Continuation of previous post — back in the States again, and have a real keyboard 🙂 Made a decision to not let the a** affect how I interacted with others. Found a lot of friendly people up there.

Had a great time. Coming back was a bit bittersweet as I also hate the end of trips. Was an interesting experience; things just clicked. Learned that some of the places I wanted to see were typically closed. However, at every such structure, when I arrived, there was somebody who could and was willing to let me in. When I wanted to see something, wound up getting there with enough time to see all of it. Never had that happen before where things just seemed to line up. Heck, even the border crossings were easy.

Not sure what to think of how things just fit together. In the past, things always felt “hard” and difficult. Working on trying to put together what conspired to make this trip as easy and enjoyable as it was.

Anita, with regard to your value comments, I guess that I have a bit of a different philosophy. I believe that there is no intrinsic special value in being human; i.e. we are all humans simply because our respective mothers and fathers were humans. To me, what makes the value in a person, beyond the possible potential to reproduce and continue the species, is what he/she does and does not do.