[3 Pix 2]
[Pic, 1:18 PM]  And it's raining!
[3 Pix 2]  These signs were all along the road.  
It took me awhile to figure out that they
referred to the land around the road, not the
road itself.
[Hakalau Forest, 1:32 PM]
[Tree Pic,  1:45 PM]
[Road - cow, 1:48 PM]
(There's not a cow - that's for something else!)
[Piha, 1:58 PM]
[Forest Reserve, 2:00 PM]
[Forest Reserve]
[Hakalau Forest 2, 2:10 PM]
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Photos 3, page 2
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Around Mauna Kea
January 8, 2007
Today I decided to take a ride.  I'd been sitting in the house all weekend for 3 days of rain and wanted to get out.  It was cloudy with a few
showers sprinkled here and there, but not really raining - according to weather forecasts about as good as we would be getting for awhile.  
So off I went in my little beat up 1989 Geo Tracker (same as a Suzuki Samurai).  I took the scenic route up the Kapoho Road and around to
Lava Tree Park (pictures later perhaps), then decided to head up to explore a possible road connecting Saddle Road (the road crossing
the middle of the island) and the Hawaii Belt Road at the Hamakua (north) Coast.  Ray and I had been talking about it the last time we were
visiting over New Year's weekend.  There are very few roads in the interior of the island, all of which are 4WD roads due to the lava flows
from those two big mother mountains, Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa.  Ray had mentioned the possibility of a 4WD road connecting Saddle
Rd. and Hawaii Belt Rd. at around the 6000-foot elevation and I had done some research in Google Earth and with my GPS and found a
road that seemed to go through.  It split off the road that goes up Mauna Kea and heads around to the east and north (the cyan-colored line
is my actual route, the dimmer white line is my projected route).  Click Google images to enlarge.
These two images show a closer view of Keanakolu Road and the locations of the following photos
(referenced in [brackets])
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE
[Pic 2, 1:22 PM] A pleasant look ahead at the road that "floods during rain".
[2P 2, 1:43 PM] Road
[2P 2]  Road and scenery and weather
[Road Pix, 2:33 PM]
[Road Pix]
[3 Pix, 12:03 PM]  This is what the terrain looks like just after I turn off the
Mauna Kea Observatory Road onto Keanakolu Rd.  Left photo looking
northeast, right photo looking west toward Mauna Kea Observatory Rd.
[3 Pix 2, 12:07 PM]
[P1, 1:38 PM]  Road
[P2, 1:39 PM] Scenery
[2P, 1:41 PM] Scenery
[1P, 1:50 PM]
[Forest Reserve]
[Road Pix]
All these photographs were taken looking back at the road I just came down.  I was glad I wasn't going to have to go
back up it - all those round little stones make it hell on traction trying to go up.  Little did I know!