We pulled into a spot almost as far away from the store as possible, and along the edge where, once daylight came, we'd be able to see the coastline. Well, of course, we didn't get much good sleep. The kids fared well enough - in the Chevy Traverse we've rented, there are two back seats, so they took turns laying across those and on the very back floor board. Kids have the knack adults have lost (at least this one has) of being able to sleep anywhere. Bill and I laid the front seats back as far as they would go (not very far), and flopped back and forth like fish and managed a total of maybe 2 hours, in 5- to 15-minute snippets over the next 7 hours. In between snippets, I took my zombie self or one of the kids, usually Samantha, to the bathroom. I went alone at 11:30 into the WalMart, which was starting to fill up with people. On the walk back, the parking lot was 80% full of cars with people curled up inside. People coming out of walmart were buying lots of water, and they looked like locals who had done this before, so that was mildly disconcerting. I had gone in at 10, right after we got there, to get provisions (pringles, poptarts, water, saltines, seltzer water, ice, hard plastic cups for the condo). Other folks had water and ice, and tons of it. Hmmm. Should I be getting more water? If I did, what would I do with it? Strap it to the top of the car? I went with what I had and trusted that the WalMart would always be full of supplies. If I'd had more energy for mental function, I may have noted in passing that people from earlier times would look in amazement at our ability just to walk in a building and bring out all the supplies we needed. Strange.
At 12:30, Samantha needed to go the bathroom, so I took her to the WalMart but they were CLOSED. What?! I thought all WalMarts stayed open all the time, 24/7/365!!! Not this one, it closes at midnight. Normally, I would have thought 'good for them', but I'll admit that in the moment, I had less charitable thoughts. So, we kept walking, up to a Denny's in the shopping center above the WalMart. That place was full of people - you'd have thought it was mid-day. We fell in behind a family being led to their table, acted like we were a part of their group. They were being seated in the back, so we just peeled off and went to the restroom like we owned the place. I felt bad for using their facilities without buying their food, but then I remembered how many times they've been in court for discrimination lawsuits, so my bad feelings were replaced with thoughts of 'here is what we think about you' as I peed in their toilet and Sam pooped. :) Later, the WalMart decided to open back up so people could use the bathrooms, bless them.
Around 1:30am, I went into the store and got a solid signal on my phone. So I texted and called Dad, as I knew he'd soon be hearing the news about Japan and the tsunami warnings for Hawaii. I figured they would be very concerned, so I hoped to head them off at the pass. Fortunately, I was able to catch Dad before he'd heard, so I hope that reduced the panic factor a little bit for them. I emailed other folks who knew we were going to Hawaii, and folks were very nice to send their well-wishes for our temporary inconvenience.
For the rest of the night, the seconds ticked away like minutes - longest night we've had in a while. At 5am (10am to our bodies), the kids been awake and barely containable for 3 hours. We went inside the WalMart to have something to do. We got earplugs for the plane ride home, lotion for our drying hands, a new rolling suitcase for me, and a car charger for our phones.
The sun seemed like it would never come up. We drove around for two hours, until we were exhausted, and came back to the walmart. We had driven around a residential area of Kona then south on 11. We listened to the radio - no signs of the warning ending anytime soon. We got breakfast at a McD's and saw neat things (fruit trees, flowers, plants, and trees you don't find in TN, and black dirt from the volcanic ash). Back at the WalMart, they had chairs set out inside so people didn't have to sit in the heat. We slunked in there like zombie slugs and waited. We waited some more, and then drove around again to go seek out lunch.
On our second driving around, we drove toward our condo to see if it looked like they were making any progress on clearing the road (Ali'i Drive had taken a bit of a hit when the waters cane up), so they had to work on it a while. Bill said, "They're opening it up! I can see cars turning onto the road!!". You would have thought we had won the lottery. We hauled our stuff back into the condo and laid around for the rest of the day. It felt wonderful to lay flat on a bed.
The kids swam in the pool for an hour. No one required coaxing to go to bed. The next morning, even the kids remarked how nice it was to sleep in a bed.
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