Recently in Educational Travel Category

Sometimes Iyou just need to get away.  After a back injury ruined some summer plans, I decided to stay close after I had surgery to correct the problem.  I am fortunate to not only live close to many beautiful nature scapes, but also to some very significant historical sites.

Gettysburg, Pennsylvania is one of those significant historical sites.  It is home to one of the bloodiest battles in the Civil War, but also to the famous "Gettysburg Address" in which President Abraham Lincoln declared a "new birth of freedom" in the United States.  2011 marks the Gettysburg 150 events which strive to encourage the legacy that the Gettysburg battle provided in changing the direction of the Civil War. 

Welcome back to Part 2. We stayed 3 days at the Wyndham Durango.  Durango is known for the Narrow Gage Railroad that travels from Durango to Silverton carrying passengers back in time to a small gold mining town of yesteryear.  We did not take the trip this year but have many times in the past.

Several years ago, I found myself on the Jordanian side of the Dead Sea. As I bobbed along the shoreline, held buoyant by the high saline content of the water, I overheard someone speaking to their companion as they pointed to the beach on the other side. "That's Israel, just over there." I stood and looked to the other side and I recall thinking that it was so near, and yet so very far from the perspective of my ability to travel there on that same trip. Although I enjoyed my trip to Jordan greatly, in that moment, I felt a deep longing to be on the other side.

I can't do the splits anymore, can you? My dancing days are long gone.  I can get about half of the way down (okay, a quarter) before I start feeling that familiar pull that lets me know I better back off...quick, fast and in a hurry...before I get stuck or something. It hurts my inner thighs just thinking about it. Ouch.