I went to the Big Island of Hawaii this summer, went fishing, drove up Mauna Kea. A few shots stood out to me, hopefully you find them pleasing to the eye.

Taken at 13,000 ft! That drive up to and back from Mauna Kea is a story to tell... If anyone wants to hear it, I'll spill it.

Edited February 20, 200817 yr by SteveSan

Awesome pictures

I hate Oklahoma.

I was there in 1985 and have wanted to go back every day since.

One day I was 13,000 ft above sea level, then 0ft above sea level fishing the next. Hawaii is the chit.

Beautiful. What did you fish for?

The mtn. story sounds cool too.

And I echo sean...........what were you fishing for?

Fishing for whatever we could catch. Mainly small pan fish. I know them only by their local names, which you probably won't have heard of. @_@ Oh well.

Anyway, the Mauna Kea story. So the vehicle we're taking on this journey is a 1990 Ford Ranger XLT 4x4 Crew Cab, with the anemic 2.9L V6. About 100,000 miles, used on a farm, and frequently bashed about in the lava rocks to get to the hidden fishing spot that we were at.

So the day before the trip, I decide to check out the truck. Asking the owner, my grandfather, of the maintainance he's done, I find that the fuel filter has never been changed (His answer: "This thing has a fuel filter!?"), the PCV valve hasn't ever been changed, and the air filter is pretty old. So we decide to do a tune up. I change the fuel filter, nearly get a mouth full of fuel. Thats not so bad. After we drained the radiator, we decided to change the thermostat while we were at it. Problem: the metal that the thermostat bolts into is aluminum. Bolting the thermostat housing back in, the HOLES STRIP. D8< Its already 5:30, its getting dark, and the mosquitos are coming out. So we look all over for a tap and some suitable bolts, and find some. Tap it out, bolt it up (gently), and fill er up with coolant. All is well, right? Next day, ready to set out. The road leading up to Mauna Kea is pretty bad. It was built in the 40's as a military access road, and it doesn't look like they've done much to it since. By the looks of it, they've gone over it once or twice, right down the center of a two lane road, so theres a strip right down the middle that vaguely resembles a paved road. Combine this with the fact that its got more hills then a roller coaster, and the turns are tight, and sometimes drops down to one lane, and you've got a recipe for an accident. Luckily theres not too many cars that travel it anymore. So after about one and a half hours of arse-numbing road that would suit a Baja 1000 truck, we reach the base of Mauna Kea. Its paved pretty well, so I don't expect any problems. It is pretty steep though. So we're going, and theres a particular long steep stretch... Going, about 30... up.. up... uh-oh... slowing down...20...15...wtf? So drop the auto trans down into 1st, wind it up to 4-5k, and crawl up the hill. Pull off at the next pull-off place and look at the gauges. The temp is high! Get out of the truck and just then it decides to boil over and dump all of my coolant on the ground. >.< Well, to make a long story short, we drove all the way up the rest of Mauna Kea, even the part where you're required to go 5MPH, took a tour of the Subaru telescope (very cool), then came down Mauna Kea, and drove 100 miles back home, without coolant. About 50 miles back home, the truck had been riding on H for a while. Decided to stop and let it cool down for a bit, but nothing happened, since there was no coolant to cool the engine. Well, we made it back home, and what appears to have happened was a combination of air in the system and a faulty radiator cap. Instead of letting the coolant boil into the reservoir, somehow it puked all the coolant out onto the ground. @_@ Well, when we got home, we filled it, and made sure to purge all the air out. Then the next we tested it, driving it to our sekrit fishing spot. Off road, 4x4, low range. Worked fine. Amazed that the block didn't crack though. 100 miles with no coolant was pretty serious. :/

Well, thats my edge-of-the-seat car story. Whats yours?

Looks fantasic, I here in Iowa with a foot of snow on the ground and 20 degree weather-but the weather guy says it should be 40's this weekend yeah