Matters of Travel
When I was in elementary school, a teacher asked us to choose a country we would like to visit someday. I chose Switzerland because everyone else chose France or Germany. I never dreamed that someday I would travel the world, but I knew that Heidi lived in Switzerland, and it sounded nice. When I was in high school, a few of my close friends went on a trip to Europe. I didn’t even ask my parents if I could go—we had never even been to Disneyland because it was too expensive.
Many years ago we set a goal to travel to every state and its capital. It took us many years, but three years ago we met our goal with an autumn trip to Alaska. That was number fifty. Neither Jim nor I had thought of ourselves as travelers, yet there we were with an impressive list of “places,” a huge Scholastic map in our garage with pictures of capitols and temples, and the traveling bug.
We have been all over the world, experiencing the cultures, foods, and idiosyncrasies of many countries—Russia, China, Germany, Turkey, France, Spain, Italy, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Canada, Mexico, Poland, Austria, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, AND Switzerland!—with many other places on our agenda. There is nothing like traveling to make you grateful for The United States of America!
Other countries enrich our experience, and I am thankful for that. However, there is a reason people all over the world want to come here. It is a land of promise. That promise is freedom, prosperity, and goodness.
