So this morning started with waking up at 8:30 to leave the hotel at 9:30 to catch a plane at noon to fly from Honolulu to Hilo on the Big Island. The flight was less than hour, almost enough to time to fully fall asleep…. almost. Been in Hilo one day and I LOVE this place. It’s much less crowded than Waikiki and much more of a “small town” vibe.
After landing we went straight to the church where we were performing and got a great lunch from our hosts and were about to start setting up for sound check when Mark decided rather than wait at the church for a couple things we needed, we could take this opportunity to see some sights. So we all hopped in the van and drove 5 minutes away to Rainbow Falls State Park (that’s not the exact name, I can’t remember it right now) and saw an awesome waterfall. We all took tons of pictures and a few people climbed some trees and a few jumped in the river (contrary to what the signs were telling us to do). I unfortunately can’t find the cable to hook up my camera to my computer right now, otherwise there would be some pictures in this post (they will have to come later). After spending some time climbing around the rocks and collecting new backgrounds for our computers, we headed back to the church. Well, almost. On the way back, Mark (being his impulsive self), decided we need some shaved ice to cool off before sound check. So we stopped and walked through a farmer’s market and got some. In Hawaii (at least at this particular shaved ice shop) they put a scoop of ice cream in the middle of it, I had a scoop of vanilla ice cream in the middle of my Cactus Cooler shaved ice (orange and pineapple) and it hit the spot!
So we finally made it back for sound check. And the sound team at this church was pro and it breezed by with no issues. Took a quick drive to the hotel to check in and get cleaned up and headed back and played the show (there is no traffic here and all of our stops are near each other, another reason this place is fantastic). The went great, the crowd was WAY into it and Obie stood on a baby grand piano during one of his always-epic guitar solos…. I can’t say I’m entirely ok with that, but it didn’t break, so it’s ok I guess. After the concert we were fed some more great food and we all packed some up for breakfast tomorrow morning. Now it’s just after midnight and it’s time to get some rest for tomorrow since we have an early morning at church and then some more sight-seeing in the afternoon before our last concert on this island.
