Day One Hawaii
For many years we have made our annual trip to Hawaii at Easter. It is a religious experience, but getting there is a bitch. The whole prep thing for going on vacation exhausting. I can never sleep the night before a trip. I was up folding laundry, packing, vacuuming, changing the cat box, taking a shower, and washing my hair until 2:30 AM. I like to leave a clean house before I go somewhere.
Hubby wakes me up at 4:30 AM. I try to sleep a little in the car on the way to the airport, doze on the plane in between spurts of laughter from the woman sitting behind me. Finally Aloha Airlines delivered us more or less on time to the Big Island. (OK, so I’m sleep deprived. Isn’t that part of a religious experience?)
The landscape is stunning. I mean stark. I mean desolate. You don’t expect to see that huge scar of lava surrounding the airport as you approach. Of course, there is the immense navy blue, baby blue, cerulean blue, all blue Pacific Ocean to balance the impression. Once you get to the resorts on the dry side you begin to see the fauna that the tropics are so famous for.
The resort is beautiful! The Royal Waikoloan – complete with a lagoon, white sand beach, fringe of palm trees, calm ocean bay, ocean front room, and a sixth floor view of tangerine sunsets… Hawaii is all about color.
We immediately put on swimsuits and screen up to go down for our first Mai Tai and a splash in the pools of extravaganza. The hotel seems to be an all inclusive water park resort with a sand bar, a water slide, and the obligatory hot tub Jacuzzi. “There are too many children here,” Jack notes.
We happen to notice a beautiful white string hammock hung between two perfect palm trees that is literally crawling with cock roaches… “I’ll never go in that hammock now,” I comment to no one in particular. The cock roaches disappear just as a bikini clad young co-ed reclines on the insect infested photo opportunity. “Ooh! Creepy!” In my mind the cock roaches come out and begin crawling all over her. “Ick!”
We go up to our room to change and decide to have dinner on The Terrace, a fish buffet which includes salmon, shrimp, ahi, tuna, sashimi, crab, pasta and rice dishes, and lots of salads with a tropical flair. We eat way too much filling our plates with three times the normal amount of food a person should eat at one sitting.
We barely make it until sunset, fall into bed at 7:30PM and sleep for eleven hours. Tomorrow we’ll wake up early, eat Loco Moco for breakfast, and go hike the volcano to pay our respects to Pele. Auwe!
(First published 3/29/13)
