This week, in her challenge, Patti Moed contemplates a simpler life that many of us are leading now that we are staying home, working from home, avoiding social interaction, and generally changing our attitudes about what in life is truly important right now. Patti writes, “We’re looking forward to seeing your creative and unique interpretations of ‘Simplicity’ this week.” You can read her entire challenge post here.

In my opening challenge response, a lone fisherman on a North Carolina beach passes the time in solitude in the early morning fog. I noticed as I reviewed other challenge responses, that the ocean is often a component of that “simple life experience.” As one who lives in the middle of the upper great plains and winters in the Arizona desert, it’s no wonder that I cherish what little time I get to spend at the beach or on the ocean.

As this is being written, we had been planning to spend this time preparing for another ocean cruise. As you might guess, cruising is no longer in our immediate future, though at some point, we hope to return to the oceans. The image above was captured off the coast of Seattle as we began our journey north to Alaska on the Norwegian Pearl in 2014.

I am an early riser and I cherish those times when I wander into the all-but-empty buffet area on the ship and enjoy my coffee while working on my next travel blog post or weekly photo challenge response. In 2018, we enjoyed a trip to the eastern Caribbean on the Carnival Magic.

If I’m not on the computer or simply enjoying my morning coffee, I’m on my morning walk hoping to capture the sunrise. (Note: I mislabeled the title of this image as “Sunset at Sea.” It was captured early in the morning, according to the time stamp.) I guess it could be either, except there would be a lot more people on those lounge chairs at sunset.

I conclude this post with a great big “Thank You’ to our challenge hosts, Tina, Amy, Ann Christine, and Patti, for inviting me to guest-host next week’s challenge here at Journeys With Johnbo. I normally post my challenge responses on Thursdays, even though the challenges are issued every Saturday. As I am a guest host for April 11, you can expect my post to be published on Saturday rather than at its usual time.

John Steiner