Yup, we did Haleakala this morning. Pretty killer views though we were slightly late for sunrise due to a navigational error.
Its a popular thing for tourists to bike down Haleakala's 10,023 feet all the way to Paia and end up at Baldwin beach. This morning we also did a coasting downhill run, although not on a bike. See, in our(my) desperate quest to try to get up to the summit in time for sunrise, I really didn't pay much attention to the fuel tank status.
Sooooo, when we went to depart, the truck immediately put up an alert that we're about out of gas. Funny, the German couple next to us was in the same boat. At least misery likes company!
As soon as we got on the downhill grade at the end of the parking lot, I slipped the transmission into neutral and away we went. Down and down we coasted .... all the way to Makawao's closest gas station at 1,600 feet elevation. Yup, we coasted down roughly 8,500 vertical feet and 24 miles of road without stepping on the gas. The truck computer claimed we were getting 80+ miles per gallon. Not bad for a 6 cylinder Ford Explorer.
Now thats what I call hypermiling!
Yeah yeah, running out of gas WOULD have sucked. But at least we didn't loose the keys to the truck while on the south side of the island like someone else did. ;-)
1 comment:
I didn't lose those keys, I was trying to help contribute to Maui by creating a small artificial reef.
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