Living the HI Life: Ho'okena

We took a road trip this weekend to the other side of the island to Ho'okena, which is a little beach park where people go camping and stuff.  We'd forgotten that it was a long weekend because of Presidents Day, so it was kind of busy because of all the campers.  It was still super nice, though.  We're planning on going back to camp for a night or two for my birthday, which will be an experience because I've never been camping, and I'm kind of high maintenance when it comes to where I fall asleep.  It took me ages to finally condition myself to be able to sleep next to someone, because I was so used to sleeping by myself.  I don't know, sleep and I have a very complicated relationship.  Anyway, on to the pictures!

It's all black sand, which kind of makes everyone look like they're covered in dirt.  It's very fine sand, which I think is kind of unusual for black sand beaches.  Punalu'u has black sand but it's much more coarse.  Black sand happens when the ocean wears away at the lava rock which makes up the island.

The waves were pretty chill when we were there.  It's a good place for kids to go swimming, though it's kind of rocky in places.  The water was pretty cold, which made Steven think that it might be brackish water, but we're not sure.

You can kind of see the tents at the bottom of this picture.  Someone had brought a garden shed to the camping grounds and was apparently staying in that, haha.  I'm high-maintenance, but I don't think I'm that bad.

This is the second broken pier I've seen on the island.  I know a few have been washed away from tsunamis, but I don't think they were really in use anyway.  

We went to Mauna Kea too on the same day, which is kind of like going from the warmest place on the island to the absolute coldest.  It was freezing.  Pictures of that part of the trip will be posted soon!

What did you get up to this weekend?