Green Sands Beach!

Aloha!

I would like to start out by saying Happy Birthday yesterday to my cousin Chloe!!!! Also, Happy Birthday to my other cousin Andrew!! Love you both!.

I have been pretty busy since I got home form Honolulu, school is going well and the weather is still beautiful. I know we are getting very spoiled by this no rain right now, but soon enough there will be a long streak of no sun so we have been enjoying it! I still can't believe that I am missing literally the best winter in the history of my life, but that's OK.

This past weekend we went to the Green Sands Beach, it is actually one of the two Green Sands beaches in the world, so it was really cool to see. We had to walk about 2 1/2 miles in to get to it, over lava rock and sand (literally felt like Indian Jones). The beach was beautiful, and the sand was the best sand I have ever laid on, way better then Waikiki (white sand beach).  Speaking of Waikiki, it is actually one of the number one white sand beaches in the world, but the sand is imported, so its not even really from Hawaii which is something I just found out in one of my classes. The hike into the beach was easy, we took a lot of pictures and just sort of took our time. The way out, not so much. After laying on the beach for the day I figured out the last thing you want to do is walk 2 1/2 miles back through sand literally blowing in your eyes the entire time. We all though we got a nice dark tan, turns out when we got to the van we were able to see what everyone looked like, and instead of being tan we were just covered in dirt, it was pretty funny. I had sand in my ears for about 3 days. I do have some good pictures of the beach and I will post them below.

Right next to the entrance of the walk to Green Sands beach there is a place called South Point, it is actually the southern most point in the United States. You can cliff jump there (don't worry mom I didn't) and it is a beautiful sight. We didn't actually check that out while we were there but we walked pass the area, I am hoping to take a trip there soon.

The past few days have been very Foggy, fog is coming from the Volcano that is erupting on the Big Island. Kilauea is the active Volcano on the southeast side of Mauna Loa, and you can actually go up to Volcano's national park to see the Caldera (center where fog expels from).  I haven't actually been to that park yet but we can make a trip up there one weekend. You can actually see the fog coming form the volcano and you literally can taste it in the air, it tastes like sulfur. They say that January and February are  really foggy because of the wind direction, so it should be getting better soon. There is also places you can go to see the lava flow, it is actually really amazing to be living on an island where you are literally living by the most active volcano in the world, and you are also living by the largest volcano in the world. We have been learning a lot about the 5 volcano's in class, so I will share more information about them as I learn more and read up on it. It is actually pretty confusing because they call some mountains, and others volcano's. The one we are actually living on right now is overdue for erupting, and yes I panicked when i heard this, but apparently the lava flows in the other direction of where we live when it erupts (this is where I really hope I can believe in scientists). They said we have nothing to worry about, probably because they don't want to scare us!

I will get some more information about it and hopefully post soon! Otherwise that is all I have for today! Enjoy some pictures and take care, miss you all!

Aloha!
Brittany

 I know it doesn't really look green here, but the sand is a green/silver color up close, it is kind of hard to see here.

We had to walk down this to get there, it is a little scary but they have  a pretty good path!