Friday, September 23, 2011

World Traveler Loves America

My husband, David, has traveled to over 100 countries and worked in forty one as a chemical engineer and expert consultant on evaporates, mainly salt production. He has traversed the peaks of Tibet at 14,000 feet to the depth of the Dead Sea, 1388 feet before sea level. He has come face-to face with death on at least nine occasions and survived a helicopter crash.

In his words, “I have been to every continent in the world. Some famous, some not… Paris, Istanbul, Moscow, Vienna, Nairobi, Johannesburg, Peking, Shanghai, Jerusalem, Geneva, Leningrad, and Tunis. I have traveled Europe, Africa, Australia, the Middle East and Far East. I have felt suffocated and short of breath in the thin air of Lhasa, Tibet and the Solar De Hombre Muerto, Argentina.

It was a thrill to see the ruins of Ephesus, Jerash, Petra, Rome and the palaces of Topkapi, the Forbidden City, Bavaria, and England. I have walked where Jesus walked, looked out over the Jordan Valley as Moses did from Mount Nebo, sat at the same table used by Lawrence of Arabia. I have been hosted by King Hussein of Jordan, and had servants kneel at my feet and call me “Master.” (In China he was awarded an Honorary Doctoral Degree)

Still, even with the faults of the United States Government and the loss of patriotism I knew as a child, there is no place I would rather be than America. I treasure my citizenship.

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