Yesterday we went on a whale watching cruise. We saw a lot of whales, some of them coming really close to the boat we were on.

All three of us were busy snapping pictures and trying to stay balanced. Unfortunately this caused us all to have to brace ourselves with just our muscles, and this ended up hurting us a bit. We didn’t find out it hurt, however, until today.

Today was pretty exciting and not in the good sense.

We decided to go back up to Haleakala to do some hiking and see what the crater and summit look like when it’s warmer.

We did not; however, check the gas gauge before we left we only had about 1/3 of a tank left. We got up to the top without a problem, but going down was a bit dicey. Basically we ended up coasting half the way down which isn’t bad on a bike, but in a car it’s kind of ‘sporty’. If you look closely at the picture, you can see the gas gauge on empty and the transmission in neutral.

After getting gas, we went out to see a slack key guitar concert done by a local consortium of musicians. It’s held at the Ritz Carleton hotel. The tickets were kind of pricey, but the music was excellent. There were two guitar players (host and guest), plus a young ukulele player, and two hula demonstrations. It was obviously a smallish operation, as the guy who collected the tickets at the door was also the ukulele player. I think he was also the nephew of the host.