back on the mainland

I'm finally back in North America (assuming Hawaii didn't count in that regard, not sure if it's consider part of a continent) after just under 8 months away, traveling through four countries (Thailand, India, Nepal and the U.S., since I visited Hawaii), taking 13 different flights and seeing about as many different climates, including tropical islands, desert, plains, the Himalaya mountain range, etc.

It's a trip to be back on familiar soil, in a good way. I'm enjoying the dry and consistently sunny California air, for one thing. Kauai, Hawaii, where I was most recently for 2 1/2 weeks, is beautiful, exotic and friendly, but the weather is a bit schizophrenic. Every day is essentially the same: a little of everything, at least everything that's possible within about a twenty degree temperature range. It could be storming on you in the morning, you go back to sleep for a little while, then wake up and it's brilliantly sunny. You head for the beach, then the clouds come in, and soon it's overcast. You start shivering a little in your wet shorts, then it starts dumping on you like crazy and you figure it's time to give up on the beach. But by the time you get your stuff packed up, it's back to nice and sunny again. Kauai pretty much epitomizes the phrase "If you don't like the weather, just wait five minutes". But I have to say I kind of prefer it if the weather just makes up its mind one way or another, so that you can plan around it. But, it's called the Garden Isle for a reason, because it's incredibly lush and green and beautiful thanks to the daily rainfall. So, it was a good visit there once again, but I'm glad to be back nearish to home (even if I don't have a permanent home yet).

I'm currently at my aunt Chris' house near Yosemite. Since I think I went over things in the most recent post, I won't repeat myself too much, other than to say that I'll most likely be here for a few weeks. It looks like Chris has more work than she'd originally thought, so I may end up staying an extra week or so. Either way, I'll then be headed to visit my mom in Ukiah; then most likely back to Portland from there for only a short while, before heading out to visit my brother and Lesley in northern Utah. After that, things are still a bit up in the air for the rest of the summer. Either way, I have no doubt that these on-line ramblings will get significantly less interesting, than they have been while I was halfway around the world. But that isn't necessarily a bad thing. Especially considering recent events with the cyclone in Burma, earthquake in China and bombings in India (in Jaipur, Rajasthan state, not far from several places I went this time), it sounds like it was a pretty good time to get back closer to home.