Saturday

I woke up on Saturday very excited for our afternoon/evening. We got in late on Friday night, so we all enjoyed sleeping in on Saturday. We didn’t have to be anywhere until our 10-12 hour star gazing tour on top of Mauna Kea started at 2pm. Mauna Kea is the largest mountain in the world. The summit is well over 14k feet above sea level (measured from the base to the summit, Mauna Kea is over 33,000 feet. That’s much taller than Mt. Everest). There is an observatory at about 10k feet…with some incredible telescopes. On the tour, they take you up to the summit (with the provided winter parkas) and then to the observatory. One of the reasons the island is not well lit at night is so the telescopes work properly.

We loaded up the car with everything we needed (jackets from Costco and snacks for the long drive ahead of us) and drove to the meeting spot. We ate lunch there (at a bakery called Buns in the Sun) and then souvenir shopped for a bit. As we were driving through the parking lot to the meeting spot, Randi got a call on her cell phone. It was the tour company cancelling our tour. They said the weather was not clear…they sky did appear cloudy, but we were all still disappointed. What a let down. There was not enough time left to book the excursion on a different day. We were so bummed.

We ended up visiting the Kona Temple and then shopping for gifts for the boys in downtown Kona. We had fun and each bought a few new things. Randi and I found us some Christmas ornaments for the tree this year. Mike found some new board shorts, and Anthony found some new sunglasses.

Mike suggested pizza for dinner at a place near the resort, but it was closed due to a family emergency. There was nothing else open, so we ended up back at Annie’s Burgers.

I can’t believe how quickly the days fly by.