You Can't Spell Memorable Tropical Vacation Without (Astronaut) Ice Cream!

“Hawai’i is the only state in the US that doesn’t have hummingbirds,” said a man selling stained glass hummingbirds at a market in Hawai’i. We were on the islands to belatedly celebrate our tenth wedding anniversary. The stained glass salesman had a dozen or so hummingbird-themed pieces, plus a few unicorns, lions, and spaceships. “But when people are on vacation, they like to buy hummingbirds. So I sell hummingbirds. They’re the most popular by far.”

I liked his stained glass sea turtle Christmas ornament (having actually seen sea turtles on our snorkeling excursion), but we didn’t end up buying it. We had already bought an ornament of a rooster with glued-on googly eyes the day before.

The Hawai’ian tourism industry is deeply aware of the particularities of tourists and how to utilize the strange tastes of travelers for economic gain. The stained-glass salesman wasn’t the only person we met who clearly understood the situation. For example, when we stepped into a jewelry store, we saw many rings and necklaces studded with smooth, milky pearls. But pearls, like hummingbirds, are not found in Hawai’i, according to the jeweler.

“But Europeans especially don’t care about that,” she said. “When Europeans come here, they want to buy pearls. So, we import pearls from the Caribbean.”

Our Airbnb was in a subdivision with a golf course, multi-million dollar homes, and views of a lush volcanic mountain range that looked too beautiful to be real. The neighborhood also had a fountain at its entrance crowned with a sculpture of Neptune. It was a really impressive work of art, when viewed in isolation. But when compared to the mountains behind, it was just Gumby with a water gun. And yet, we saw many a tourist stop in the roundabout to take photos of this fountain.

“What a weird thing to take a picture of!” My husband Cory remarked. I agreed. Who travels to Hawai’i to adore a water fountain? Tourists! They’re so weird.

After arriving at our Airbnb, I unpacked my things: my bed pillow, my leg pillow that goes between my knees when I sleep, my back pillow for car rides, my stuffed Dory the Fish for nighttime snuggles, and my queen-sized, extra-thick, gel-infused foam mattress pad. And these are just the pillow-like objects required for being away from home. I also always pack, regardless of the length of the trip, a white noise machine, a beanbag eyemask, an icepack head wrap, an untold number of creams, patches, and pills, and a few bags of “Natalie Compatible” granola.

(We used to check the foam mattress pad in a cardboard box every time we traveled, until one time that I went on a roadtrip without Cory and attempted to shove my oversized blue raspberry fruit rollup into its box with my feet, which proved ruinous to the box. Now, with vacuum zip-locs, we can fit all my things in 1 and 7/8 checked bags containing mostly desiccated foam. Really, whoever invented vacuum zip-locs deserves the Nobel Prize. Cory gets the remaining 1/8 of a bag and saves most of it for whatever boring books about US presidents he hopes to find while on the trip, because it’s not a vacation without a used bookstore. Most recently, he won’t shut up about a John Tyler biography he found for an UNBELIEVABLE PRICE while we were visiting family in Baltimore.)

Cory using a mattress pump to pack my foam mattress topper

When not traveling, Cory is my gray-shirt-wearing, vanilla ice cream-loving, boring book enthusiast. But when traveling, he becomes the adventurous one of the two of us. This is mostly thanks to my disability, as before developing chronic migraine disorder, I was the only one brave enough to drive in England or order Argentinian empanadas in broken Spanish. But now, I’ve got a bad case of the home bodies which is only worsened by some very tricky dietary restrictions. Traveling is now all about having my “creature comforts.” This is why I made Cory stop at Target as soon as we arrived to Hawai’i, for oat milk and fizzy water (it’s also not a vacation without fizzy water!).

“They have so many cool flavors of fizzy water here!” I said after returning to our rented black Chevy Malibu, which proved very difficult to find in every single parking lot due to its striking resemblance to all of the other rented black Chevy Malibus. “I saw passion fruit, mango mint, and coconut!” I said as I put a box of fizzy water in the back seat.

“What flavor did you get?” Cory asked.

“Ginger peach,” I said.

“Ginger peach?!”

“What? It’s the same flavor I drink at home.”

I also made Cory stop at a local supermarket, for Vitamin Water. As it turned out, this place also had itty-bitty shallots (!), apples imported from Washington, and astronaut ice cream. Do you remember astronaut ice cream? We always begged my parents to buy us that stuff whenever in the science museum gift shop as kids. I had never seen it outside of a vaguely astronomical context, not to mention in Hawai’i, next to the Kona coffee and macadamia nuts. But this was a smart move. Most kids don’t care about eating local delicacies, especially if they can have something with a picture of an astronaut on it instead. Heck, had Cory not given me a look, I would have indulged myself. I was rarely allowed to have astronaut ice cream as a kid.

Next to this store was a shop that sold cat and dog-sized baseball hats (which, again, Cory for some reason would not let me buy) and a restaurant featuring Maine lobster. Across the street, we found a decorative plate in an antique shop. It was black and gold, and had a map of the state of Colorado painted on it.

The fountain of Neptune near our Airbnb became our running joke throughout the trip. “Do you want me to stop for you to take a picture of the fountain?” Cory would ask whenever we drove past it. “Or maybe you want to take a picture of this intersection, or the golf course?”

“No, but maybe we should go back for a stained-glass hummingbird,” I’d say.

After arriving home, I scrolled through my photos from the trip, treasuring each memory from our fun adventure. There were a few pictures of the beautiful mountains, though not a lot because the sky was cloudy for much of our visit. There were also a few selfies of us on the beach or out hiking. But my absolute favorite shots? One was of a sign at an açaí shop, warning customers about feral chickens. Another was of Cory, eating a spaghetti-flavored corn dog in a shopping mall.

Tourists! They’re so weird. 🧠

🏝️ Thanks for reading, Oops, My Brain! Here’s a handy button you can use to share this story with a friend. Your shares are very much appreciated!

📣 📣 Announcements 📣 📣

👶 Our family is growing! Welcome to the 36 new Brainees that have joined us over the past couple of months.

🐨 Check out my latest piece for SF local publication Broke-Ass Stuart about the wacky SF Zoo.

🎧 You can now find essay voiceovers on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. New episodes drop the same day as the posts, just a few hours later.

🐌 Did you know that paid subscribers are eligible to receive essay posts on real paper in the mail?! Upgrade to paid for $2.50/month or $15/year by clicking here. If you’re already a paid subscriber, please email me your physical address if you’d like to receive future posts via snail mail.

Related to this post…