Need a ride from the airport? You probably don’t know this, but on the way to pick you up, I get into the international lane and stay there as long as I can before I dart over to the lane that spills into the domestic pick-up line. For that brief moment, I imagine my next destination just over the horizon. I love, love, love new places and faces. I love the history, the lessons and the lives I cross on my journey, collecting stories and making them mine. Travelling makes you smart and aware just how small a piece we really are in the greatness of creation.

A most heavenly adventure: Bosnia, Croatia, Herzegovina and Montenegro
Our last trips have been to non-Christian countries and while experiencing a completely different culture is a real adventure, we’ve celebrated Christmas at our own peril in some parts of Africa and definitely in Malaysia and Indonesia. “Can’t we go somewhere they celebrate Christmas?” asked Michael. I looked up best place to celebrate Christmas and up popped Rome (and Zagreb). And Zagreb it is! And how can you travel to Croatia and not visit the spot where the Blessed Mother is appearing: Medjugorje, Herzegovina, Muslim as it may be. Off we go in search of a miracle. (Kravice waterfalls in Bosnia-Herzegovina).

July marked Michael’s big 68. As always, I was on deadline, so I told him we needed to be in Carson City early on Saturday—that I was going to buy him a gun for his birthday. We stopped for a fast bite (and to change seats so I could “navigate” us to the “gun” store.) Instead, I serendipitously became lost and ended up at the Carson City airport where I delivered Michael for his true birthday gift, a flight lesson in an ultra-light aircraft. (He almost flew an ultra-light over Vic Falls in South Africa, but we ran out of time after a helicopter ride that ran long.) The hours Michael accrued in Carson City were applied to his logbook and he is also going to pick up flying again—he should. He loves it. He hit it off with Paul Hamilton, the flight instructor and it’s off into the wild blue yonder.