Green Sands

Another day.....another road trip adventure. This time to the southern tip of the Big Island.  First stop!

Kona Coffee, as we learned, is only grown in a small 40 square mile region here on the western part of the Big Island.

Again, because of the holiday, the processing center was closed, but we got LOTS of free coffee samples.

Here it is, the southern most point in ALL of the United States, not just the continental United States.

Onions has some great footage of people cliff jumping from here, but I was suffering from a coffee mishap.

Our goal was to see the famed green sand beach.  We 4x4 drove our rental truck.  It was FUN.  

I actually did go swimming at this beach!

On our way back, we stopped by this strange development called "Ocean View"  It was developed as thousands of 1-acre plots land on this massive square grid in the middle of the lava fields.  It's sparsely populated.

Houses just are plopped in the middle lava.

We then saw the sign for a road called, "Going to the Ocean Road" and so we took it.  5 miles of bumpy, unpaved road....at around sunset lead to this....

The most amazing green and black sand beach.

Onions driving a 4x4 for the first time!

Here's a picture of our hotel, the Royal Kona resort.  It's a pretty iconic building, as it looks like a cruise ship.

On our last day, we spent part of the day at the beach (this is proof that we actually went to the beach) and then the afternoon at a spa.  Onions got a long massage and I got a deep facial cleaning.  From there it was dinner and our flight back to the mainland.