Day One: I went to Hawai'i and all I got was this stupid Air Force Parka

2.12.12 - 8:33 pm local

Aloha!

As you may have seen in the Twitter updates to the right, we finally arrived on the Big Island of Hawaii last night around 8:30 local time... let's see... add 4... carry the one... that would be 12:30 am in Madison. We got up at about 3:30 am CST yesterday morning - so by the time we went to bed (almost 10:30 for most us) that's a grand total of 21 hours of awake-ness. REALLY glad we don't do that every day! :)

Once we got to the hotel and got checked in, we dumped our stuff and went to the Boat Landing Cantina for dinner. This is the same place we ate a few times last year - but then, it was called the Boat Landing Bar and Grille. It's had a Mexican make-over and I think it was very successful. They have table-side guacamole and a pretty decent menu. I had Kalua Pork taquitos and there were also burritos and tacos with Hawaiian flare served around our table.  We, then, went to our rooms around 10 for the night.

So, needless to say, we wanted to sleep in today. We decided to meet at 9 am for breakfast, which is again being held in the Water's Edge Ballroom.

After breakfast, we all piled in the cars and drove to Kona. Andrew and I knew we wanted to go to Costco as early in the trip as possible so we could get (cheaper) water. We got our usual 35-pack, and it was a bit more expensive here, but that's to be expected. It was almost double for any of the brands! 

Then guess where we went... Hilo Hatties! :) Well... it was a quick trip - Dad and Doug had to be back at the hotel and ready to leave by 2:30 so they could get to their Mauna Kea trip pick up point at the Queen's Marketplace. 

Here's a picture my dad took of my uncle at the top of Mauna Kea

Oh yeah, that would explain the title of this post - Dad and Doug (on purpose) decided to go to the 14,000 foot level of Mauna Kea tonight to check out the observatories and do some star-gazing. Here's a little information about Mauna Kea. Currently (8:58 pm) it's 34 degrees F on the top of Mauna Kea, with a (relatively) calm 20 mph wind.... That's only 13 degrees warmer then it is in Madison right now!! They're not back yet, so I'm not sure if they survived... but - well, let's just say if I'd wanted to be that cold - I would have stayed in Wisconsin!

Here are some pictures of beautiful (warm) Hawaii to help get over that brain freeze I just induced: 

Since the two of them weren't planning on being home till 10 or later, Mom, Becky, Baba, Andrew and I went to dinner alone. We ended up at Macaroni Grill (which we have in Madison, but oh well) It was very good. Got home around 8:30, and Andrew and I headed back to our room. We'll be a bit better in sync tomorrow and hopefully not so tired! The plans include meeting for breakfast at 8 am and probably heading to Kona and seeing where that takes us!