We Take Ourselves With Us

So, after our lovely, adventure-filled, and truly wonderful but also very long day touring Maui, we considered our activity planned for the next day.  It also seemed truly wonderful: snorkling at Molokini.  However, when we thought about getting up at 6 am the next morning to grab breakfast and get off the boat by 7 am, our enthusiasm waned.  Hmm ... should we push ourselves to the cranky Kress-Davis family peak?  Or should we remember that vacations can also be about not going, going, and going; they can also be about relaxing, too?  Four votes for the latter, and we abandoned the 6am snorkling wake-up call and turned in for a longer night's sleep. Ned and I were still up early enough to wander the POA and watch the sunrise.  I had mentioned the industrial ports.  Here's a good pic of what I meant.  This is the cruise ship port for Maui (in Kahului).  Inviting, isn't it. Because the sun rose opposite the hills a...

The disembarkation from the Sun was super easy, and after a few moments of my freaking out about a missing bag because the port's yellow lights turned our seriously tomato red suitcase orange (my bad), we were on our bus to Anchorage and zipping through another full sun, blue sky, gorgeous scenery day. I think I've mentioned before how wonderfully welcoming and friendly Alaskans have been this whole trip.  What I might not have mentioned is how they all clearly love living in Alaska.  Some have made a definite life choice to live in the state: they mention a love of the outdoors and the sense of community that is engendered because of the juxtaposition of small population and distance.  Others are native Alaskans and simply cannot imagine living anywhere else.  Our bus driver fell into this camp.  Highly social, filled with information on geography, geology, nature and history, and another storyteller. As non-native Rochesterians, we ofte...