Hawaii Day 1

We finally made our long anticipated trip to Hawaii for our 5-year anniversary! Joe surprised me with the news back in January and it seemed forever away. Time flies. Yesterday was an extremely long day. With the early rise at 2:45am and the 5-hour time difference, we had a 23-hour day. The only problem we ran into was that we had to switch to a different flight in Chicago which meant our check-on bag took a trip on our original flight that had gotten extremely delayed, so it won't get here until today. Luckily my toiletries were in that bag instead of my clothes and the resort provided a care pack for the time being. Because this side of the island (Kailua-Kona) is heavily active with volcanos and lava flow, it appeared as though we were landing on the moon. The runway was lined with black lava rocks and you could even see how it was once flowing lava and just hardened up in that formation.




Our drive to the resort was very similar. It was as though they paved a road over a sea of molten lava, however little spurts of yellow grass were living atop the rocks. Also, there were things spelled out in white rocks all the way down the 16-mile stretch of road we took.




I don't know if it's considered Hawaii's form of graffiti or if it's tradition. No spray paint, just white rocks spelling out random things on top of black rocks from "J heart A" to "corn husker" to "R.I.P. Mondo."

The Hilton Waikoloa Village resort is beautiful! Once we entered it no longer looked like the moon, but rather a tropical paradise, as a resort should. Lush, green palm trees swaying above a sea of crystal blue water, lined with stone walkways. Every restaurant and store has it's doors and windows open so you're constantly feeling the perfect temperature breeze. Its comprised of 3 "towers" - Ocean, Palace and Lagoon. We're in the Ocean one. We have a view of everything.




As I sit here on the balcony writing this I can see the ocean, pool, canal, waterfall, tram, bridges, the other two towers, statues, and of course all the beautiful landscaping. Even with the expansive acreage of this resort you can see so much from anywhere. There are a number of restaurants to choose from, numerous pools, a canal with a boat tram to take you around the resort, as well as a regular tram on tracks.







We've taken each tram once so far but will probably retreat to walking from now on. Gotta work off all the amazing food we'll be eating! Plus we just like to walk. :)

After stopping by the Molola Lounge for a quick appetizer dinner and a fruity alcoholic beverage we conked out at 8:30pm Hawaii time.




Hated to waste the rest of the night but our bodies said "It's 1:30am! Go to bed!"

Location:Big Island of Hawai'i