Day 10 Tuesday 

Drove to a bookstore. Kona Stories. They advertised sitting, reading, and petting cats so….😂 of course I had to go. There were two cute store cats.  They could use a little exercise lol. 

I drove to the touristy spots and lookouts. 

I found this gross, squishy, yellow fruit. I guess it’s called a Noni fruit or cheese fruit.  The Mauna Kea Summit guide said Noni fruit tastes like a mix of rotten cheese and vomit and when he was a kid they would wait until the fruit was super ripe and throw them at each other.  Gross.

I wanted to drive towards Hilo to see Kilauea and visit Volcanoes National Park but there was an eruption on Saturday, January 24th that sent out tephra, or rock fragments. It was literally raining rocks. They had to shut down the park and evacuate.  The air quality turned questionable as Vog set in. Vog is volcanic smog.  Like smog, it’s  a haze in the sky when gases are emitted from a volcano. Volcanic gas emissions can pose health risks to nearby communities.  Although I didn’t really see any in the Kailua Kona area but when I was up on Mauna Kea there was a bump in the cloud cover just above where Kilauea was located from the heat and gases.

The evacuees were advised not to use their windshield wipers as it could scratch the glass. I wonder how much damage was noticeable when the rental cars were returned.