Picking Up Hitch-Hikers-They Look so Harmless
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I don't often pick up hitch-hikers, but I urged my husband to pull over recently when we were pulling out of Hawaii's Volcano National Park. We had a cushy rental car with lots of room, and the park gets a certain number of walk-ins who hitch their way through the park, which is massive. Things are more laid back in Hawaii. And it rains *a lot*, sudden down pours followed by rainbows. It's a kindness to pick a walker up.
The young man looked so harmless. Young, fair-haired Caucasian in good shape. Tall and sinewy. He carried a massive pack on his back, but there was a whole community of young-folk packing their way through the islands, living in tents on the beach. He didn't look at all out of place.
A lot of those young-folk came with surf-boards, but not this one whom I later learned was named Philip. Philip was packing his way through the islands in 33 days with a kitty of only a thousand dollars to fund his travels. Well, it sounded like great fun when you are in your early twenties and have no serious attachments. Probably made his parents insane. I freely admitted that I was higher maintenance than that. Me, an old fat married lady.
We all laughed, and talked about things we had liked in the park. This is where we turn on the Vincent Price monster movie music from the 50's.
We talked about the active volcanic crater, Kilauea. You can see it venting huge plumes of super-heated steam made from water and sulfur dioxide, acid enough to etch glass like a Gilbey's Gin bottle. Imagine what it does for your lungs. That has everything to do with why the National Park Service keeps tourists maybe...two miles from the active caldera? You can get a great view from the designated viewing platform, especially at night when the caldera glows a hellish orange from the magma way down at the bottom. You can't get close enough to see the liquid, bubbling magma. You'd have to get right up to the very edge to do that and it would probably be the last thing you did.
Well.
That is when Phillip tells us his story. He is a rock-climber you see. So he figured that he could make the escarpments around the caldera, the ledges of rock that circle it like bathtub rings. But don't be fooled by perspective. None of them is less than a hundred feet high, and baking in the sun. Or slippery from the rain. The full caldera itself is two miles across. The lowest part of the caldera, the "floor" with the steaming hole is more than three thousand feet across. It took Phillip a long time to get down there. A long time. And by the time he got there, his shoes were giving off a strong odor of heat-stressed material. Like, they were starting to melt.
I'm thinking, "This guy is out of his *ucking mind." If the wind had shifted and enveloped him in the steam, his lungs would have been something from Beni Hana. Hot off of the grill.
Then he tells us that he...wait for it...it's the 21st century...took a selfie for proof. Would we like to see it? Well I did. And there he was. *Much* closer to the steaming hole than I ever, EVER would have considered getting. (No, he did not go to the very edge and look down. The business with his shoes kinda worried him.)
Then, of course, another task remained. He had to climb back *up* the escarpments and stay out of sight. I think I said something erudite like "Huh?" while thinking "I will NEVER pick up a hitch-hiker again." It seems that there is a $50,000 fine and possible jail time for hopping the fence and climbing down into the caldera. He had been clearly visible to the Park Rangers walking across the floor of the caldera and they were hunting for him with binoculars. He said he stuck to the shadows and got out as fast as he could. He got away clean.
I asked him if he knew about the $50,000 fine *before* he hopped the fence. He admitted that oh, yeah, but he wanted to see the caldera close up.
I'm thinking "There is a maniac in the back seat."
It wasn't too long before we brought Philip to his destination and dropped him off. If you are someone who prays, perhaps you could spare a prayer for Philip's mother. Pray that he doesn't show her the picture of himself about 400 feet from the magma vent of one of the most active shield volcanoes in the world. I think he's put her through a *great deal* in his short life, but there are some things a mother shouldn't have to see, shouldn't have to imagine.
Phillip's mom, may the Lord's grace be a comfort and a buckler to you in times of oh, crap...he's done it again.