Still Dreaming. Still Exploring. Still On the Road.

I have done quite a bit of traveling since retiring -- except for 2020, of course, when the entire world ground to a halt due to the pandemic.

I fulfilled a lifelong dream of visiting Egypt and Greece. I have watched the sun set over the Sahara Desert while I sat atop a camel. I got to see the rare, and elusive, Ethiopian wolf. I have photographed jaguars in Brazil's Pantanal, leopards, cheetahs and lions in Africa, grizzly bears in Alaska and polar bears in far northern Canada. I walked part of the Camino de Santiago in Spain. I viewed Paris from the top of the Eiffel Tower. I took part in an in-depth experience to learn about the Holocaust and I did a service project at Auschwitz. I sat on the dusty ground of Botswana's Kalahari Desert as meerkats crawled over me. I wandered through a few of the 300 rooms in the famed 'Downton Abbey' (Highclere Castle). I visited Colombia,

Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Cuba, Grand Teton, Yosemite, Yellowstone, Olympic, Joshua Tree and Glacier national parks. 

When I worked in Moscow (Russia) for 3-1/2 months, I spent weekends exploring that ancient city. I was amazed at the beauty, crumbling though it is, of St. Peterburg. I took my daughter to visit the Siberian city from which I had adopted her.

I have watched in stunned silence the fluid beauty of a cheetah as it chased a gazelle, and at the power of a leopard as it dragged an antelope up a tree. Mu heart pounded as an elephant mock-charged the vehicle in which I was sitting.

I gazed upon and spent time exploring the ancient ruins of Petra in Jordan. I stood atop the ancient Israeli fortress at Masada, and I walked through the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, stood before the Western (or Wailing) Wall in the old city of Jerusalem, and visited the Church of the Nativity in the Arab-occupied city of Bethlehem. I went hiking in Quebec and in New Zealand's South Island. I photographed tigers in India and hiked (and bicycled) in Ireland. I explored the Parthenon where it sits atop the acropolis in Athens, a place it has occupied for 3000 years. I wandered the streets of Moscow (back when the country wasn't carrying out unjustified attacks on Ukraine) when I lived and worked there.

But there are still so many places on my travel wish list: Italy. Switzerland. England (again). Ireland (again). France (again). Scandinavia. Sicily, Germany, Portugal, the Baltic countries, Australia, Scotland (again). I guess my trip on the TransSiberian Railway will have to wait, given Russia's ongoing and unwarranted war on Ukraine.

Not many Asian countries appeal to me, although I hear that Japan and Vietnam are both wonderful and beautiful countries.

I used to work with a man who was proud of the fact he had never traveled outside his native Texas. How sad it must be to be so provincial when there are so very many wonderful sights and countries to be explored. 

I will continue to travel for as long as I am physically able to do so. The world has so many amazing places, sights and animals to discover. I don't want to miss any of them. I don't want to miss the memories they will bring.