Driving between two giants

I headed out from Hilo around noon, but first I checked out Hilo's famous Rainbow Falls.  Not able to get a good rainbow picture from the typical tourist vistas, so its possible I may have done a little climbing to nab a successful rainbow view . . .

Rainbow Falls

Rainbow angle

Jack Ass crossing sign :-)

Then I headed inland with hopes of visiting the space observatories on top of Mauna Kea.  Driving up Saddle Road which passes in between the summits of Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, I was very aware that I could see neither due to the clouds, but I persisted up the Mauna Kea road anyway.  I made it to about 10,000 feet elevation to the astronomy visitors center, but due to the rain and low clouds visitors weren't allowed up the mountain.  I did get to see a movie on the dozens of space telescopes I might have seen, which in itself was pretty cool, and I bought a couple of telescope t-shirts, which went to support the observatories.  I then headed down the mountain toward the northwest coast and Pu’ukohala Heiau National Historic Park.  En route I encountered many of these interesting signs.


Pu’ukohala Heiau was the site of a number of temples for ancient Hawaiians, including the one built by King Kamehameha immediately before his campaign that united the islands into a kingdom.  There were two preserved temples on the site.  There apparently had also been a temple to the shark gods out in the bay which was visible until the 1960's.  After hiking around this park, I headed north up the coast to visit the birthplace of King Kamehameha and sweeping vistas of the Polulu Valley.

Temple built by King Kamehmeha

King Kamehmeha birthplace statue

Polulu valley

Polulu

As I finally headed toward my hotel in Kailua-Kona, clouds were once again gathering.  I checked into the hotel and then decided to get the rental car gassed up and cleaned before carrying my stuff to the room.  Big mistake.  As I pulled back into the hotel parking lot it started to rain, quite possibly the hardest rain I have ever seen.  The water in the parking lot was nearing the middle of the tires of the SUV.  Despite the fact the storm appeared as only a tiny green dot on the radar.  It lasted for almost an hour, during which I say trapped in the car.  By the time I finally waded across the parking lot to the hotel, they were cleaning up flooding in the lobby.  Pretty intense. 

I leave for Oahu in the morning and will be on Waikiki for a couple of days for a conference, and am very excited to get to see Lisa, Andy, and family (previous stars of the July 31, 2010 post).

Aloha!