Congratulations on working again! What job did you find?
I have never been to Hawaii, but my family and I visited Alaska at the end of May a few years ago. We really enjoyed it. The prices were lower because it was early in the season and the weather was not bad. I think my favorite part was the day we spent on a small whale-watching boat that left from Seward. We spent a week traveling from Anchorage to Denali and then south again to Seward, and then another week on a cruise to Vancouver. The cruise was actually my least favorite part of the trip, because it felt anticlimactic after everything else we had done.
One thing to remember about Alaska is that it is all about the outdoors, and the cities are really just small towns. At one point we wanted to find a hardware store and we were told that the nearest one was 140 miles away. Then another time we needed a dentist, but we were told he only came to town for 2 days a week, so I repaired the braces on my daughter's teeth with my Leatherman tool instead.
Whatever you decide, have a wonderful trip.
P.S. I think the end of May is better for Alaska than mid-May. My sister went to Alaska the year after we did, on the first cruise of the season, and the ice had not melted enough in some areas to let the ship through. On the other hand, I have always wanted to go dog sledding, and you can't do that at all in the summer unless you pay an enormous amount of money to go up on one of the glaciers. With four of us that was out of the question, but we did visit a kennel where they raised sled dogs.
