August 3, 2010-Day 215

We had another relaxing day at the beach.



That evening, my husband and I decided to watch the sunset over the ocean. We brought some wine and cheese and hiked about 1/8 of a mile from the resort where we sat on some logs that were laying on the beach. We really couldn't believe that we were the only ones there because it was so beautiful.















There are a few more on my Flickr page that I didn't post.

August 2, 2010-Day 214

No, I have not abandoned my blog. I am just way behind with blogging my photos, but I have kept up with taking my daily photo. It's just going to take me a while to catch up. I am not even done blogging my vacation photos, so I hope you aren't sick of seeing photos of Hawaii yet.

On the next day in Hawaii, we just hung around our resort, the Fairmont Orchid, and relaxed in the morning. Here are a couple from the beach at the resort.





Then we went on a tour to the summit of Mauna Kea to watch the sunset. Mauna Kea is the tallest, although not highest, mountain (actually a dormant volcano) in the world. It is 33,000 feet, but only 13,796 feet above sea level. That is actually still really high. We were way above the clouds. These were taken at the base of the mountain, where we had to stop to acclimate and to put on our winter parkers to prepare for the freezing temperature at the summit.







These observatories are at the summit. We learned all sorts of interesting facts about them, but I forgot most of them. They look cool, though.







Doesn't this one remind you of R2D2?


We then watched the most amazing sunset.







Don't the clouds look like the ocean here?






You can see Saturn in this picture. We were able to see the rings around it through the telescope that the tour company brought.



You can see it in this photo too. Plus, I like how you can see everyone looking up at the sky in this photo.



After that, the tour company took us stargazing in an area that was completely pitch black so you could see thousands of stars. We also got to see Jupiter, Venus, and Mercury. (I think we also saw Mars, but my husband doesn't think so. This is what happens when you wait 2 months to blog.) It was really amazing. Unfortunately, I don't have any photos of that because I dropped my camera and spent the rest of the night moping about it. Luckily, only my filter broke and not my camera. That's why filters are important.

I really enjoyed the tour, so if you are ever on the Big Island and want to go to Mauna Kea, you should check out Mauna Kea Summit Adventures.

August 1, 2010-Day 213

I'm finally into August. Yay! Continuing with our trip to Hawaii:

On the next day, we drove from Volcano Village to our resort on the Kohala Coast, stopping at the Hawaiian Tropical Botanical Garden on the way. Boy did I ever miss my 100mm macro lens, but the Tamron 28-75 did a nice job too. Here are some of my favorites:

























We also stopped at Akaka Falls State Park:

July 31, 2010-Day 212

On our next day in the Big Island, we decided to go hiking and we were hoping to go swimming. I had heard that car break-ins are common on the Hilo side of the Big Island, so I decided to only bring my Powershot instead of my DSLR. It felt really weird to me not to have the DSLR, especially when we went to some really beautiful places, but it did make hiking easier. I can definitely see the difference when looking at the photos from this day, however. There were quite a few photos that I decided came out too poorly to post that I am sure would have looked good if I had the DSLR.

First we went to Rainbow Falls, but we didn't get to see any rainbows.



Then we went hiking at the Boiling Pots where we had this view of Pe'e Pe'e Falls.