Sometimes I marvel at how I feel when I travel abroad. I love to do it; I am excited. At the core of it is that I discover how other people live their lives: What they have and don’t have sometimes surprises me. My best example is our last really long trip to Manila; Shanghi, China; and two ports in Japan. On our cruise we were in the minority–nearly 95 percent Asians along with Australians and us. Eating dinner with these lovely people, I realized many of them had probably saved for this cruise for many years. It was a dream for them to go. They looked as though lived a very life, and many were near the end of it. When I thought of them I felt very small and realized how much of the world I haven’t yet seen or experienced.
When I come home and think about our travels, I remember what a wonderful country we live in. We have so many freedoms — this is especially true when you look at the justice systems in other countries. People don’t get always get a fair trial; they don’t have the freedoms we do.
This is due largely to some bigger than life heroes in our country’s past. Last April I had the honor of visiting Mt. Vernon, President George Washington, often called the Father of Our Country, and truly one of the most fascinating persons I’ve ever read about.
I am nearly done reading the book 1776, the Pu
