I'm in Cusco!

Hey everyone!

Just in case you were wondering, I made it to Cusco on Monday! Its at 11,000 feet, so it has taken me a few days to be able to climb stairs without wheezing uncontrollably. But, I´m better now :)

My classes have been great, and I have 2 hours of private lessons in the morning (from 8:30 to 10:15) and then a break for lunch, and then more class with a group (from 2:30 to 6:30pm).

My host mom is nice (she has 2 daughters, but they are both off to college). She cooks me 3 meals a day and she is super patient. The house is pretty nice....but it gets below freezing here at night, and the water in the showers is SO COLD!

Anyway, in case you are interested, I am including the couple emails I have quickly written to Taylor, they have a little more detail. I only have internet when I´m at school, so its hard to blog or upload pictures, but I will try soon!

Hasta luego!
Kristyn

Day 1 in Cusco:
Made it to Cusco. Flight was delayed 3 hours because of rain here, so that sucked a little. Got up super early, rushed to the airport, paid a bunch of money for my bags (you have to check everything, so with 2 bags I was overweight by 13 kilos!), only to sit there and miss all my morning activities at the school.

Once I got here I couldn't find my driver, so I just took a taxi....apparently I missed him because they seemed a little ruffled that I arrived to the school without him. Guess we missed each other and he was still standing at the airport waiting for me - whoops! Took a brief 30 question multiple choice exam (I think I got a whopping 6 right, haha), and then my host Mom came to pick me up. She is super nice (but speaks NO English), and loves to have students. She lives in a 6 bedroom house (!) and has 2 daughters (both off to college, one is going to be a Dr and one a lawyer). I think another student from the school is coming tonight, too, so there will be two of us staying there.

She fed me and had to run back to work. She's a nurse and usually stays at home or tries to arrange her schedule around the students, but today got all messed up with the delayed flight, so she had to leave me alone after about an hour. But she left me a nice lunch of spaghetti and one chicken leg and a banana. I have also been drinking coca tea like its my job....its made from the leaves of the coca plant (where cocaine comes from - weird, huh?) and is supposed to help with soroche (altitude sickness). I took my medicine, but the air here is definitely thin, and it was a major struggle to haul my suitcase to the 3rd floor of the house!

Day 2 in Cusco:
The school had a welcome dinner for all the new students - it was good. Ate at a "traditional" restaurante with a Peruvian flute band (lots of South Park jokes). Then about 6 of us went out to a bar with two of the people that work at the travel agency attached to the school. There was a live band that played classic rock and a lot of Maroon 5. It was an interesting mix of music and people. The two who work for the school are Dutch, and there were 2 English girls, one dutch student, and 3 Americans including me. It was fun - the Dutch people made me drink starfruit daquiris (pretty good). I REALLY need an alarm clock. I almost missed my flight yesterday and I barely woke up by my watch today. Might go try to find one and a hair dryer.

Anyway - my first Spanish personal lesson was good. My guy seems nice....he's pretty quiet, and not the most patient, but I think he'll help a lot. 2 weeks of 6 hours a day should get me as up to speed as I can probably handle.

Made it to Lima!

Hey guys!

Just checking in - I made it to Lima! :)

Its already been an adventure....when I tried to check into my flight they said I could not board the plane without proof that I would be returning to the USA within 90 days (I only had a one way ticket). After about 30 minutes of "discussing" this problem with the ticket agent, he suggested I just buy a refundable ticket to anywhere in the US and then cancel it when I have my real flight booked. Crazy FAA and their regulations! Thank goodness for free wireless internet and my laptop. I bought a ticket on my computer while standing at the ticket counter :)

But I got here, had NO problems with customs, found my driver, and got to the hostel. My driver even took all the lab supplies I was carrying and told me he would bring them to the University for me! So nice! Tomorrow I am meeting up with a woman from the lab here named Mayuko. We are going to go to lunch and then to get me a Peruvian cell phone. On Monday I fly to Cusco and go straight from the airport to the classroom to start my 2 weeks of Spanish classes.

It's so nice to finally be here. Anyway, hope everyone is doing well - love you guys!!

Hasta luego,
Kristyn

PS - I am one hour BEHIND Florida, and two hours AHEAD of California here.

The Emerald Isle

I had a great trip to Ireland. I have been so amazingly lucky this year and have gotten to travel to some AMAZING places for next to nothing. Ireland was no exception: I found a conference in Dublin that just so happened to be remarkably perfect and aligned really well with my field of study. So after a bit of sweet-talking, I convinced some people at UCSD to send me! This means that my round trip ticket would be free, my housing a food during the conference would be free, and the $500 conference registration would get paid for….overall a pretty sweet deal.

My labmate (and friend) Diana also came to the conference, which was awesome. It was great to have a travel companion and someone to go out at night with (and to sit through incredibly boring scientific talks with). We arrived to Dublin after a trans-continental and trans-Atlantic flight with an 8 hour layover at JFK in between. We did make the most of our layover though, and took a cab into the city since Diana had never been to NYC so we had bagels, saw Times Square, walked up 5th ave (focusing our time at Tiffany's), strolled through Central Park, and then had a Gray’s Papaya dog (and grabbed to-go cupcakes at Crumbs) before heading back to the airport :)

We didn’t get much sleep on either flight, so after our transcontinental red-eye flight (not to mention the fact that I stayed up ALL night the night before out flight packing and getting ready to leave the country for 6 months) so I was pretty exhausted when we arrived. But we got our bags and found the bus that would take us to the Hostel. It was super easy and after a direct bus trip 20 minutes into the city, we arrived at our stop. The hostel was supposed to be very close to Trinity College (where the conference was) so we got off in front of the College and started wandering around to find the hostel. After a few minutes of wandering in circles, we finally found our place. It was about 11:30 am, and we couldn’t check into the room until 2pm, so we dumped our luggage in their storage room and went out in search of something to occupy our time.

We (of course) headed straight to a bar and ordered the first of many rounds of Guinness. We relaxed in the bar (it was the lobby bar of a moderately swanky looking hotel) on a couple of couches, and used the free wireless intenet until the room was ready. Upon checking in, we were informed that we were on the 3rd level. In Euro-speak, that means the 4th floor…they call the 1st floor the ground floor, so you have to add a flight of stairs to everything. As expected, there was no lift, so we had to haul my giant bag up entirely too many stairs (Thanks Diana! I would have died without your help!). Oddly, once we got to the correct floor, the sign to our room still pointed up…

We climbed another flight, only to discover a long, winding hallway that led us in a giant U, to a flight of stairs that went down….so after hauling the bags UP the stairs, we got to haul them back DOWN to our room. By that point the lack of sleep was kicking in, and we thought it was the funniest thing in the world. We made it to the room and after a couple showers, pretty much collapsed from exhaustion. We napped for a couple hours, then forced ourselves to get up and go get some food. It was cool and drizzling, but we wandered to a street lined with restaurants and finally settled on a tapas bar called Havana. The food was great, and once we were full of sangria, paella, and lentil stew, we made our way back to the hostel and went back to bed for the night.

 We were amazed that it was still light out, and the sun didn’t set until after 10:15pm! But we got to bed and got our rest for the next day (Monday, the first day of the conference). The rest of the week was an awesome blur of Guinness, science, and fun people. We met a ton of interesting characters, saw a bunch of great live music, sat through some horrendously boring science (and some fun science, too), presented our posters, and saw a lot of sights.

On Saturday, Taylor arrived and we whisked him out of the city and headed to Galway on the advice of fellow travelers. We picked him up at the airport, grabbed a rental car, and started driving! Diana came with us, and we stayed at a lovely B&B just 5 minutes walk from the main square. Driving on the wrong side of the road with a manual car was an adventure, but we made it safe and sound...But to be honest, driving through roundabouts was pretty terrifying, and I don't think I have EVER sweat while driving so much, haha!

 We spent 2 nights in Galway, which was kind of like a quaint, Irish version of Vegas. People apparently go there to have their bachelor/ette parties (which are called "hen" and "stag" parties), so there was always a group of people dressed ridiculously in each bar (a whole group of Cyndi Laupers, a crew of matadors, 10 ballerinas adorned with fluffy, pink tutu's, etc. ). It was a fun town, and we spent most of our time in the city eating, drinking and watching World Cup, or relaxing in the B&B's hot tub!

While in Galway, we took a drive out to go visit a castle. One of our lab mate's is named Ellen O'Dea, and she informed us before we left that there was a castle in the Irish countryside named the O'Dea Castle. Inspired, we went to find it! It was a little under 2 ours away from where we were, so we grabbed some road snacks and headed out to the countryside. It was a cool drive, and on the way we found the ruins of an old church and stopped to check them out. We pulled down a long, one lane driveway flanked on both side by stone walls. We parked and wandered the ruins, and noticed that there were a few people handing around in the adjacent cemetery...

By the time we got back to our car there was actually an entire funeral procession coming down the driveway. We attempted to quietly sneak the tiny car down the driveway, but since it was only a one lane driveway, we made it within 50 meters of the end when we got blocked in by 6 cars coming in and had to BACK UP (in reverse....with mourners all around us....with ME driving on the wrong side of the car!) the whole way back to the parking area and just sit and wait until they were all inside the cemetery with the casket and everything. It was really odd.

But eventually we were on our way and found the O'Dea Castle. It was cool, and had been restored and was now a little archeological/educational center. We took the mini-self guided tour, watched a video on the history, and wandered the grounds. It started raining when we were walking through the surrounding fields, so we ran back to the car, and headed on for the day.

We eventually made our way to the Cliffs of Moher - they were so beautiful! Amazing HUGE cliffs that tower over the deep blue water of the Atlantic on the west side of Ireland. There was even a castle tower that overlooked the cliffs.

We dropped Diana off at the train station (she made her way to Paris to meet up with her boyfriend) and drove south into the countryside. Last night we stayed in an amazing castle that had been turned into a quant guesthouse complete with a resident Irish wolfhound. Today we woke up to gorgeous sunny weather (a rare treat) and drove along the south western coast.

We are staying in a hotel on the ocean on a peninsula that juts west into the Atlantic. Tomorrow we head to Cork for 2 nights, then I will show Taylor around Dublin for 3 nights! Ireland is an amazing country and we are having a great trip!

I'm leavng on a jet plane...

Well, the date is looming closer and I am getting more and more anxious for my big trip. As of right now, I have 33 days until I leave sunny San Diego for 6 months. First, I am headed to Ireland for a conference (and then a little extra time off in the Emerald Isle with Taylor).

On June 21 I fly home to Florida! I will be in and around central Florida until June 26...then I'm off to Lima for one night (to drop off lab supplies) and then to Cusco, Peru for my 2 week Spanish immersion class. I will be staying with a family and taking intensive Spanish for 2 weeks round the clock....then, LIMA!

I will start my stay in Lima on July 10th....

So to recap:
June 5th: Leave San Diego
June 6th: Arrive in Dublin, Ireland
June 7th-11th: "Innate Immunity: Mechanisms Linking with Adaptive Immunity" Conference at Trinity College in Dublin Ireland
June 12th-June 21st: Traveling Ireland with Taylor

June 21st: Arrive in Orlando!

June 26th: Depart from Miami for Peru (overnight in Lima)
June 27th: Arrive in Cusco and take a 2 week Spanish class
July 10th: Lima, Peru for good!

Should be an awesome adventure, I can't wait!
Kristyn

Hawaii Day 9 - Waterfalls and the road home :(

Our Last Day in Hawai'i:

We woke up on Easter Sunday knowing we only had about 12 hours left on the island :( But we were going to make the most of it! We packed up the bags for the last time, made breakfast in the nice little hostel kitchen, and said goodbye to Arnott's Lodge. We had no real plans for the day, but a few things we still wanted to do on the island. We started by setting out in the direction of more waterfalls.

We made it to Rainbow Falls, which was just outside of Hilo, and got out to explore...but again, it was kind of a roadside water fall, and we could see it from the parking lot! We wandered around and hiked up to the top of the falls, and found the most gigantic Banyan tree! It was huge, and interconnected, and really neat! After taking all the pictures of the falls we could handle (and the "rainbow" in the falls' mist where it got its name) we headed on to yet another waterfall.

Boiling Pots is actually a series of waterfalls with pools that have churning water (that look like a pot of boiling water, hence where they got their name!) and again, they were about 100 feet from the parking lot. We took a peek - but we were kind of on waterfall overload, so after staring for a minute we took off in search of other adventures. We wanted to try a brewery and a candy shop we had read about, but the brewery didn't look open....so we headed straight to the candy factory! We were welcomed at the door with samples, and had a great time tasting all the goodies. They specialized in macadamia nut shortbread, and we tried a bunch of delicious varieties. We made our Mother's Day inspired purchases (we couldn't resist and even got some for ourselves!) and headed to our next destination: the Mauna Loa macadamia nut factory. It was only about 4 miles south of Hilo, so we made the short drive and arrived at the factory.

We learned all about the trees, the processing and the history of the macadamia orchard....and we got lots more free samples :) After buying even more treats, we decided we had enough candy for the day, and headed to find some food. The only area of the island we hadn't explored was the Southern tip, so we agreed to head down and check it out! We drove about 20 miles south to a small town looking for a resturant to have our big Easter meal. The guidebook steered us toward another gem - we found an amazing place in the middle of nowhere! Taylor got a delicious plate of kalua pork hash and home fries and I had a mahi mahi wrap. Both dished were fantastic, and Taylor thought it might have been our best meal of the whole trip :) We were absolutely stuffed, but it was only about 1pm and our flight wasn't until 8:40pm, so we kept exploring!

We set off to find the coast and a thermal spring near the ocean at the very end of the island. We passed through beautiful forests, more lava flows, and across rugged, pristine stretches of black lava beaches. We found the hot springs, but the park looked crowded with locals having weekend bar-b-ques, so we kept moving. We stopped at a couple places and stared at the ocean...it was so turbulent and such a deep blue crashing on the black rocks. I was still astonished at how many hundreds of miles of undeveloped coastline there was on the island, but Mother Nature kept reclaining this land in the form of molten lava, so maybe this island will stay undeveloped for a while longer.

We drove around for a couple hours, but decided it was time to drive back across the island to Kona and start the trip home. We left the Southern point, drove back through the small towns, back through Hilo, and across the high country between Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa in the center of the island. It was a rainy drive until we crossed the midpoint of the island, but as soon as we hit the "west" side the rain cleared and we could see for miles. From the slopes of Mauna Kea we could see all the way to the north were we spent our first night, and all the way into Kona where we were headed. There were miles and miles of open, rocky, lava filled, grassy plains and there were almost no houses or buildings anywhere in sight besides the Kona area.

It took us about 2 hours to get back into Kona, and we arrived around 4pm. It was too early to go to the airport, so we went into town for one last drink before we had to part with the island. We wandered through the tourist district one more time, and had a drink on a balcony bar overlooking the ocean. It was a nice way to unwind before the hustle of the airport, but we were just delaying the inevitable. Taylor finally dragged me to the car, and as we were pulling out of the parking lot, we saw a huge rainbow hovering over a picturesque church in the middle of Kona.

We reluctantly turned in our rental car, caught the shuttle to the airport, and checked in for our flight. We made it onto the plane and settled in for our red-eye flight back to LA. We were of course seated directly behind a screaming baby, but I tried not to let it bother me. I put in my headphones and tried to think about what an awesome trip we had! We did so much cool stuff in one 9 day period! Scuba diving with mantas, whale watching, coffee tasting, volcano spotting, and so much yummy food! Waterfalls, scenic vistas, hikes through the rain forests, rainbows and black sand beaches.

And its becoming a tradition that I sum up my trips with a few fun statistics:

Miles driven: About 850 miles
Scuba dives: 6 dives! (around 4.5 hours underwater :)
Whales seen: about 20! (Taylor think this is an exaggeration - but we saw A LOT!)
Manta rays that hit me in the head: 4
Mac nut factories visited: 2
Types of coffee tasted: around 15
Sunsets watched: 4
Rainbows spotted: upwards of 10
Pictures taken: around 1,620 (9 gb of pictures and movies!)
Money saved: ~$700 on the room and exactly $800 on the flight! Thanks Mrs. Bright for letting us use your timeshare! And thanks Delta for bumping us from a flight and giving us $400 vouchers :)

See all the trip pictures here: http://kristynspictures.shutterfly.com/

Hawaii Day 8 - Hilo and Mauna Kea!

So our last full day in Hawaii started off great - we tried to sleep in a little, but the huge windows and exciting day encouraged me to wake up a little earlier than a normal Saturday. We had a leisurely breakfast of fruit, macadamia nut cinnamon bread, and juice, packed up our rain gear (it was already raining :) and headed out to explore.

Our first destination was Akaka Falls, a state park that boasted a huge waterfall. Undeterred by the cool, driving mist, we set out of Hilo in search of the Falls. After a scenic drive through the countryside, we arrived at the park. There was a 1/4 mile walking "trail" that was actually just a sidewalk through the jungle. On the path, there were views of two waterfalls: this first was a 150 foot falls, surrounded by jagged cliffs covered in thick foliage. The path was overhung with huge banyan trees, tons of fragrant flowers, and patches of blossoming banana trees. After another 5 minute walk, we found the main event: Akaka Falls! The falls were in a steep valley, and no sooner than when we were in view of the falls did it start to rain. It had been drizzling for the whole morning, but just as we tried to snap pictures of the 442 foot waterfall, foggy clouds moved in accompanied by a steady rain.

We stood under a small A-frame in front of the falls for about 20 minutes waiting for a sign that the rain would let up long enough for us to get a great picture....but after no sign of stopping, we got bored and began our short hike back to the car. Of course, from the parking lot and the car, we could finally see the Falls clearly, but as soon as I whipped out my camera to get a far away and obstructed pictures, a cloud literally rolled over the falls! It was cool to watch the weather shift back and forth so quickly!

We decided that since it was still early, and it was Saturday, we would check out the Hilo Farmer's Market. People all over the island had told us not to miss it, so we drove through downtown Hilo on our way back from the Falls and parked to check it out. The Market itself was only about 2 blocks long, and was merely a series of tarps and tents strategically aligned side-by-side and lashed together in a rather futile attempt to keep out the misty rain that kept coming. Outfitted in our trusty rain jackets, we explored the market for a while. There was a flea-market-type side of the road, and on the other side, the food and flower vendors had gathered. Since we didn't need to haul around any more junk, we went over to the food side after about 30 seconds of browsing through the trinkets.

But the food....so fun! Tropical fruits and flowers everywhere, and prepared food vendors with tamales, coconut rice wrapped in banana leaves, chocolate truffles, Indian food, fresh breads, coffee galore, noodles, spring & summer rolls, honey, and more varieties of bananas than Taylor had ever seen! It was great! We did a giant lap, taking every sample that was within reach, and then came back around to buy our favorites. We ended up with teeny-tiny bananas, stir-fried noodles, summer rolls with organic greens and fresh shrimp, a passion fruit and chocolate truffle, and two banana leaves stuffed with coconut flavored rice. Oh...and we chowed down on a chicken tamale for a snack :) The rain hadn't let up, so once our shoes were soaked, our bag was full and our wallets were empty, we decided to go rest up at home for a few hours.

We took our bounty and headed back to the hostel - but took a mini-detour on the way. I had read about this candy store that sold "mochi", which upon more reading, I discovered was a traditional Japanese dessert/candy made out of rice flour. Intrigued, I demanded we find the store with the supposed "best mochi on Earth." We found the tiny little hole in the wall confection shop (Two Ladies Kitchen) and were immediately intimidated by the less-than-friendly woman running the front counter. There were boxes of colorful assorted mochi, bags of mochi, and single candies. Since we had no idea what to buy, I picked a bag that looked like it had a variety...the boxes were all upwards of $10 each, so I was pleasantly surprised when the lady at the resister asked me for $1.37!

Taylor (a little skeptical of my random purchase) didn't seem too excited to try the candy. I opened the ribbon-tied bag of pastel-colored, super squishy treats and timidly tried one.....they were sooo soft and gooey, but not sticky. They were barely sweet, but in an addictive sort of way. I forced Taylor to try one, and before I knew it, he had snatched the bag out of my hands and was happily eating all my mochi! It was so yummy! Most of the ones in the bag were "plain" or very lightly flavored, but a couple of them had tiny pieces of brownie-like chocolate in the middle. Mmmmm, just writing this now makes me want a whole new bag of bite sized, squishy, goodies!

We rested up at the hostel for an hour or two, and then got all packed up for our big trek: we were driving to the top of the 14,000 foot volcano! The mountain is called Mauna Kea, and from the bottom of the ocean to the top of the peak, it is the world's largest mountain. We packed blankets, towels, all the warm clothes we had, a small feast, flashlights, and cameras....we attempted to prepare for all possible weather, as the top of the mountain gets blizzards in the winter and the temperatures at the peak routinely drop below freezing!

Outfitted as best as we could manage, we loaded up the car, and headed to get some lunch. Taylor wanted to try the Hilo Burger Joint, so we drove back into town on the way to the mountain and stopped in for lunch. We had yummy local beers and some great burgers, and were almost ready to head up the big hill...but first, more dessert! We heard that there were tons of great shave ice places in Hilo, so we stopped to get one. The woman behind the counter took her sweet time constructin each individual cone, and we waited for a solid 30 minutes just to get a glorified sno-cone...but when we finally got one it was great! The ice was light and fluffy and the flavors were great :)

Finally full, we stopped and got plenty of gasoline (there are NO stations on the drive up the mountain) and headed out of town. The entire drive was shrouded in a foggy, misty rain. The higher the Mustang climbed, the thicker the green ferns grew on the sides of the road....after about 45 minutes of driving, we came upon more open and brown, grassy plains. We reached the turn off for the Mauna Kea access road (which I believe may have been strictly forbidden on our rental car agreement) and immediately began climbing the steep, winding mountainside. As we approached about 7,000 feet in elevation, we were again enveloped in a thick fog, but after about 8,000 feet the fog suddenly cleared: we were actually ABOVE the cloud line!

We reached the Visitor's Center (9,200 feet) and hopped out of the car to check it out. I read the displays talking about all the observatories on the peak (many of the world's top telescopes are on the peak, as the air is usually still, dry and pristine!) and we sat around watching videos about the history of the mountain. We had opted not to pay a company $200 PER PERSON to take us to the summit, but we thought our little Mustang would never make it up the gravel switchbacks that lead to the peak :( ....but I didn't want to miss out on seeing the amazing view from the very top. Sooooo.....I decided we were hitching a ride! Again, Taylor was a bit reluctant, and didn't love the idea of me walking around the Visitor's Center randomly begging tourists to let us into their 4-wheel drive cars, but I guess I am pretty shameless, because it didn't bother me one bit :) After scoping out a normal looking, younger couple (and their LARGE SUV ;) I tried to smoothly strike up a conversation about seeing the peak. But since I'm not really that smooth, after about 10 seconds I got anxious and just asked them if they had any room in their car...or trunk....or any space that would let us get to the top of the mountain.

Luckily, they were super nice, and it was just the two of them in an SUV that seats 8, so they were totally cool with us coming along. We changed into our long pants (it was about 78 degrees in Hilo, about 65 at the Visitor's Center, and probably colder at the peak) and grabbed our jackets and cameras. We piled into their car, and began winding up the unpaved section of the summit road. The couple was in Hawaii with the military, and were doing operations on Oahu for 2 weeks. They decided to hop the short flight to the Big Island for the Easter weekend. We had fun chatting with them about diving (they had done the manta dive the previous night!) and before we knew it we had reached the paved road (installed to keep the dust out of the air near the peak for the sensitive telescopes) and the top!

We parked the car and followed the signs to the official peak. It was only about 100 yards from the car, up a 100 foot hill....but man-oh-man is it hard to walk uphill at 14,000 feet! There just really isn't much air to breathe! But we made it, and spent a while hanging out, taking pictures of the other groups of tourists, and having our pictures taken. I think that was officially the highest I have ever been (officially 13,796 feet!). The panoramas were jaw dropping: the volcanic red soil against the impossibly clear, blue sky, contrasted with the black lava flows and the stark white of the alien looking observatories was just so amazing. And the whole time we were above all the clouds - instead of looking down and seeing the hills and valleys, all you could see was the fluffy white formations of clouds. From the top we even caught glimpses of far off Maui!

There was a couple at the top who had hiked to the peak! They had started at the Visitor's Center at dawn and hiked the 6,000 foot gain in elevation, 8 mile trail to the summit! Our driver offered them a ride down the mountain, so after taking a few hundred pictures of the amazing scenery and the observatories, we all piled in the SUV to get back to the Visitor's Center in time to catch the sunset.

The ride down was so neat - I had great views of all the craters and peaks and clouds the whole way :) We reached the parking lot and after thanking our driver profusely, made a quick dash to find a good spot to watch the sun set. There was a large hill about a 1/4 mile from the lot, and we quickly hiked up it (huffing and puffing) and waited for the magic to happen. Eventually, Taylor admitted that the view from the peak was awesome, and that he was glad that I forced him to hitch a ride to the top. Also, he still claims he spotted the nice couple first ;)

It was so neat to just sit there and watch the clouds below us as the sun made its slow decent into them. It was glaringly bright, but so beautiful. We sat there for a while and finally, the sun sank into the puffy clouds, and we quickly realized we left our flashlights back at the car! We hurried down the hill as the daylight was fading, and made it back to the Visitor's Center. We sat in the car to warm up and eat dinner: we had all our delicious food from the Farmer's Market. Rice, noodles, summer rolls, and chocolate truffles for dessert! :) It was all fantastic, and by the time we were finished and way too full, the volunteers had pulled out all the telescopes and it was dark enough to start star gazing.

It was pitch black out - there were a few lights from passing cars, but otherwise, it was absolutely dark and clear....and the sky was FULL of stars. More stars than I ever knew even existed. We have been camping in California and seen starry skies, and in the desert in Israel I had seen the most amazing constellations, but this beat them all! It was overwhelming, the sky was too cluttered with stars to even be able to make out the most famous and familiar constellations. I just stared for a long time. The volunteers had pointed the scopes at Saturn (you could see the rings!) and Mars, and it was fun to hop from telescope to telescope and see everything in so much detail. We had a blast looking through the scopes, attempting to take night pictures, and listening to them describe the night sky, but I was getting chilly (temp at the peak had been around 55 degrees, and it cooled down really quickly after the sunset) and we were both tired, so we eventually had to tear ourselves away from yet another completely amazing view, and start the drive home.

Just like in the daylight, we hit the thick clouds at about 8,000 feet, and it rained the whole way home. But we made great time, and were home in little over an hour. After hot showers, we went to bed for the last night in Hawaii - but it was a great day, and an awesome way to spend our last complete day on the island :)

See all the pictures here: http://kristynspictures.shutterfly.com/5167?startIndex=50