Mauna Loa and the Limo Driver on Big Island

Flying over a deserted island on the way to Big Island

The trouble with making airline reservations months in advance is you do all of this research for the best direct flights or minimum layovers and the airlines manage to change it on you at the last minute. I try to eliminate any kind of discomfort when traveling or at least minimize it, so it’s kinda disturbing when they mess with your schedule. Still, when I think how my 40-minute layover in Honolulu turned into 3 hours because of flight time changes, I have to admit that things could be worse; I could have gone to Moscow or the North Pole instead of Big Island. Stuff could always be worse. Mauna Loa could erupt.

My limo driver was on time. He gave the Shaka to a guy on the other side of the baggage carousel. He told me that the Hawaiian hand signal, the folded-up 3 fingers with extended thumb and pinky came from a native Hawaiian who lost his 3 fingers. I always thought it was some sort of surfer dude thing or “party party” deal but what do I know? I’m not sure that is a true story. But I looked it up and Mental Floss credits it to a Hawaiian in the 1950s or 1960s who lost his 3 fingers, Hamana Kalili.  So, could be true.

I’ll tell you what is not true, and that’s the limo driver’s belief that the volcano will never erupt. I’m not talking about Kilauea, obviously, as that routinely seems to pour down near Puna. I’m talking about Mauna Loa. It has erupted 33 times since 1843, and the last 2 big eruptions were in 1950 and 1984. Isn’t it overdue? I asked the driver.

He shook his head and laughed. Said it is unlikely to erupt because of all the building and new construction happening on Big Island. They wouldn’t build new homes in the path of a lava flow, he exclaimed. I stared at the back of his head from my seat, tried to catch his eyes in the rear view mirror. My mouth fell open. Was he joking? Hell, yes, they’d build in the path of a volcano eruption, they are developers, and once they’ve got your money, they don’t CARE!

He was shocked to hear this. Well, the good news is lava doesn’t flow very fast, I assured him. I mean, it wouldn’t be like Pompeii. You’d have plenty of time to evacuate.

He thought about that for a moment and then replied, “Yeah, if Hawaiians saw Mauna Loa was erupting and they were in the middle of a football game, you can bet they would finish the football game.”