When I was a kid growing up, I used to dream about the world outside of where I lived. I wasn’t near any airports, so the only time I ever got to see airplanes were when they were high up in the sky. I told myself that the people on those planes were probably going to visit interesting and exotic places. I, on the other hand, was still stuck in central Illinois.
The first time I ever rode in an airplane, I was 21 years old and I flew to Albuquerque, New Mexico. I haven’t exactly criss-crossed the globe since then, but I’ve seen a lot more of the world than I once thought I would. There’s so many more places to see, and hopefully I’ll get to some of them in the years ahead. New Zealand is particularly high on my list, but almost any place I haven’t seen before would be good enough for me.
WordPress recently began breaking down blog views by the different countries that they originate from, and it’s been quite an eye-opener for me. Things that I’ve written on my computer in Chicago have found their way into more than 100 countries around the world. Today, for instance, people in Mexico, Spain, and Australia have accessed something or another from this website. Most of the page views have come from the U.S.A., but I’m shocked at how far-flung the traffic has been. It’s International love, indeed.
So even if I’ve never been south of the Equator before, and have only a vague idea where Montenegro and Gibraltar are located on the globe, someone in those places has come across something that I wrote. And the kid who used to watch airplanes high up in the sky would be very impressed by that, indeed.
Blue Batting Helmet 
