This morning we checked out of the Fairmont and headed to a small bed and breakfast named Hale Hualalai in the hills above Kona (another part of the island). After checking in with Lonn at the B&B we rushed off to catch a tour to the top of Mauna Kea. It’s the tallest mountain in Hawai’i, and if you count the height going down to the sea floor, the tallest mountain in the world. It’s also the volcano that formed the north side of the big island, but has been dormant for 4500 years. Now the only thing at the top is a large collection of observatories, since it is hailed as the best place on the planet to watch the night sky. The tour stopped on the way to the summit for dinner, and then we headed up to the top to see the sunset from nearly 14,000 feet. The view was amazing, and we got to see the best telescopes in the world starting their observations for the night. The only thing we didn’t like about the summit is that it was below freezing up there, and there was snow, quite different from the weather down by the ocean. After the sunset we headed back down the mountain to the visitors center at 9,000 feet where it was quite a bit warmer but we still had a great view of the stars. The guide brought along a telescope and gave us a good tour of the sky, including Saturn where we could see the rings, Jupiter where we could see four of the moons, the Southern Cross which neither of us had seen before, a quick introduction to navigation via the stars, and an excellent view of many other constellations, planets, star formations, and stars we had never seen before. They also had hot chocolate and cookies. Mmm, cookies. The whole tour was incredible!