Living the Life

I had never before traveled far enough, fast enough, to experience jet lag.  I know I only got a small dose of it, but let me tell you this: It's remarkably disorienting, and when I have gotten a chance to sleep, it's amazing.  Best sleep of my life.
Keeping everything in Texas time (over less than 24 hours we passed through 5 time zones), we got up yesterday (Thursday) morning at noon and had breakfast.  We packed up at geocached for a while, and then went to the airport and caught our first plane at 5pm, where we ate subway for lunch.  Our plane landed in Seatte six plus hours later, so just after midnight, Texas time.  There we finished off our Subway for dinner, and took off again around 2am.  That flight was 3 hours and 34 minutes, and I probably dozed for almost 3 hours.  I am a gifted napper.  I have periods of insomnia, so I can't exactly say that I am blessed with the ability to sleep anytime and anyplace, but I am usually able to nap whenever I choose.  Therefore, I was able to sit back and at least shut my body down to rest, even though my brain was partly aware of what was going on, and the audiobook Jesse was listening to.
Touchdown in Dallas was 5:46 am, and it took us until 11:30 to finally make our way to Breckenridge.  We ate somewhere in there...then ran some errands and make some mac and cheese at 3:00 and were both passed out on the couches by 3:30.  In 30 hours I slept just over 4 hours, traveled 5 time zones, had my feet on the ground in 3 different states, and ate 5 meals.  
But enough about that.  Is vacation worth all the jet lag?  I'm not a huge vacationer; I am more of a workaholic homebody, but I was struck with the beauty of Hawaii, and am in awe of the imagination of our Creator.  There are more colors in a mile of Hawaii's coastline than the entire state of Texas.  The sheer magnitude of the trees and bamboo and cliffs is astonishing.  The fantastic shapes of the flowers and fruits and leaves!  Round, flat, bumpy, thorny, thick, delicate, spiney, smooth; it's all there.
We spent a lot of time driving around to various places all over the island.  We stopped at countless beaches, hiked miles up and down ridiculous hills, picked up coconuts and mangos everywhere, toured a coffee factory thing, took a dinner cruise, went to a luau, kayaked and snorkeled and went to every farmers market on the island, I swear.  It was quite the experience.  Jesse has been trying to convince me for some time that we need to live in Hawaii, and I must admit he's closer than he ever has been.  We spent some time talking with a couple of the guys working the dinner cruise we went on, and they talked about "living the life", and not being there for the money or anything.  They're just living.  I would love to go to the beach every day, eat fresh food from farmers markets, live in funky harem pants and be a hippy....that would be amazing.  But for me, living the life is still being with my family.  I will never be living the life as long as I am thousands of miles away from the people who made me who I am.