One of

my favorite things to think about is traveling. I love to travel. I love seeing new places, new people, observing how the world works. I love the absolute anonymity of travel... During a trip, I can be anyone I want, though it's always easier to be me.

But the thing is, traveling has a way of making me feel very small. I feel how unimportant I am, how small my life really is- which, truthfully, isn't a bad thing. It's nice to be humbled.

On Sunday, we drove about a half hour out of town, to a place I don't think I've ever been before. We saw rolling hills among mountains, admired sagebrush and soaked in the sun. My husband packed a picnic for us in brown paper bags, and we ate on a blanket under a pine tree. I felt somewhat sick on the way there; maybe it was car-sickness. I used to get that a lot. Perhaps, though, it was the same sick feeling I got when I drove with my family from Utah to Indiana and I realized, maybe just a bit, how big the world possibly is. It's a little scary if you think about it. We are all so small, and there's so much we will never see or do.

I was thinking about it and I realized how blessed I've been to be able to visit all the places I have. I have:

• swam in both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
• been to Maine and [a bit of] Minnesota.
• seen lush gardens in Indiana, skipped rocks by waterfalls in New York, driven along a highway beside the Atlantic.
  
• admired Mount Vernon in mid-winter and envied Martha Washington's dining room paint color.
  
• explored Cornell, Harvard, Ball State [in Muncie, Indiana], Yale, and Duke.
  
• eaten peach chicken and cinnamon sweet mashed potatoes at a boat house restaurant, smelled Yellowstone [& saw the geysers], walked the entire Las Vegas strip several times in one day, and driven to Boise and back in a day to see Jason Mraz [twice].
• visited the Smithsonian and the Lincoln memorial.
  
• fallen in love with tiny towns in the northeast--and big towns too [like Boston and New York City].
  
• oohed and ahhed over million-dollar beach houses in North Carolina.
  
• smiled under the antler bridge in Jackson Hole for many a photo.
  
• watched lightning bugs glitter at night on the 4th of July [a luxury I don't get here].
  
• walked around in ankle-deep snow in Washington, D.C., and experienced instantaneous thunderstorms & floods in tornado country.
  
• collected seashells at each coast.
  
• contemplated buying a tiny, multi-million-dollar home on Balboa Island [of course when I'm rich--in the future].
  
• walked with bleeding blisters down Times Square, seen a fabulous frog pond in Connecticut, and driven past plain after plain in Nebraska and Kansas.
  
• eaten Thanksgiving dinner in South Dakota.
  

I've done a lot of things... but not everything. Nope, not yet.

I still have so much to see. I want to travel the world. Before I ever dated my husband, I planned on going to graduate school after college, traveling the world, living on my own & life would be all figured out, easy peasy. Though my plans have changed, I'm not sorry they have. I have a traveling companion of whom I never tire. I have a lot of great things. We're planning trips... several for this summer. I am so excited I have someone with me to take on the world. I'm glad I have someone to help me figure out what I'm doing in life. Most days, I have no idea. I'm just happy to be here for the ride.

So, we're going to travel. Our first stop? Central America. I will not tell you when or where, because, well, I'd like to keep some things to myself. I'm excited but also scared. I don't speak the native language [at all]. But that's okay.

I'm adding to my list of adventures, and that's all I can ask.

I'm going to go now.

I'll type to you later.