Oct 11th - Countries I've visited or want to visit.

I've been blessed to get to a couple countries already in my life. Long ago, when we were first married we left our little boys and went to Belize to visit Jerry & Dawn Baerg. I think that was my first impression of a foreign country with the open markets and little food booths along the roads. We went with Jerry's on a little holiday to Caye Calker, a little island belonging to Belize. We took a snorkeling tour and touched the stingray and ate banana-apples together.


One year we took a trip with Pat's folks to Romania where we got to meet Vila and Lee. We rode a train, toured an old castle, visited an orphanage and shopped the markets. We ate delicious lasagna at Lee's and stood on their little porch that slanted down in a shocking manner many stories up in their apartment. Best of all, we made life long friends.


Then we took a trip of a lifetime to China to visit Ryan & Arlene and their family. Aunty Cheri came with us and we toured the world's largest building in Chengdu, and the huge fabric market where they sell rolls of 120" wide fabric for a song, and visited a Chinese zoo. We ate hot pot with rabbit meat and one lone cockroach plus many more foods of various standing. We were carefully watched and attended to by the natives and guards and people all around us. In the crowded elevator in one hospital Maddy screamed with terror when she came face to face with a live chicken in a gunny sack. We ate with chopsticks and stood in groups while people freely took pictures and I even had the privilege of escorting a rat between my feet at supper one evening. We watched the lights light up the skyscrapers at night and watched the Chinese ladies dance in the evening along the river and shopped the underground Wal-Mart in Leshan. Pat and Colby even got to visit the leprosy village way up a mountain.


I dream of traveling more. As a child I went to the Northwest Territories with my family and Pat & I have done Niagara Falls and PEI but I dream of taking our boys these places. I dream of touring the Yukon and Northwest Territories and Alaska with our boys. I dream of traveling the States in one long drawn out trip. I dream of Europe in general and particularly Paris. But mostly I'm very grateful for the traveling I've done and the memories I have.