Mauna Kea

Our first adventure in Hawaii was the Mauna Kea Observatory.  It was FREEZING up there!  I don't know how cold it really was, but man, it felt incredibly cold and I just had a wimpy hoodie.  It's the highest point in Hawaii at 13,803 ft.  On the way up, we passed pick up truck after pick up truck with their beds totally full of snow.  I have no earthly idea what they do with it, but it was quite popular!  We took in the top-of-the-world views, caught the sunset and stayed for the stars.  Very cool and very cold.  

Almost all the pictures are from the same vantage point because there was a bunch of photographers set up on tripods, so we got our spot and stayed in it.  I wussed out and sat in the car for a while every now and again.  It was so cold!  So Dave took a lot of these pictures.

Dave, super cold.

It was a bit too cloudy for the sunset to be awesome.  That was kind of a bummer, but it was still beautiful.

That's snow blowing.

We tried to set up the tripod for some stars in the cold and dark... waaaaay better than the last time we tried.  

Also, by the way, the first things we noticed when we got to Hawaii at like 11pm were:

-The sky was clear and you could actually see stars!

-It wasn't flat!

-The roads were smooth!

Those are things you can only truly appreciate if you live in Houston where you never see stars, it's totally flat and the roads are like a roller coaster with pot holes galore.  Looooove it.