The Saddle Road from Kona side to Hilo side of the big Island of Hawaii

We took off today to a musical performance being put on by two friends of mine. However, we are staying on Kona side so we had to get up at 6 am to make it to this performance for a 9 AM setup. So, by 7 we were on our way up to around 5000 feet to 7000 feet on the saddle road. Mauna Kea is almost 14,000 feet high and I think Mauna Loa is

1. 1. 
2. Mauna Loa

   Peak in Hawaii
3. Mauna Loa is one of five volcanoes that form the Island of Hawaii in the U.S. state of Hawaiʻi in the Pacific Ocean. Wikipedia
6. Elevation: 13,678' (4,169 m)
7. Last eruption: 1984
8. Area: 4 acres (2 ha)
9. First ascent: 1794
10. Prominence: 7,080' (2,158 m)
11. First ascender: Archibald Menzies
12. 1. 1. 
    2. Mauna Kea

       Peak in Hawaii
    3. Mauna Kea is a dormant volcano on the island of Hawaii. Standing 13,803 ft above sea level, its peak is the highest point in the U.S. state of Hawaii. Wikipedia
    6. Elevation: 13,796' (4,205 m)
    7. Last eruption: 2460 BC
    8. Prominence: 13,796' (4,205 m)
    9. First ascent: 1823
    11. First ascender: Joseph F. Goodrich
    12. Mountain range: Hawaiian Islands, Hawaiian–Emperor seamount chain

    Mauna Kea loook bigger because it is more pointy like many mountains in the U.S. but even though Mauna Loa is very wide it is stil 13,678 feet high which is pretty surprising to me because I didn't know that before.

Well, the saddle road sort of goes in between the two at around 5000 feet to 7000 feet and there is also a road that goes up from there that the public can go up to about 9500 feet. You aren't supposed to go up any higher if you don't have a 4 wheel drive but a road goes to the top of Mauna Kea and people have been known to ski there in the past when there was enough snow. These are what the male rams look like on the saddle road. We saw about 200 of these that were mostly ewes with a few of these kind of bucks among them.

This group looks pretty excited because I think people were hunting them.

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Then we dropped down into Hilo where my friends played their concert.

After that we 

 over to Pahoa to see where the lava came through. We noticed a policeman and a national guardsmen 

guarding the area and many security guards. The  Apaa road I believe was the road

we took to see the lava flow. At present it isn't flowing but has cooled. 

But from a trash collection facility which was burned all around it including some of it's 

chain link fences were melted by it and all the trees where the lava came through are

dead. Even trees just feet away from the flow died from the heat without even

being touched by lava at all.