~and it all started with a trip to a lighthouse~

Used to be, I never ventured far away from home.  I seldom went anywhere that I could not return back from in more than a day's time.  Not sure why I was like that.  I just was and for 56 years, it worked out pretty well.

Then came 2012 and Maine.

I had always wanted to see a lighthouse and for some reason it just had to be one in Maine.  I truly have no idea where that notion even came from, but I felt it so strongly that in May of 2012, I took out on my own on a cross country journey of slightly more than 1,700 miles one way.  I drove like a crazy person to get there, most days driving at least 500-600 miles in order to arrive midweek.  It was an uneventful trip, well except for the time I had to switch lanes at the last minute about 30 miles out of Boston.  Ok, and there was also a little issue with the stupid traffic in Massachusetts but I have to give myself a bit of credit.  I'd never been on a switchback road before. When I got there, I went straight to the Portland Headlight where I spent the entire afternoon being entertained by the sights, sounds, and smells of the sea.

And that was it.
My time was completed.
I had driven to Maine, witnessed the first lighthouse I had ever seen, and it was time to go home again to Kansas.

And so I did.

That little trip taught me many things about myself, the greatest of which is this.
I learned that I can do anything that I put my mind to, and with ease.  Most people thought I was crazy to go it alone, and right honestly there were times that I thought they probably were right.  Yet I made it, there and back, in less than 6 days.  I was no worse for the wear.

I had to ask a total stranger that was there if she would take a picture of me standing on the porch of the lighthouse keeper's residence.  She was glad to oblige.

It was necessary to ask for help from other folks who were visiting as well, to take my picture on the grounds.  I will always remember them because they spoke not one word of English.  They were visiting from Paris, France and since French is not my second language, it took a minute or two for the conversation to be understood.  Yet a smile is the same no matter where you are from.  They also were glad to help me.

I wonder sometimes if it weren't for the trip to Maine if I would have been brave enough to take out and do other crazy things that would come in the year following this one.  Would I have been able to muster up the courage to travel over 600 miles one way to visit Mike for the first time in Montrose? In the dead of winter?  In the middle of the night?  Over 12,000 ft. Monarch Pass?

I have to wonder.
You know?

For a Kansas farm girl who spent nearly her entire first 56 years of life staying put in the same county, I guess you could say I have come a long ways.  I made enough long trips to Colorado that first 5 months to figure that Mike and I should just get married.  Even at that, the journeys did not cease.  We moved to Texas, 800 miles away from the mountains, last summer.  It sure is different here but yet much the same as my old Kansas home.

I consider myself a fairly decent seasoned traveler now.
And it all started with a trip to a lighthouse.