Heaven

Mike has given me my 49th state. Can you believe that Hawaii and Louisiana were the last ones i've visited? Id have expected the last to be Iowa or something. (I liked Iowa. It felt like home.) So now, I only have one left. After that I'll have to round out Nick's totals and go to Europe and Canada again. I won't get Mike to go anywhere more exotic than that, but maybe I'll take a tour some time when he's at Boy Scout camp.

I love my little balcony here. The air is balmy. It's city 21 floors below me, but this is a good way for me, an outdoor girl, to experience it, like this. 

Earlier, it looked like this. The water was turquoise, blue, and purple.

The view is a little dizzying. I'm dizzy right now. 

In the meantime, we went to a beach. I took no pictures there because I was busy swimming and playing in the sand. The coral that Nick and I found looked an awful lot like the fossils we found on Crinoid beach in Indiana. Isn't that amazing?

You know, it's 7:51 pm and its already dark out. 

The last time I stayed at a hotel this high was in Las Vegas on New Year's Eve, a hotel that was unfinished. We popped a cork out over an atrium with an unfinished roof. Our room had never been used and the sad part is that the hotel doesn't even exist any more, except in my mind. 

The sea has darkened in front of me and blended into sky. It's as if the world ends at the edge of the palm trees lit by lamp light beyond the line of hotels. 

Tomorrow, we're going to see the ships in Pearl Harbor. History. 

I have to tell you this. I feel as though I'm in a foreign country. There are Hawaiian words I'm learning, a completely different culture, and different food. They even move with a different attitude. I am in heaven. 

Thank you for listening, jb