This Father’s Day I am contemplating
my love of travel because my dad instilled this love within me.
Always on a tight budget growing up,
our family still did not lack for travel. Dad always found a way for us
to explore various regions in the United States. In fact, we not only
traveled, we also resided in four different states in the first sixteen years
of my life--Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida (When I left for
college, the family moved to North Carolina, where they still reside).
The whole family (6 of us) traveled to multiple other states, always by car,
but we were continually looking for adventures to as far-away places as Mexico
while traversing Arizona and the Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls and Canada while
driving through New York, Washington D.C., the White House, all the memorials,
and the Iwo Jima motel (infamous story in our family), St. Louis and Houston to
visit relatives, see the sites and Disney World, Sea World and various
beaches in Florida, in my birth state, the Great Lakes, and Mackinac
Island. Through all these adventures, my dad instilled in me an intense
love of travel and, to this day, he loves to go, to see, and to experience
learning through travel, and so do I.
What did I learn from my childhood
traveling experiences?
To dream. Dad is a dreamer, and his dreams are often realized
because he works hard to achieve them. I am a dreamer because dad
is a dreamer and working to achieve dreams brings me satisfaction and
enjoyment. Many of my travel dreams have been realized, and I continue
to dream of adventures and journeys I will have in my lifetime, adventures I
will provide my children, and adventures my husband and I will have as we live
our life-long journey together.
To keep a positive attitude. Dad taught me to always look on the bright side of life
when we traveled and when we were at home. Even when life was
sometimes tough financially growing up, dad always modeled a positive attitude
by being grateful for our close family and by (forgive the cliché) turning sour
situations into lemonade. We still joke about the trip to Washington,
D.C. when we ate fast food three times a day in an effort to keep travel
inexpensive. Boy, were we sick of McDonald’s! But we had a positive
attitude about the very fact that we were exploring new places and learning
about our country.
My reflections and pondering in
education frequently include musings on various in and out of state travel
experiences because I enjoy traveling as much as I enjoy learning, and I
believe you can learn through travel.
