Hawaii - 2012: Thursday Dec. 20, Hawaii

This week has been filled with just relaxing and doing some touring of the island.

Monday was an interesting day as we started with lunch at a Japanese restaurant that we had been to the night before. Gerry likes fresh eel so during our previous evenings dinner the owner said that if we returned today for lunch she would prepare an eel for her that was caught that morning. The rest of us continued eating the Shushi and wonderful Misus soup that we had the previous evening.

After lunch Shirl and I took off for Mauna Kea, a 13,796 foot mountain where several nations have observatories with major telescopes on top of the mountain to look out into space. While the view for us was very impressive just looking through the portable telescopes they set up for visitors it would have really been impressive to see on a screen what the big telescopes were looking at. With the portable scopes we were able to clearly see the craters on the moon and several constellations If you ever get the chance to go there it is worth the drive however be sure to bring cold weather clothing as it was around 44 degrees and very windy. On the way there we passed through miles of lava and we stopped at a lava tube.

The view at sunset from Mauna Kea

One of around 6 telescopes they set up for visitors to use to view the moon and several constellations.

We have been enjoying this place so much that we decided to go house hunting and we found a home we really like.

These two photo's are for my brother Jeff. Our dad's name was Forrest, so a few years ago for his birthday we all wore a "Run Forrest Run" sweatshirt to his party.

We have found a local coffee that we have really been enjoying made by Mountain Thunder Coffee Company. It is sold at the local COSTCO here in town. This morning we decided to take a tour of their facility which was very interesting. We came away never realizing how many different grades of coffee each company produces.

The larger dark and red beans are what they look like when picked off the tree. The light beans are what they look like after the outer shell has been removed and before they are roasted.