No dolphins, but plenty of snow!

Today was another early morning as we once again drove to Captain Cook Cove to make our second attempt at swimming with the dolphins. We were unsuccessful...but hold out hope. We are trying again tomorrow. Not wanting the early rise to be a waste. We went to the Place of Refuge and oohhed and aahhhed over some cute sea turtles. We were so close to them we could have touched them but, out of respect for the species, did not. We took some pictures with the underwater camera and are excited to see how those turn out!! After lunch and a short rest it was off to the top of the world...

...okay maybe not, but it felt like it. Today we set out with a guided tour company to the top of the tallest point in Hawaii, Mauna Kea. This dormant volcano is particularly special to not only Hawaiians, but to the astronomy world as well. There are over 2 billion bucks worth of telescopes on the peak, making it the greatest collection of high powered scopes in the world. There are many reasons why they picked this point to put them all and all of them were explained to us in great detail by our guide Greg. On our way to the summit we went through valleys and changed climates numerous times seeing another side of Hawaii that we had not seen.

A view halfway to the top

The drive to the top was a little bumpy and scary. There were few guardrails, more piles of old lava than anything. The slope of the mountain is covered in cinder cones; these perfect mounds where the magma did not break the surface, but pushed gravel up in to ahill instead. When we reached the summit at just under 14,000 ft. the temperature was right around freezing and dropped quickly as the sun set. The sunset was nothing short of breathtaking. At that altitude we were above the clouds and watching it set into the clouds with Maui on our right and Mauna Loa, a large active volcano, on our left it was unique and something again I will remember forever.

Who knew there was so much snow to be seen in Hawaii.

The University of Hawaii's telescopes

After the sunset we drove down to 9,000 ft. to the visitor's center and our guide Greg taught us about the sky above us. I had never seen so many stars in my life! We learned about Nebula's, constellations, planets, and more than I could remember at this late evening moment. Absolutely amazing what dangles above our heads every night and a shame we cannot see any of it where we live in Texas. The experience has given me a greater respect for what lies outside our world and thoughts of where it all begins and ends.

What an amazing sunset!