The last few days have been really busy – not talking about work, though.
Andrej, the first volunteer to leave, took off from Hilo airport on Tuesday, and logically, there had to be parties and good-byes before that: The younger rangers – it is really interesting to see how young the average age for a ranger is, and that most if not all of them actually don’t have a permanent position but rather a summer or Americorps job – came to our house a few times after work to play games, “talk story” and discuss the past few months, and then there had to be the compulsory “potluck” event where everyone shared a dish and stopped by at our house on Tuesday during lunch break. There were speeches and ceremonies and certificates and a lot of souvenirs to take home for them, so I am already fearing that I will have excess weight for flight luggage, too…

That evening, I picked up my first rental car, and this means that I will actually be mobile for the rest of my stay! As I was off the following day, and as so was a fellow ranger, and Danny had packed up and returned all the uniforms and key etc., we took the opportunity to make it to the summit of Mauna Kea after all, something that had been on the list for a few of us, I guess. We left at 3 pm and made it to the visitor center around 5 pm to acclimatize to the altitude – perhaps some of you remember how well or not-so-well I fared the last time I climbed Mauna Kea pretty exactly four years ago! So we took our time, walked around the visitor center’s gift shop and the surroundings, looking for some lava bombs from the late stage eruptions of Mauna Kea, and about an hour later ventured into the ascent to the summit.

Lava bomb from late stage Mauna Kea volcanic eruptions, Big Island of Hawai'i

As seen here, I had gotten this ridiculous SUV, a Dodge Durango 7 seater (again), the only All-Wheel-Drive car available. It did not sound too well climbing up the steep dirt road that seemed to have deteriorated quite a bit in the last four years – or then I don’t remember, but it is really astonishing to see that actually some Ford Mustangs and Nissan Altimas made it up to the summit. It was cold and windy (as usual), but the sunset was stunning and, if you asked me, even more so the spectacular shadow such a Shield Volcano casts on the sea of clouds underneath us – timed perfectly with the rising full moon.

Mauna Kea casts its shadow during sunset with full moon rising, Big Island of Hawai'i

The next day was the farewell to Danny, leaving again from Kona airport, which is a 2.5 hours drive away, so we left at 6.30 (rather 7, but never mind) to make it for a check-in around 9 am. I took the opportunity to exchange the car at the Kona Intl Aiport Alamo rental center to get rid of a 7 seater that I did not need. I wanted to keep a 4WD car, though, and hoped again for a Grand Cherokee, and was disappointed again. In fact, there was noting really reasonable around, so this meant I defaulted back to the Jeep Wrangler class I had initially booked (and paid for). This car was about half the size of the Durango, but hoping for better fuel economy is so wrong, I found out on the drive home, actually very wrong – I can’t get much worse. Well, I guess I have to make it to Green Sands Beach (I hope no rental car agency is reading this here!) and some other offroading tracks before returning the car for another swap which will be then a standard car, I guess.

So much to see and do still, I am trying to cross things off the list faster than I can add them. I will keep you posted! For a start, I will do Lava Tube at night to get decent pictures without the crowds being pushed through…