"Well Aren't You Just The World Traveler"

Seattle's Olympic Sculpture Park.

In January we took a celebratory trip to Maui, HI, for finally selling our home and becoming debt-free. My wife took a trip to Florida for a business convention, and we both just returned from a two-week visit to the west coast.

When people from a tiny rural part of the northeast (like us) go anywhere, they'll get bombarded upon their return with the phrase, "Well aren't you just the world traveler!" Because to go anywhere when you're home town is very, very pathetically small makes you a "big deal." Apparently.

Travel has been enlightening for my writing. Every time I visit some place new I get a different perspective on things. While we were in Oregon I kept looking around at nature and saying, "I need to figure out what kind of trees these are because this is just what I imagine the kingdom of Tay to look like!" It drove my wife nuts.

175 feet up in Seattle's famous ferris wheel. 

Dutch Bros. coffee!

Nothing grabbed my heart more than the coffee though. Up and down the west coast there are these little drive-through coffee stands called Dutch Bros. And they. Are. Amazing! My wife doesn't drink coffee, but even she was hooked on Dutch Bros. by the time we left.

We have tentative plans to visit California next month, and possibly Tennessee in July because, hey, when you become a "big deal" there's no stopping you!