I searched for a good breakfast on yelp. I found a highly rated one just down the street from our hotel. I don't remember the name of it, but it was tasty enough that we went there twice. I ordered the luau omelet. I love omelets made with random leftovers, so this was perfect.
The main goal of the day was coffee. Kona has a bunch of coffee farms open for tours and tasting. We went to 3 farms over our trip. Two this day, and another a different day. Each one is very particular about the way things should be done. They were very inconsistent in things you would think would be fairly standard. Such as what temperature makes a dark roast. I may not have any accurate idea on how this is done, but I got some pictures of it growing.
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| Coffee field |
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| Coffee cherries |
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| The inside of a coffee cherry |
We had been considering going to the top of Mauna Kea, but hadn't made any firm plans. We didn't have anything scheduled for the evening so we signed up for a trip. The one we picked met at the base of the mountain. There was some lava rocks with some interesting plants growing in them. Steven amused himself by lifting large rocks. He claims the rock was only about 10 pounds. I tried carrying it, but it hurt my back, so that only lasted half a second.
The tour has you stop for an hour at 9000 something feet, to adjust to the elevation. I think I would have been fine, but there was a shop, and some rare plant. So not a total waste of time.
First is this lovely bathroom sign. Someone took a photocopy of the actual bathroom sign, printed it, and laminated it. They left the braille there. Not very useful in it's flat form.
This plant is called the Silversword. Apparently is is very rare. There are reasons for this. Goats find it tasty. It only grows at very high elevations. And it takes 50 years to bloom, then dies. So not the most likely conditions for survival. They have a small garden of them with a gate. We saw them just after they had bloomed. Personally I think the flower stem detracts from the plants awesomeness.
Our trip up the mountain started with perfect weather. Bright blue skies filled with puffy clouds and rainbows. It was beautiful driving up the mountain. We could both stare out the window, since someone else was driving.
When we got to the top there was a huge rainbow right next to the very top of the mountain. There was a little path to get up there, but it was so cold up there even with the borrowed jackets. With that and my back hurting still I was content to just look at it.
The observatories are closed to the public, but you can still walk right up to them and take pictures.
The tour guide took our picture at the top of the mountain with the rainbow in the background. Doesn't it look like the perfect hawaii photo? It was about 4 c on the top. It's a sciency place so that's what their website said it was. My phone didn't get service to double check.
Sadly this picture is the closest we got to the sunset. The weather went from picture perfect to in the middle of a raincloud in about 30 seconds. So no sunset, so stargazing on the way down.
However at the base of the mountain, and down the road a bit was still basically a dark area. We pulled over to the side of the road and watched the sky until I started to freeze. This was a long exposure with our camera. It simply did not do the sky justice. You could see the milky way all the way across the sky. So beautiful. Makes me wonder why we invented electricity. Maybe someday we will get a fancy camera that can actually capture what we see.
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