The one about volcanoes & observatories

More pictures from our vacation last week.

Lava flows meeting the ocean.

Rob was reeeeeeely excited to see Kilauea and the observatories on Mauna Kea. I was more excited to go shopping and enjoy not cooking dinner every night. hee hee

It rained the whole day we first visited Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. I mean, it really rained! So disappointing!!! We did make a quick trip back our last day there and the weather cooperated enough so that we could see the sights.

I was amazed at how much black lava was everywhere on the island. Pretty neat stuff, after it's cooled. :)

To see the observatories on Mauna Kea, we had to rent an SVU to make it up the 13,000 ft high mountain on an unpaved road. The top of the mountain was in a cloud and it was, of course, raining. We hoped the summit was above the clouds, but it wasn't.

We sat in the car for over an hour hoping the storm would break. It didn't. This is the view out the windshield. No visibility and raining and blowing hard. Very cold. It felt like we were in a blizzard. Back down at the base of Mauna Kea, it was sunny and warm. Go figure.

Below is the observatory, as best we could see it. Rob was very bummed the rest of the day.