Day 3-Monday, November 14

The day started out with some time at the beachtree pool. Of course Hen had to order a pina colada in a pineapple. He is on a beach chair in a cabana.

This is a picture of the pool we spent the most time at while at the Four Seasons

Next was our adventure to the top of Mauna Kea

"Mauna Kea is a dormant volcano on the island of Hawaii. Standing 4,207m above sea level, its peak is the highest point in the state of Hawaii. Elevation 13,803 ft. Much of the mountain is under water and when measured from its oceanic base, Mauna Kea is over 33,000 ft tall, making it the world's largest mountain from base to summit, surpassing Mount Everest! With its high altitude, dry environment, and stable airflow, Mauna Kea's summit is one of the best sites in the world for astronomical observation. Since the creation of an access road in 1964, thirteen telescopes funded by eleven countries have been constructed at the summit. The Mauna Kea observatories are used for scientific research across the elctromagnetic spectrum from visible light to radio, and comprise the largest such facility in the world." (taken from Wikipedia) They say it does actually snow on Mauna Kea at times in the year and the locals drive up and ski down and then drive up again!

Our adventure started in these vans being picked up from the hotel

https://www.hawaii-forest.com/

When got to about 7,000 feet we stopped and had a picnic dinner to started to get acclimated to the elevation. The further we went up the volcano, the less oxygen there was. Whenever we stopped we had to move slow to not get dizzy. At the summit at almost 14,000 feet it was about 30 degrees by the time the sun went down. The sunset was so gorgeous! Being above the clouds was like we were on the top of the world! After watching the sunset at the summit we came down to about 9,000 feet to the visitors center and our tour guide had an awesome telescope where we star gazed for about an hour. It was the night of the super moon! And the super moon was so bright it was hard to look directly at it. It was big and beautiful! And the number of stars we could see and Planets was incredible! Our tour guide was so knowledgeable a really awesome!

On our final descent down the volcano, our guide pointed out a moon bow. Something so rare, and that only comes out when there is a full moon and the moisture in the air is just right. It is like a rain bow but it is all grey. I wasn't able to get a picture of it, but this is what it looked like. Our guide said he had only seen 4 in his life time and that ours was the brightest one he had ever seen! I didn't even know they existed!