Day 21: Nine O'Clock It is always 9:00 somewhere on earth. At my 9:00AM it was 11:00 PM in Japan. I was waking up to the radio. In Japan I might have been talking to a new friend eight years ago as we walked back from a Baptist church service she invited me to. I was on the way to the grocery store and she was riding her moped. She had seen me several times and determined I was an English speaker. She wanted to speak English so she asked if she could walk with me as far as either of us was going and have a conversation. I was agreeable to that so we walked several miles. She asked if I was a Christian and told me where she was going. I told her I was going snack shopping for my trip up Mt. Fuji. As luck would have it we were going the same direction, as her church was only a few blocks from the store. In those several miles we got along well so I went to her church and she made sure I got to the store before it closed. She invited me the next night to have dinner at her apartment and to visit an area that was a Prisoner of War camp during WWII. I did both and had a nice time getting to know her family at dinner. The POW camp was obviously a sanitized version of the original but I got the point. It was far worse than the Relocation Camp I saw at Heart Mountain in Wyoming on July 10th.

It was 10 PM in China and I would have been taking a jaunt through the streets seeking out something new. I got lost several times on my nightly jaunts, but never was worried I couldn't find my way back. I had to depend on myself and my internal GPS since my Chinese language skills. I would often sing to my MP3 player's tunes and of course I got lots of looks from people sitting outside their homes. I also got a lot of "Hello, you American?" I would smile and say yes in Chinese.

It was 6:00 AM in Alaska and last year I might have been opening up our gift shop at McKinley Village. Many people came in one shop as soon as we opened so they could buy snacks for their day trips into Denali National Park. Twelve to thirteen hours on a tour bus requires lots of snacks like "buy-by-the-pound granola, blueberry yogurt pretzels, or just plain chocolate. I was busy for maybe 45 minutes non-stop and for those of you who really know me starting work at 6:00 AM was a real shock to my system but it was a fun time anyway, once I got used to it! In the other store we sold your typical tourist things like shirts, stuffed animals, and jewelry. Most of the jewelry was made in Alaska by local artisans with natural items like glacier ice, discarded antlers, or sinew from a caribou. Many people also came for the Alaskan Christmas tree ornaments. One of my favorites is the Christmas moose angel.

It was 8 AM in Montana, where one week ago I was driving through the Grand Tetons. These are some very beautiful mountains, regal in stature. I had spent the night in Idaho and drove through Jackson Hole, into the Tetons, and north through the parts of Yellowstone we had not seen on the day before. Kim and I stopped to photograph plants as well as the larger parts of nature. There were lots of yellow and blue flowers and weeds that were perfect subjects.

It was 10 AM in Virginia, where I was most definitely taking a nap during my teenage years working summers at a church camp. For five summers I worked as a waitress in the Family Style dining room at our Presbyterian church camp. We went to work at 7:00 AM, ate our own breakfast, then got our tables ready to any number of groups. There were youth groups, family weekends, Lutheran Men's Conference, Virginia Music Camp teenagers, Presbyterian Women's conference, and a two week Bible conference. People came from all over the world as guest speakers. One of my lasting memories was a minister from Ireland who gave me an Irish handkerchief the last meal I served him. He was a real hoot and his accent was a delight to listen to three times a day. One year we had two high school football teams have their summer camp there: Waynesboro High School and Buchanan High School, both Virginia high schools. Their coaches were under the erroneous impression that having football camp at a church camp would keep their players AWAY from teenage girls... HELLO? That didn't exactly work out as they expected.

At 9:00 PM Oklahoma time I was watching TLC, labeling photos from my two week trip, and desperately trying to stay awake. 9:00 PM is WAY TOO EARLY to be going to BED! Photos: Idaho sunset, Relocation camp hospital and family barracks, Tetons from far away, Kim & Me at the Mud Volcano before a hail storm, and one of many plants blooming with vivid colors.

So I went through eleven states and only two time zones on a twelve day adventure. I also took a look back at many different times in my life with fondness as I wrote today's entry. Many jobs, many friends, many miles across the world...all because it was 9:00 somewhere.