Parting thoughts

As I said in an earlier post today, once we consolidate our photos we'll post a link to a ShutterFly album here so you can all see them at once. We have some really cool photos that weren't even posted and I've only been posting my own. The other girls have some more.

I'm sitting here drinking tea at 8:30 in the morning trying to figure out how to sum up our trip, or at least my own. The thoughts in this blog are mostly my own and I don't think the postings have really truly captured what we experienced individually or collectively. I'm not sure our words or photos ever will. There are so many small moments from the trip that only the five of us will ever appreciate and they make me smile now thinking about them.

It is a truly great thing to be able to travel somewhere, anywhere with 4 good friends... to have those friends period. And friends that are so diverse in their backgrounds, their experiences, their expectations, their strengths, their wisdom, their meaning to you, what they bring out in you. All things that combined made this trip probably one of the best things that I have ever done. How lucky were we to be able to do this with each other? To jet off thousands of miles away to experience such a trip is just so fantastic! I don't say that to make you jealous (although I would be on the other side without a doubt) but to give you pause for a second to reconsider something you've told yourself you can't do, or shouldn't do. Why not? Isn't now the time?

The trip also made us all realize how lucky we are in so many ways that we take for granted. If nothing else, I want to remember the feeling we had when waking up and looking out our window and seeing the vastness of the sea and realizing what we were doing together. Katie even said on our last day together when the sky was clear blue, the air was crisp and the sun was shining and we were all happy... that wouldn't it be great if we could bottle this feeling and take it home and open it up on days we were feeling blue or glum? Wouldn't it indeed.

Thanks girls. I will never forget this trip and it wouldn't have been the same without each of you.