It's a beautiful country

A friend of mine and former YDR reporter is taking her first big trip of the American and Canadian West, and is amazed at how beautiful it all is. She's seeing mountains, canyons, cornfields, lakes and forests that she might have assumed were across an ocean. After traveling the world, she is enjoying the sights that I was lucky enough to know as a young boy.

Now, that's that not bragging exactly, because I've not seen the Pyramids or China as she has. But our family traveled by car every summer, jamming an old Pontiac station wagon full of tents, tarps and ice chests.Behind it, we're dragging a one wheel trailer with a home-made (and brilliant) space-saver pup tent on top, where my brother and I slept.

Since then, I've continued Mom and Dad's dreams. I'll have seen all but one of the Canadian provinces by summer's end (not Nunavut), and all but Hawaii (and probably never will. You can't drive there.). When I was only 16, I had seen all but one state of the 48. I added Mississippi soon after.

Many people have seen more of the world, but I consider myself fortunate that we saw the back roads of Iowa, the nature trails of Maine and New Mexico and the super highways of LA. We didn't fly. As we crawled past, we saw every lightpost, telelphone pole and rest area between here and the Pacific Coast.

We were big on history and science, because you could see alot of both for free. It's been a family joke that we've seen every free museum, and hiked every free wooded path in the country.

We took plenty of short cuts. Many didn't get us where we wanted to go, but we often found something else much better. One of my favorite sayings-- If it doesn't matter where you are, you're not lost.

And because of that, it's still a game finding birds and animals on a walk. Or remembering details of a museum in Stewart River, Yukon , or the Billy the Kid museum in Fort Sunmer, New Mexico.

We explored ghost towns of the old west, where cities and people thrived, usually because of gold or silver, but were abandoned once the mines played out. I still enjoy searching out the towns, but have expanded to the east, where coal mining towns (Pennsylvania and West Virginia) or old shipping towns of New England have long ago ceased, or now are just 'ghosts' of their old selves.

This picture is from Animas Forks, up an old dirt road in the San Juan Mountains. Beyond being interesting historically, ghost towns are often in very remote, very serene locations, giving even people with no love of history a place to enjoy. Many are more than 100 years old and are literally falling apart. Unfortunately, antique collectors scour the grounds and buildings for trinkets, leaving little to discover for those who follow.

As the towns revert back to nature, the animals return, the forest begins to overtake the land, and it's beautiful once more.
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For more travel information, check out Jen Vogelsong's blog. A facsinating list of the world's best 100 best places to stand awaits.