“Hey, that looks pretty good!”

Panda seemed pleased at my compliment. “It’s my Hawaiian shirt for when we go to Hawaii,” he replied. “I asked Mom if she could make me one and this is what she came up with.”“Well that’s cool,” I said, “but don’t you remember? It’s Social Distancing. There are travel restrictions. We can’t go to Hawaii.” Panda looked disappointed. “Aw man,” he replied. “I forgot!”“Is that a real hat?” I said, changing the subject. “Let me see the back.”The back of Panda’s new outfit met with my approval, so I turned my thoughts back to Hawaii. “So what makes you want to go to Hawaii?” I asked. Panda’s reply was muffled.“Oh, sorry,” I said, flipping him over onto his back. “Thanks, Bro,” Panda replied. “Now that I can breathe, I’ll tell you. I was talking to Benji on Skype the other day and he said that Sue and Bob have been to Hawaii a couple of times. He showed me this post Sue wrote about how last time they just got back before Social Distancing hit. They had a great time. Maybe if we went we could see a volcano!” I nodded thoughtfully. The kids at the Christian school had been asking Mom if we could go on an adventure to see a volcano…We quickly decided that even if we couldn’t go to Hawaii, we could at least look it up on the computer and imagine how it would be if we were there. “Wow!” Panda exclaimed when we looked up Lahaina, on the island of Maui. “That tree is huge! I’m shocked you were able to climb up that high.”“It’s only pretend,” I responded. “I guess I can climb as high as I want.” Panda frowned. “I guess,” he said. “Hey, what kind of a tree is this? I’ve never seen one before.” Suddenly, as if on cue, we heard a loud squawking sound.“It’s called a banyan tree,” said a voice from a branch high above us. “Don’t you know anything about dendrology?” Panda and I looked up with a start. “Who are you?” I asked warily. “And what’s dendrology?” Our new acquaintance sounded a bit irritated. “I happen to be a myna bird,” he replied, “and dendrology is the study of trees.”Suddenly we were joined by what we could only assume were more myna birds.”That’s right,” one of them said authoritatively. “And we live in this tree.” Panda and I felt like intruders now. “We’re sorry,” Panda began. “We didn’t mean to intrude, but–” The head myna, a yellow bird with a sharp beak, approached him with a no-nonsense manner that I personally found a bit aggressive. “I’ve never seen a panda in a Hawaiian shirt before,” he declared. “Are you even a real panda? And is that a real pocket?”Before Panda could reply, “Yes, and yes,” the tree above us came alive with a symphony of squawking mynas. “It’s time for our concert,” explained a myna with a kindly face. “People who visit the island of Maui come from all around to hear us sing at sunset.” Panda and I looked at each other. “Sunset? Is it that late already?” we exclaimed in unison. “We had better get going!”“Wow, that was amazing!” Panda commented. I nodded in agreement. “I guess we should go back when we have more time. One of the birds told me that tree was brought over from India as a gift from missionaries, and was planted in 1873. Hey, if we ever do go to Hawaii, do you think we should rent a jeep?”“Yeah,” Panda replied. “I’ll drive, since you know I got my jeep driver’s license when I went to basic training.” I was all for that. “Yes,” I said, “you had better drive. Remember the first time we went to Africa, I drove that jeep, and I had no clue what I was doing?” Panda laughed heartily. “How could I forget? We ended up in the middle of the river and had to be rescued by a man with an elephant!” “Oh wow!” Panda exclaimed as he clicked on a link that took us to an extremely long and winding road, right through the mountains. “I don’t think I would want to drive on that, license or no license!” I shuddered. “Talk about an element of risk,” I replied. “I think Sue and Bob went on a windy road when they were in Hawaii. Maybe it was this one!”“I think I’d actually rather go in a helicopter,” I ventured. Panda agreed. “You can be the one to fly it,” he said, “since you have experience.” We laughed as we reminisced about how I had flown a borrowed plane to get us out of Nevada’s Area 51. “That was a fun adventure,” Panda commented. “You flew that plane like an expert!”“Whoa!” we exclaimed in unison as we clicked on another link. “A volcano!” We both agreed that it would be super cool to fly over one.We quickly decided that if we were going to be flying over volcanoes, we should go with a real pilot. We had no trouble finding a professional pilot to take us on a helicopter tour. When we were right over the volcano, we seemed to be losing altitude, but fortunately the pilot pulled us back up just in time!“Well that was exciting,” Panda said as we cleared the active volcano and continued our helicopter flight over the islands. “We probably shouldn’t tell Mom about that part, though.”We looked at several other amazing photos of Hawaii, and when we came to this one, Panda got an idea. “Follow me,” he said excitedly. “This is going to be so fun!”Before I knew it we were standing in front of a surf shop looking at surf boards for rent. “Mom would like all these colors,” Panda said appreciatively. “Which one shall I get?” I didn’t have to think before replying. “Whichever one looks the safest. You’re not really going to–““Come on!” Panda called as he trotted down the beach with his surf board. “Wait till you see me ride the waves!” “Woo-hoo!” shouted Panda as he caught the first wave. “This is awesome!” I decided to keep my comments to myself. After all, he had won the world championship log rolling contest  when we went to Yosemite.After Panda had finished surfing, we were invited by some local residents to go for a canoe ride. The view across the sparkling water was breathtaking. When we reached the shore, we decided we should head back home.“Hey!” Panda exclaimed when we got home. “It looks like Mom was working on her blog while we were gone.” I was about to agree when I remembered. “We were never gone,” I reminded him. Panda looked at me, his eyes wide. “You’re right!” he replied. “But then–““I don’t know,” I said as we jumped back up on the guest room bed. “But I think it’s time for a nap!”

Hawaii background photos are from Pixabay.com and Unsplash.com