeed, since the days when sugar cane was king of the island's economy.
Many homes are still little more than glorified shacks with corrugated tin roofs.
Artists have flocked to Holualoa, and the main-street galleries sell some of Hawaii's best pottery and woodwork. At one end of town stands the dusty Kimura Lauhala Shop, once the sugar plantation's general store and now chockablock with Hawaiian handicrafts. Like most locals, proprietress Alfreida Fujita was happy to talk to strangers. She reminisced about the old days, when her grandfather Kimura stocked the store with everything from dried cod to overcoats. No one else voted, so we were soon paddling in an indigo sea, passing a turtle that raised its head to fix us with a watery eye.