Kona-day 5 "The car of shame"

Another beautiful day in paradise. Here we are in our Sunday-go-to-meetin'-clothes. Remember when we attended the Kauai ward and they gave us those crocheted leis? They did the same thing at the Kona 1st ward for visitors and fathers. Because there were so many visitors and we sang the opening and sacrament songs soooo slowly and the opening prayer was 10 minutes long, we didn't finish with the sacrament until 9:45. Sacrament meeting is supposed to end at 10:10. We still had 2 musical numbers and 2 1st time speakers to get through. The 1st musical number was one of the elders playing the piano. He's one of those that doesn't need sheet music to follow and can improvise-he did a very nice job. The sister who spoke first took up the rest of the time. The bishop stood up and said we would hear the next musical number next week and gave the final speaker (husband of the 1st speaker) a couple of minutes-he took 10 or 15 (yikes!).

Then the man who gave the opening prayer wanted to give an announcement. He was the Sunday School president. He took at least 5 more minutes wishing the mothers a happy mother's day and the fathers a happy father's day. Then he requested that all the visitors stay and attend the Sunday school classes.

We stayed for all the meetings because we didn't have anything planned until the evening. I enjoyed RS very much and I think your dad enjoyed HP.

At 4pm we left for our Mauna Kea adventure. We drove an hour to get to Saddle Road which is, in reality, an uphill roller coaster ride in the fog. We drove that road for another hour before we reached the Mauna Kea access road. Along the way we saw many wild turkeys and goats. We passed through the"Nene"reserve but we didn't see any of those and a military training area (we did see them). 6 miles up the access road is the Onizuka Center for International Astronomy and visitors center (elevation 9,300 ft). Signs posted everywhere highly suggest that you stop here for at least a 1/2 hour to to get acclimated to the elevation before you head up to the summit - almost 14,000 ft.

The visitor center sells warm clothing, hot chocolate, hiker foods plus the touristy things. They also have a presentation on Hawaii culture and Mauna Kea. Warning signs posted everywhere describe the hazards (I should have taken a picture of them) of driving up to the summit-road conditions (should drive a 4 wheel vehicle), weather conditions (could be ice and snow), health conditions of the people going up (no pregnant women, people with respiratory or heart conditions and no one younger than 16 because high altitude can affect their bodies which are still growing, people with weight issues) , etc. They also list all the symptoms of high altitude sickness-headaches, dizziness, heart palpitations, fainting and warn you that you must get down the mountain if these symptoms occur because high altitude sickness is life threatening. Frankly, it wasn't very encouraging to me.

View ahead of us on the access road heading up to the visitor's center.
Same spot but the view behind us.
At the visitor's center looking up to the tippy top of where we are to go. I must say the weather was spectacular up there-cold and windy but very clear. That's why the scientists from many countries have telescopes up at the summit and the visitor's center because the skies are so clear here.
Me looking up and thinking, "Do I really want to do this?

"To infinity and beyond!"


In the movie "UP" they have the cone of shame. In our adventure, we have the car of shame. The road up to the summit is a 10 mile steep incline of very rough road. Traction-wise we were doing okay but engine-wise the car just wasn't making it. We were beyond the 11,000 feet marker with the gas pedal to the floor and the car was barely moving. We decided we better turn around before we were stuck up there. So we turned around and began the slow drive of shame down the mountain passing all these 4 x4's heading up the mountain. Tim was embarrassed, I told him he could blame it on me.

This was our view at a little below 11,000 ft. We've decided to rent a 4x4 and attempt the summit once again.
I tried to take a picture of the beginning of the sunset but from where we were it was mostly clouds but you could just see it from the tip of the clouds.

We were going to eat dinner at a restaurant but didn't see any we liked so we stopped at Safeway got some things and went back to the condo. We finally got back around 9:00pm and I was tired.