Sherrie and the Great World

It’s been a whirlwind ever since we returned from Romania about 10 days ago, so this will be short, and I’ll let my photos do most of the talking.

In addition to trying to catch up with everything we missed out on while we were gone, and getting back on track at work, my mind is humming with the task of trying to process everything we saw and experienced on our journey.

There’s so much to write about that my fingers can’t move fast enough. I started working on Sweet William, the next of my Wildflowers of Scotland novels again when we were in Cornwall and Devon, surrounded by British accents and quirky UKisms. My love affair with the British Isles came rushing back the second the roads narrowed to bicycle path width and the hedgerows got so tall that I felt like a rat in a maze.

  

I will say of our “vacation” that it wasn’t very restful. And that’s just fine with me. We admittedly kept up a bit of a frantic pace, trying to take everything in, but in retrospect, we wouldn’t have traded a second of it in the name of relaxation. Nothing new there! When I was growing up, we had friends that went to the cabin at the lake every summer… the same cabin at the same lake, surrounded by the same people. Not my family. We liked to camp, and would often stay in a different state park every night, setting up camp, tearing down camp, building a new fire to cook over every night. And we traveled all over the state and the United States, and saw so much, and met so many people, and experienced a whole variety of places and things. I wouldn’t have traded it for the world. Or maybe I did trade it for the world.

So for those of you who have never caught the travel bug, here’s what I like about jaunting about the Great World…

  

1. New experiences stretch me, help me to grow, and push me to my limits. I never would have chosen to go to Romania if my stepson, Erik, hadn’t moved there 1 ½ years ago, and met his lovely bride, Cristiana.   I never would have believed that I could climb 1000 rickety stairs to the top of Dracula’s castle at Bran, Romania, or the watch tower overlooking the medieval city of Sighisoara, Romania or climb down a steep, 70 degree cobblestone-paved descent to the sea at Clovelly, Devon, or see the fabled ruins of King Arthur’s birthplace at Tintagel, Cornwall.     But I did it, and I’m so happy that I was thrust into a set of circumstances that allowed me to experience so many memorable things.

  

2. Seeing how the rest of the world lives and experiencing their joys and frustrations helps me to reopen my eyes to the beauty in my own back yard, and make me thankful for what I have. Part of it is looking at life through the lens of my camera. Once you start looking for beauty, you see it everywhere, even at home. Once you realize that much of the world doesn’t have and can’t afford air conditioning and a million other luxuries we take for granted, you realize how blessed we really are.

 

3. Fresh inspiration and a renewed perspective gives me a boost of positive energy. It’s not that my life in northern Iowa is boring – far from it, but we don’t have the seashore and castles and roundabouts and surfing and medieval cities, and face it – never will. I’m glad I live exactly where I do, but I love the burst of creativity and inspiration that I get when I travel to the far ends of the earth.

 

4. Colorful new characters, each with their own story, make me want to write a million tales. Here’s where I will let my pictures – or rather the people in them – do the talking.

   

Thanks for listening and looking into their eyes. Here’s hoping you have a chance to see the world from a new perspective one day soon, whether it’s a different corner of your own little world, or a vast new expanse on the other side of the globe.