The past 7 days...

As most of you know, I have been in Hawai'i for an entire week now! And I have learned so so much. This place is truly amazing. First things first, I'll have to start at the beginning. I arrived at Kona airport last Thursday mid-day. It was a struggle-fest of rushing through airports and worrying about luggage and security and stuff, but I made it! With all my stuff! A man from the hotel we (my dad, Cheryl, and I) were staying at picked me up from the airport and loaded up the car. Turns out Dad and Cheryl missed there flight. I got to the Hotel in Kailua-Kona (about 20-25 miles north of the airport). To the left of the whole drive is the Ocean and to the right is black volcanic rock. It seriously was like being on another planet. So beautiful. Spent 2 and a half days in Kailua-Kona where we explored the small town of Kona (20 miles south of the airport) and went to Costco and stuff. BY THE WAY Costco is Costco- except they sell things like Hawaiian shirts and surf boards, boogie boards etc. They alternate the inventory according to place. I DID NOT KNOW THIS. It was quite the adventure. On Sunday we got up early and did the drive from Kailua-Kona to Hilo. We had 2 choices: Drive up around, or down and back up. The difference is about 25 minutes. We decided to go up and around. Leaving the hotel, everything looks the same-- big huge black volcanic rocks to one side and the ocean on the other. We we got towards the top of the island, you start climbing in the car and go through these little tiny towns. (OH there are no freeways on the Big Island) but one highway that kind of outlines the whole way around but changes number across the different sides. So going through these small towns the speed drops a lot, and people in Hawai'i drive slow anyway ;) When we started climbing the mountain, the scenery started changing, looked a little more hilly and stuff. Then we got to "The Curtain". The Curtain is when it changes to the "rainforest" side. It literally was a curtain. You can see it as you approach it. Truly incredible. After going through, you can look back and see the change of climate. SO CRAZY! Soon after, we drove to this place called "Tex," where EVERYONE told us to stop because they have the best doughnuts. Well, I don't even like doughnuts, but because of what everyone said, we stopped to check it out. It almost looks like this little drive-in. And they did have DELICIOUS doughnuts. But they weren't doughnuts- they were Portugese Malasadas. Yummyyyyy. The rest of the drive was passing beautiful waterfalls and it was just incredibly green. So, instead of having black volcanic rock and ocean surrounding the car, it was total rainforest and ocean.