With a forecast of about double the rain of yesterday it's some surprise to find a really pleasant day on the other side of the curtains. There's a strange Truman Show thing going on with the other guests. We've pulled up at five or six to an empty car park, been told the place is full bar some expensive room then head out for dinner. On returning the place is full of cars. When we get up, OK at gone 9, there isn't a car to be seen. We breakfast alone again. Yesterday's local rag had a `United we stand, divided we fall. God bless America.' advert posted by the local furniture company. Luckily we're spared that today but do note that the man accused of the fatal shooting of his daughter in a town at the bottom of the island also tried to strangle a guest at the family run B+B. But we're safe in American hands, right?
We check the rental agreement and decide we are allowed on Saddle Road and so the good weather is ominous for a trip to the visitors centre. We stopped for Helen to buy film but she came back from the photo shop upset that the last Kodak Gold 400 film had cost US$9 for 36 exp.. Maybe I shouldn't have suggested the supermarket where they had loads of four packs of 24 exp. for US$14 per pack. 
Saddle Road isn't a bad road just a bit rough at the edges, nothing out of place from, say, the Welsh borders, and we scoot up the road quite happily. Summit Road is completely unmarked and you have to know to take the road at the 28 mile marker. There is another nearby road that heads south straight up Moana Loa to 11,000ft and a weather station. We went north though and the magic of cruise control kicks in, literally. This cruise control gets a bit excited on a hill and in addition to the usual accelerating into corners occaisionally kicks down into first and hammers away at 5.5 thousand revs as it tries to regain 40. On one particularly steep section it couldn't keep up and so just switched itself off. Hmm.
As we climb there's a hint of cloud coming through [the valley] from the west coast but come the visitor's centre at 9,2000ft we're above all that. The visitors centre isn't huge but is the last stop for non-4WD vehicles and a strong recommendation as an acclimatisation stop. There are a few displays on the telescope collection [on the summit] and on astronomy and a souvenir shop (lots of T-shirts). More usefully, though, is they have five telescopes. Three are for star gazing and two are for sun gazing. They have one showing sun spots and the other showing solar prominances. 
I seem to be keener on a return freezing evening stargazing trip than Helen.
25 October 2003 update: a crop of photos have appeared related to the burst of solar activity at this time. Try 
for comparison. Yeah, OK, so they used the ESA/NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) and I shoved a digital camera into the eyepiece of a telescope...
Moana Kea Visitors Centre N19.75916 W155.45610 Elev. 2824m. We're not likely to get much higher in the world than this.
We went back down, the car running merrily out of engine braking capacity for most of the trip. At the junction with Saddle Road we reviewed the landscape. 
The journey back to Waipea is largely a white out, the cloud having come over and in Waipea itself, it's raining. Shock. We stopped at Starbucks where the woman thought we were English though Australian was her second option. How?
Back down the road to the coast where below 2000ft it was overcast then sunny with no hint of rain. We headed back towards Kona stopping to look at some petroglyphs (stick men carved in smooth lava rock) and a hotel's indoor salt water stream and collection of tropical fish. We'd heard there were black tip reef sharks (small ones) but they weren't obvious.
We decided to head for Captain Cook, a town named after the nearby death of the great navigator in a rather more fatal cultural misunderstanding than we've been faced with on our travels, for the night. However, the rain starts, the night falls and the B+Bs tend not to list where they are on a map. We found our second choice place by accident but having negotiated the near vertical driveway found it to be full. At least the people we spoke to said so. It wasn't clear if they were guests or hosts. I thought I might stall the car trying to climb back out -- no mean feat in an automatic -- but the Chevy staggered out. We'd seen a hotel down the road and got their last room. Without checking it -- we feared the worst -- we headed back up to where Helen had seen a Mexican and I caused confusion [with the car] by entering the exit. A fast food and drive-in Mexican but edible and cheap food. Well, I thought so.
Our room turns out to be clean and with a private bath. Not bad for US$52 round here. Helen has a complaint about the large cockroach she nearly trod on. It's unpleasant.
Manago Hotel, Captain Cook, Big Island N19.48899 W155.91051 Elev. 479m
Copyright 2003 Ian Fitchet. All rights reserved.