Our Trip

Hi family. Melanie and I went on a cruise last week to celebrate springbreak, christmas, birthdays, anniversary, and a belated honeymoon. I had never been anywhere like the caribbean as Janelle and Michael Huff lived in Hawaii while I was on my mission. When I got back from my mission mom and dad offered to buy me a ticket to Hawaii to visit Janelle and Michael. I foolishly turned it down, believing that such expenditures were too worldly and that I needed to begin working immediately. Amy volunteered to go in my place. I guess I was still adjusting to normal life. In the caribbean, it was nice being able to walk around without shoes and a shirt.



This was our boat. The Carnival Glory. It was spacious and manned by philipene and indonesian workers. I am sure that the cruise line treats them like indentured servants and that their lives are miserable and that their employment arrangement would be illegal in the United States. We boarded in Miami, FL. In this pic, it was docked at our first stop of Thunderball and Casino Royale fame: Nassau, Bahamas.




It was strange for me to step into the water and feel that it was as warm or warmer than the air. I had never been to a beach with such fine and white sand and clear, warm water. Then we stopped at St. John's, Virgin Islands:



The beach pictured above is Trunk Bay on St. John's, Virgin Islands. The island was one of the most beautiful geographic places I've been to in my life. As you can also see, if I had a super power, it would be the ability to blind my foe by tearing of my shirt. We snorkeled in this bay and saw some tropical fish and corral. I discovered that I was terrified of looking around too much because I didn't want to see the immensity and depth of the ocean.

After St. Thomas/St. Johns, Virgin Islands, we stopped at San Juan, Puerto Rico. This was more of an urban stop.



San Juan was an old city. We toured around the "old San Juan" neighborhood, which has architecture dating back to the 1500s. This is a fortress that guarded access to the islands in the caribbean, like Puerto Rico, that have a fresh water supply.




The old town city was also very interesting. I sported my linen pants. I wanted to be like Gob from Arrested Development.




After San Juan, we stopped on Grand Turk, Turks and Caicos. After he orbited the earth for the first time, John Glenn parachuted into the water in a space pod, 20 miles off the coast of Grand Turk. We took a taxi to a secluded beach and saw a bit of the island. The people there live in extreme poverty. Once we got to the beach, the water and sand were pristine. And the size of the ocean, once again, terrified me but I enjoyed swimming in it anyway.



The locations were a great reminder that the world is beautiful and that God gave us the earth, not only to provide a space to occupy as we go about the plan of salvation, but also a space that inspires faith and happiness.

This was a big production trip for Melanie and I. I hope that we all take time out of our busy lives to pause a little and breath, whether its sitting down to watch a funny tv show, go on a weekend road trip with family, or go on a jog/walk.