Day 5, Monday

The forecast for our last couple days did not look great. We were worried about rain. The Pizzey's had just been to the same area of Hawaii and they recommended this amazing beach. We drove down this crazy "unimproved" road (there were signs that said that) and parked and walked across a long lava rock path to get to a nice beach, BUT if you trekked a little ways farther you came to this perfect beach that had a handful of other people on. We set up our towels and spent the day. We were not very careful with our sunscreen because the sky was overcast, and we ended up quite burnt which was disappointing.










(Beach 1)

















(Beach 2)
















We played in the waves, read our books, ate this amazing trail mix from target that had these huge chocolate covered caramel balls that were literally half the mix. There were some ladies sitting on the beach looking out towards the horizon and they'd randomly start cheering. When we finally took a minute to look the same way we saw these huge whales splashing out of the water.


When it started to rain we headed back to the car, and decided to see a few more famous Big Island sights. A lot of driving, but worth it. We drove to a black sand beach looking for sea turtles. No luck, then we headed up to the location of a green sand beach. The beach is green because of some mineral in the volcanic sand in that location.

We got to where we thought we'd see the green sand, but came upon a local man offering shuttle rides in his truck down to the beach for $15 each. We thought we'd just walk, but the sun was setting and it was 3 miles to the beach and then another 3 back.  I was ready to run, it seemed a little shady, but there was another couple waiting to go on the shuttle so we went.  We sat in the back of this rickety truck holding on for our lives on the craziest road I've ever seen! I was against the tailgate on a cooler, and the other three were sitting on a bench facing backwards. There were all these narrow lanes barely wide enough for the truck, the bumps were huge and uneven and the truck was groaning. He was also driving very fast considering the terrain, but he wanted us to make it to the beach before the sun set. I was laughing so hard I was crying. It seemed like this precarious trip in the dark with a strange man to who knows where, and that was before I saw the road we were going on. I must have been tired, because it just seemed so funny. I wish I could have taken a picture of the roads, it is so hard to explain well, but all photos were too blurry, and I was holding on for dear life.

The beach was  beautiful, I think it would have looked more green in better light, but I was glad we went. On the drive back we saw more whales, they were incredible!

We had trekked quite a ways away from Kona to see these beaches, so Elesa came up with a new game for the ride. Think of random things and the other person has to figure out the connection. So fun!

We ate dinner at a seafood restaurant back in Kona, and then went back to the hotel to pack up because we had to check out in the morning.