Dealing with the rain in, yes, Hawaii

I was sitting on a stone balcony outside the Jaggar Museum in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, staring out through the pitch-black sky at the orange glow of lava reflected in the walls of a Kilauea crater a few miles away. The stars shone brightly. A shooting star passed overhead.

The next day, the rain pounded nonstop and the volcano on the Big Island of Hawaii was shrouded in mist. Sometimes I couldn't see more than 20 feet in any direction. I was a prisoner in my B&B amid the lush green cloak of the town of Volcano.

That is nature in Hawaii. It thrills and disappoints, offers sublime days and then upends your vacation plans.

If you want to avoid the rain, consider staying in Poipu on Kauai; Wailua on Maui; or Kona on the Big Island. The west, or leeward, side of an island is usually the dry side. Summer is somewhat more likely to be drier than winter.

But I feel bad giving this advice because it slights my favorite parts of Hawaii. I prefer the lush, green Hawaii of Hanalei Bay on Kauai; North Kohala on the Big Island; and Hana on Maui. I want to see the protea and orchids, hide from the drizzle under a monkey pod or banyan tree. It's fun to take a big breath and swim under water when the rain falls, watching from below as the drops dot the surface.

Searching for the sun can go too far. More than a few visitors to the western side of the Big Island have experienced "Kona shock" — flying into the airport and seeing the hard, dark expanse of volcanic rock stretching from horizon to horizon. It's not postcard Hawaii. It's only when they get to their resort that the well-tended gardens and copious watering create a green world on that side of the island.

In the end, no one can guarantee a perfect sunny vacation, especially in a place as wild as Hawaii. Sunny Poipu was the spot hit hardest by the torrents of rain and howling winds of Hurricane Iniki in late summer of 1992. Kona gets 10 inches of rain a year, but it experiences off-and-on plumes of volcano smoke and fog — called "vog" — that settle along the coast that turn the air into Los Angeles-in-the-tropics.

I've been in Kona when some of those 10 inches fell over two consecutive days. I've also had a string of sunny, dry days just north of Kauai's rain-drenched Mount Waialeale that gets hundreds of inches of rain.

The great thing about Hawaii is that with the exception of the Big Island, you're usually no more than an hour by car from the "other" side. If you don't like the weather, there might be something else just a few dozen miles away.