On our way

Our return journey began Thursday. We had a pretty uneventful flight home and we were met by Jon (grandma's brother) who was holding a sign that said "Becca" on it. We had a nice relaxing and welcoming day and night with Jon and Kathy. Aunt Nancy also came to visit early today and it was great to see her again. We all spent the day chatting, hanging out and preparing for the upcoming dinner.

Strange things about coming back to the mainland:

- It felt weird to be driving on a real highway where people go fast!

- The temperature wasn't cold--certainly not any colder than the chilly Hawaiian nights we were having up on the coffee farm, but the air felt crisp. I'm glad we're going to have a coupld of days of fall before heading off to winter.

A problem with Hawaii is that it never freezes and it is often very wet. Without freezing, even just for a couple of hours in the night, there's no period of hibernation and killing of bacteria and it feels like things never get really clean. Maybe that was due to the accommodations that we had but I'm realizing that I really do like winter.

- It was really weird getting into our car and it felt like a distant but familiar memory.

Dinner last night was great. I spent a while talking to Devon (mom's cousin), playing with her kids, and playing music with Mark. I'm glad my violin was still with me! What a great night it was. We have both really enjoyed all the time we've spent with the Searles clan. Very fun and loving people. Good to finally meet them.

This morning we left really early in order to get breakfast with Katherine in San Francisco. We met Katherine on the first farm when we were in Hawaii. We don't know when we'll meet again b ut it's good to know we have another friend waiting for us in California.

Now we're off to Las Vegas for the night. GPS says we'll be there in 8 hours!