Dear Girls,
When daddy and I married in 2001, he worked for University of Colorado Boulder as a graduate teaching assistant and I was a 2nd year high school math teacher. We were both in graduate school, and paying for it out of pocket. Our apartment rent in the popular Denver area was $900 a month . . . which was more than half of my take-home teacher pay and more than our mortgage payment would be 2 years later when we purchased our home. Even in those days of “living on love,” we decided that we would scrimp and pinch and forego gifts for the ability to travel throughout our marriage.
We didn’t realize it then, but that decision was one of the best we’ve ever made.
Memories made traveling are precious and irreplaceable.
You will learn that you are far more capable than you believed when you find yourself in Moab at 11 pm at night with no cell service, no gas, and no open gas stations.
You will learn to live on a budget, and find ways of trimming expenses in order to see and learn more. Those new shoes, handbags, DVDs and other tchotchkes don’t seem nearly as valuable when you have snow-capped mountains to explore.
You will find people and cultures who need you and your gifts, like the friends I’ve met with serious airway illnesses. All of a sudden, my own sufferings have been justified and turned to good.
You’ll learn that the world doesn’t revolve around you.
You will see a creation that proves a great Creator was and is at work.
Sure, you’ll meet a few jerks along the way, but you will find that people really are good. Mr. Rogers was right when he promised that there are always helpers to be found.
Don’t be surprised when you meet individuals in caves, on mountains, or underwater who become lifelong friends. These are the friends who are like stars; you can’t always see them, but you know they are there.
Discover that parts of the world that fill your soul, and return to them often.
Always take the trip.
Love you,
Mama