Hawaii Day 1 - Monday: 9/8/08

To celebrate our 10 year anniversary, Naquel and I took a week long trip to Hawaii and stayed at the Hilton, Wiakoloa on the Big Island. Our flight left early Monday morning and we arrived at the Hilo airport around 7 AM. We initially reserved a compact car, but seeing as they were unavailable, we ended up getting a free upgrade into a convertible mustang. So we started making our way to the Hilton, a 2 hour drive, and took the old scenic Highways. Coming from Las Vegas, I was pleasantly surprised by how green and lush this side of the island is. My mind was racing with ideas for sunset photos...too many places to see and photograph, and not enough time. When we got to the Hilton, we were very impressed with how big and beautiful the hotel was. It has a monorail and boat transportation systems because the property is so enormous. After checking into our hotel we checked out the hotel grounds. I found the one and only sea turtle there, and although I took pictures, I was careful not to disturb it. It was amazing how close I was able to get... literally 3 inches from its face. After 10 minutes it got bored of me and went into the water. We also found a really neat little peninsula jutting out into the ocean, called Buddha Point. For our first day in Hawaii we were very impressed.