Between Elly still being sick (but getting better!) and needing to sleep in a bit, and the blog post and photos from yesterday taking an extra long time, and breakfast, we had a late start. We finally rolled out of Kona at 2:00 with an itinerary: more hiking at Volcanoes National Park, followed by some night-time stargazing at the Mauna Kea observatory.
Somewhere along the drive to Volcanoes we realized that the USB port in the car console let us play music from our phones on the car stereo system. We'd brought the cord to charge our phones but when Elly plugged hers in it started playing tracks from her phone automatically! We listened to music for awhile before Elly remembered that on my phone I had a John Scalzi audiobook, METAtropolis. The drive seemed to go much quicker after that!
We took a different route to Volcanoes this time than we did last time, cutting a route across the middle of the state and passing through Hilo. Instead of the fruit and coffee farms we saw going along the coast it was mostly wide highway going through grassy fields and desolate lava flats. Suddenly, though, we were out of the lava flats and into the jungle. We've heard people refer to Hawaii's dry side, or wet side, and the transition was kind of stunning. We were driving along at 55mph, and in the course of 30 seconds our scenery went from sparse grasses amongst the lava to dense, rainforest foliage.
Oh, and today was the first day of "bad" weather we've experienced in Hawaii. Today it was... "rainy." Everywhere else I've been rainy means clouds in the sky, dripping down on you. Its weird: Today it was not so much that it was rainy as that the clouds had come down from the sky and settled on the ground. Most of our drive was through moderately dense fog, and occasionally for short bursts the mist would get thick enough it would fall out of the air around you. Very cool, but strange enough to be a bit unsettling. (And other infrequent rain bursts that puts all but the 100-year flood in Colorado to shame. -E)
When we arrived at the Park we were prepared for the inclement weather: Elly and her mom had gone shopping for rain suits before our trip. So while the other tourists were running for cover (literally) we were suiting up to begin a day of hiking. Enrobed in our rainsuits and camelbaks full, we headed out on the 'Iliahi Trail. This trail left directly from the visitor's center ran along the Caldera. Mostly it was just a pretty jungle walk in the rain, but occasionally there would be an overlook where you could just see the volcano and the surrounding lava flats peeking through the mist. And we were the only ones on the trail! It felt like our own secret hike, like we got to see a face of the volcano other people didn't get to see. It was very fun, and full of bird song. (We were the obnoxious nosey neighbors to a pair of Nene! They ran from us for a while before realizing they'd have to leave the trail to shake us. -E)
'Iliahi Trail met up with the Sulfur Banks Boardwalk. This started out as a gorgeous nature walk, winding through fields of orchids, following along steam vents, but eventually becoming a long boardwalk across the Sulfur Banks, large steam vents puffing out sulfuric gas, staining the surrounding rocks a bright, lurid green with sulfuric crystals. Another stretch through the jungle and then we were back at the visitors center. The entire hike was just under 2 miles.
It was dusky by then, so our hiking was over. On the way home we took a detour out to the Mauna Kea Observatory. We didn't go all the way to the observatory, but we stopped at the visitor's center and did some stargazing. At 9200 feet above sea level and a chilly 50 degrees above zero it felt like home! But we'd neglected to pack appropriate clothes for this leg of the journey, so we were a bit cold. Elly bought a pair of souvenir sweat pants from the gift shop. The gift shop had a lot of the typical observatory swag, but the enterprising Mauna Kea scientists thought to stock the place with Mauna Kea branded sweat pants, fleece jackets, hoodies, and blankets. They had nearly-boiling hot water freely available, but if you wanted to flavor it with powdered cider, coffee, or hot chocolate they were charging opportunity prices for the privilege. That gave me a chuckle, and it gave Elly a pair of comfy sweat pants with a story behind them.
The air was crystal clear high above the mountains and nearly an hour and a half from the nearest civilization. The view was breathtaking! Knowledgable staff configured telescopes to see specific stars or constellations. We observed the star Vega. They were also pointing out constellations with an amazingly powerful laser pointer with a beam as wide as your thumb that seemed to touch the stars themselves... which, I guess, technically it will many years from now. We stayed for maybe 15 minutes. It was cold, and once you've seen a sky that beautiful there isn't much to do but say "Dems some stars" if you don't have a specific goal in mind. So we did exactly that: signed the guest book with the comment "lookit dem stars" and headed back to Kona.
One final story before bed, though. Starting a day or two ago, the car began warning us "Change Oil Soon" every time we started it up. Just as we were pulling in to Kona it told us "Oil Life 0%" so we decided we'd better do something about it. Elly called Budget, and they said we should exchange the car for a new one, so she's doing that now. They said they could get someone to bring a car out to us, but that it would be a few hours before they could do that. We would like to get an early start tomorrow, so Elly is handling that herself now while I type the post. Goodbye Lucy Cruise! I wonder who our new traveling partner will be?
If everything goes according to plan, we'll be watching the sunrise over Hilo tomorrow.
Hikes
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0Bwn0Nhn0wkPTalJnT0hZamVwTnM/edit?usp=sharing
Photos
https://plus.google.com/photos/105719328153023565846/albums/5941600114972341729
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