The Big Island - Punalu'u Beach

 Our last full day on the Big Island, we decided to drive over to the western side of the island and see the volcano. There were a few interesting things that we passed by during our 2 hour drive. The first place we stopped was a road side overlook where you could see the coastline and lava flow from different time periods.

 The newest lava flow is black, and as it ages it will turn brown. On the left side of the photo below, you can see part of a wind farm.

 We stopped for lunch at a restaurant called Hana Hou, which is the southern most restaurant in the US.

 I had the Stuffed Papaya. It is half a papaya that is filled with Macademia nut chicken salad served on a small green salad with Lilikoi Vinaigrette. It was very good. We also ordered one Lilikoi lemonade and shared it. Lilikoi is yellow passion fruit.

 We both had a slice of their Macadenia Nut coconut creme pie for dessert. Yummy.

 After lunch, we drove to see another black sand beach called Punalu'u Beach. This beach was easy to get to - unlike the other black sand beach we visited. There were several families there, and a number of swimmers.

 Tent camping is allowed here, but there aren't any cabins. I think this would be a really fun place to camp with kids. There is a public restroom with showers.

At one time, this beach was a popular place for Hawaiians to get fresh water from the many springs that bubble up in the bay. They would swim out with their gourds, slowly turn them upside down over the fresh water to fill them, cover the hole with their finger, and swim back. The word "Punalu'u" actually means "diving spring".

 We got to see an endangered sea turtle on the beach!

 Coconut trees.

The Big Island - The Luau

 We went at a luau at the hotel that we stayed at on the big island. James and I just so happened to be outside that morning as the staff was getting the pig into the earth oven. It was pretty fun to get to see this process. It was about 9:00 in the morning when they got started, so the pig cooked for the better part of the day.

 The greenery that is over the pig is Ti leaves and leaves from banana trees.

 One of the hula dancers was available before the food was served to pose for photos and give lessons on how to tie a sarong.

 This is a little shot of the buffet that the food was served from at the luau. It had been raining most of the afternoon, so it had to held indoors.  The food was not the highlight of the evening for me - the dancing was. The food was good, but it was not the best meal that we had on the trip. The pork was great, and so were the purple sweet potatoes and the creamed spinach.  Everything else was not worth the calories to me - including the Mai Tais. I had a couple of them. James had about ten of them, and said he didn't think there was much rum in them. Obviously not, if since he was still able to carry on a coherent conversation after consuming ten of them. They were served at an open bar from a huge punch bowl that was about the size of a toddler swimming pool.

 The hula dancers were awesome. They changed costumes several times, and performed dances that had their roots in various parts of the Polynesian Triangle.

After the hula dancers were finished, one of the male dancers performed a fire dance. 

 This was amazing to watch. I'm not sure how he does this without getting burned, we could tell that he was enjoying himself.

I ruined my dress to get these photos because I had to climb over a rock wall to get a clear shot - badly snagging my dress, but it was worth it. I'll gladly trade a $20 dress for these pics. 

The Big Island - Coffee Heaven

We spent our first morning on the big island taking a tour of the Mountain Thunder Coffee Plantation. James isn't a coffee drinker at all, but he was a good sport about this tour and he enjoyed himself.

 At the bar, there were samples of their coffees and teas to try, along with some fresh pastries.

Before the tour began, they had a clip from the TV show "Dirty Jobs" that had been filmed there. Here is
part of it:

 This was my first time to see coffee growing. Above are the red coffee cherries, and below is a blossom from one of the coffee trees.

Coffee cherries, raw coffee beans or "parchment", green coffee beans, and peaberry coffee beans. I was unfamiliar with peaberries. It is a natural mutation that occurs in a small percentage of coffee cherries. Normally the beans grow two to a cherry, flat side to flat side. Occasionally, the bean will grow as one whole egg shaped bean. This is a peaberry, and they taste sweeter. At Mountain Thunder, peaberries are used in their chocolate covered coffee beans, and you can buy one pound of whole bean peaberry coffee for $46.09.  Take a moment to get over that sticker shock. No, we didn't buy any.

 We got to see a little of the production process.

 We learned that it takes a little over 6 pounds of coffee cherries to make one pound of roasted coffee beans.  The skins of the coffee cherries are used in a couple of ways at this plantation. One way is as fertilizer for the coffee trees, and the other way is in tea production. James and I sampled the tea that they make from the coffee cherry skins, and it was good. He bought a can of it, and it tastes nothing like roasted coffee.

And then we got to roast some coffee beans ourselves.

 We learned that the temperature at which the beans are roasted greatly effects the flavor. We choose to do our beans as a Vienna Roast. The beans are in the "green bean" stage before they are roasted.

 We could see the color of the beans change through this little window.

 All done! Now to weigh it out and bag it up.

  This sign was posted over the employee's desks. I thought it was funny. Apparently they process a lot of coffee for Costco.

 James was excited to weigh out exactly one pound. Haha.

 Vacuum sealing the bags.

 James wanted to eat lunch at "Da Poke Shack" He enjoyed his food very much. Poke is a salad consisting of raw meat that has been gutted, skinned, and deboned. It is served with traditional condiments such as sea salt and seaweed. I did sample it a few days prior at a deli, but I wasn't up for it. All I got here was pastry and water. I picked up a sandwich from a bar next door to our hotel later that afternoon.