Happy Independence Day!

I've always been patriotic.  I feel a deeper, more personal connection to Independence Day than I do to any other holiday.  I grew up as an Army brat (my dad retired as a Colonel after 28 years) and I really miss hearing the National Anthem playing over loud speakers across an installation and seeing everyone get out of their cars to salute and cover their hearts.  
I remember that touching me, even as a kid. 

One of my very first memories is of singing Lee Greenwood's "Proud to be an American" while swinging on the playground at my preschool.  I would practice my high-swing and sing it over and over and over. 



As a kid, Dad made every effort for us to visit all 50 states in America.  (I've only been to 45 so far, but I know I'll make it to all of them one day.)  My mom is up for a trip anywhere and Dad wanted us to experience all we could, so we traveled A LOT.  Dad always got a photo of
us with every state sign.  A lot of them are in the middle of the night with the only illumination coming from the headlights of my parents' Suburban.  "Kids, wake up!  We're hitting another state!"  Nearly all of my memories of childhood center on the road.

I remember laying my head over the back seat of the car the summer I was thirteen, driving through the empty desert in Arizona, staring into the darkest, starriest sky I'd ever seen.  The thoughts I contemplated on that trip still affect me in my core.








I remember eating the spiciest gingerbread and huddling into a tiny--and warm!--blacksmith shop at Colonial Williamsburg the winter I was seven.  Every time I smell wood burning, I'm transported back to my first--and foggy, and drizzly, yet fantastic--trip to the historical triangle in Virginia (a trip that inspired a still very deep love of American history).







I remember the 20-something hour drive Dad made (in one stretch) from southern Georgia to South Dakota because he'd "always wanted to see Mount Rushmore."  We saw it...and a million prairie dogs, the Badlands, and sunflowers bigger than our heads.  

I remember Dad giving a man in Times Square a bite of his pretzel, just because he asked.  I remember being amazed by the height of the Statue of Liberty and by the mist from Niagara Falls on that same trip.

I remember not being able to take my eyes off of Chimney Rock as we approached from miles away.  I remember driving every back road in Wyoming trying to find wagon-wheel rutts that were supposedly still visible from the Oregon Trail (we never found them) and running around the Dalton Gang hideout with my brother and sister.

I remember peering into the Grand Canyon with my sister while my poor (deathly-afraid-of-heights) mom hollered for us to "get back!"




I remember riding on the back of a horse down the narrowest, steepest trails in Big Bend National Park and walking across the border to Juarez so I could say I'd visited Mexico.  

I remember drinking coffee and eating beignets at Cafe Du Monde...and a muffaletta and Zapps at Central Grocery...and countless other treats shared with my grandparents in New Orleans.

I remember the chills I got when I stepped off of the ferry and onto Fort Sumter during my first trip to Charleston (where Mom took me for my senior trip in high school).  

I remember taking frequent jaunts off of I-40 to ride on the fragments still left of the original Route 66...and sharing a HUGE strawberry shortcake at The Big Texan, a photo opportunity at the Cadillac Ranch, and a creepy night at the historic, haunted St. James Hotel in New Mexico.

The U.S. has such an amazing history and such an awesome span of natural wonders and cultures.  I could honestly write forever about my love for this country.  I feel truly blessed to have been born (although ironically, not in the country) a United States citizen.  Independence Day reminds me not to take that for granted.