A simple day, today, mostly driving on or around Moana Loa. We start, though, by redeeming my winning Breakfast Sandwich voucher at McDonalds. It's not clear what constitutes a Breakfast Sandwich as nothing on the menu bears that legend so, given the usual inability of Americans to understand English, I follow the man in front who also happens to have a sandwich voucher and is equally clueless about the menu but at least has an accent they understand, and order a bacon, egg and cheese biscuit. A biscuit is, of course, a scone (without raisins) and doesn't constitute breakfast. Oh well.
Travelling through Hilo we noticed that Moana Kea was missing the usual cloud cover so we stopped for the photo opportunity. 
Fuelled up we hit the road and meandered along Saddle Road noting the extraordinary good weather, both Moana Kea and Moana Loa and the Saddle Valley in between bathed in clear skies. The summit road -- or rather observatory/weather station road -- up Moana Loa is even less obvious than the unmarked Summit Road up Moana Kea. A simple single lane red cinder over tarmac road leads off into the lava fields a few hundred yards east of Summit Road. Guessing, we drove up it noting the rough surface and potholes probably meant we were in violation of the car rental agreement. Oops. We haven't seen anything that said we couldn't drive here...
The road climbs gracefully up through the lavafields without ever leaving them for at least ten miles. The last two, at least, are in a pretty much straight line from east to west aiming at the shiny weather station at the end. Once off the saddle and away from `regular' traffic (mostly 4x4s and dirt bikes) the road becomes a much better quite well paved road.
Just short of the weather station is a public car park -- room for 3 cars -- as they don't want exhaust fumes mucking up their equipment. It's aimed at people hiking the remaining 4 miles to Moana Loa caldera -- the map suggests fractionally smaller than Kilauea [caldera] -- rather than us day trippers. There's nothing to do here but look at the view and what a terrific view. 
Moana Loa weather station, Big Island. N19.53805 W155.57523 Elev. 3396m! The high point of the trip to date.
There is a bit of mist that shows up more on camera than to the eye but otherwise a perfect day with a clear view from our 11,100ft vatage point over to the observatories on Moana Kea at 13,700ft a good 30km away. Mt Haulalai is peeking through the clouds by Kona to the west and the Kohala range does the same further north. Only Kilauea on the far side of the most massive mountain on the planet is the only above sea level Hawaiian volcano not visible.
It's quite chilly outside in the wind but the sun makes the car far too hot. Helen has the engine on to get the car air con going to keep cool while I monkey about with cameras and GPSs. We must have mucked up the weather station by now so it's time to roll back down the hill. A couple of hours later in Kona -- it's not that far but the roads are slow -- we miss our turn off and having looped our target block decide to give Taco Bell a try. This is as much interest on our part as it is to see what Amrik wittered on about fondly at FTEL. Despite some misgivings -- given a window filling poster: crunchy chewy cheesy -- it's actually not bad especially liberal dosings of their `fire' sauce. A pleasant change to report from McDonalds.
Round the corner was the Harley-Davidson shop, the object of some baby sized Harley T-shirts for the nephews. They'll probably grow up to hate bikes but it should make their parents happy. The next stop is the Kona Mountain Coffee again partly to use their Internet connection -- one of the few Internet shops we've seen, Hawaii is not to be mistaken for `connected' -- and partly to stock up on their coffee beans. A nice cuppa.
I had an email from Yoji Otake, our Japanese friend from the Maldives, who sent us a copy of his underwater video. We can send each other emails but, sadly, not in the same language. Yoji has, however, found an automatic Japanese-English translator such that we can communicate. Those of us who have discussed Computer Science's artificial intelligence triumphs (um, I can't think of any) will recall the earnest, if misguided, automatic translators of the past. Yoji's email asked how our visit to Japan went and where were we now on our travels (he's just come back from the Maldives, again). His email actually read: How was Japan?
Where is it now?
Hmm, I don't think things have improved.
Whilst we were in there we were entertained by some little geckos -- about 3-4inches long -- very prettily coloured chaps, broadly a bright green tailing to a blueish tint at their feet with bold red splodges on their backs at their hips. Geckos certainly have kept us entertained on our trip. Beady eyes, snake walk and remarkable ability to pluck flying things out of the air without appearing to move.
We bought a job lot of coffee and headed off to the Manago Hotel to check in. Looking at our bags and the extra stuff we've bought we have a problem. It doesn't fit. Then a bright idea occurs, why not buy another bag, at WalMart? Brilliant. As soon as we set off in the car we decided that we were too full for tea so skip the noodle joint. WalMart supplied the goodies and some more film for Helen -- told you -- and a pair of dungarees for Jack (another kiddie who's life has been in our absence). We dropped into Borders for a coffee (not inspiring) and a quick browse before being chucked out at 10.
Manago Hotel, Captain Cook, Big Island N19.48899 W155.91051 Elev. 479m
Copyright 2003 Ian Fitchet. All rights reserved.