Hawaii
Starting off with the early morning session on remote sensing and polar regions with Dr. Mia Bennett at University of Washington. The smaller attendance this year definitely hurt, as only two students showed up at 7:40am (ouch). Later sessions were definitely better attended, and overall the day's sessions were useful and high quality despite the lighter-than-expected attendance.
Ohana Poke House looked to be the closest decent spot within walking distance, and their poke was a mixed bag. The Hawaiian style was delicious, the spicy was just okay. The location, in an inauspicious strip mall's mini-food court, was appropriately humble. In stark contrast was the UCLA Geography party at AAG this year, held in a big fancy suite at the Hilton Hawaiian Village. Caught up with Dr. Chunyu Dong and a few other former post-docs at the party, along with current grad students Ben, Joan, Shreya, Karen, and others. Dr. DeLyser is always a feature as well, with long ties to UCLA and AAG despite not having been formally a part of UCLA in ages. UCLA graduates (and mostly now professors!) such as Dr. Bennett, Dr. Rivers, and a few others made it too, along with a solid bunch of UCLA Geography department faculty and emeritus. Plus of course those from other universities whose names I can never remember.