My Country Tis of Thee

I want to attend a hot air balloon festival in Alabama (and hopefully ride in one). I want to just see Alaska first hand, and take one of those tiny scary planes to get there. I've already seen the Grand Canyon, Painted Desert, Highway 69, and the Petrified Forest in Arizona, but I want to take my kids there one day and watch their faces light up. I want to see the Hot Springs National Park in Arkansas and stomp grapes, make wine and drive along side the shore in California. I want to go skiing in Colorado, and attended a play at the Westport County Playhouse in Connecticut. I want to watch the sun set behind a historical light house in Delaware, and go to Stone Mountain Park and the Underground of Atlanta in Georgia. I think I'll go to Disney World in Florida and maybe even take a wild spring break at Panama City Beach. I want to see the volcanoes in Hawaii and lay on the beach, and on the total flip side I want to go to the Idaho Potato Museum. I've seen the Bean and been to top of the Sear tower in Chicago, Illinois, but I'd love to go to a Gay Pride parade. I want to hear the roar of race cars at the Indy 500 in Indiana, and while I go to school in Iowa I want to go to the crookedest street in the World, Snake Alley. And I suppose I've lived in Kansas my entire life but I'd love to get out and attend the symphony in the Flint Hills. I want to watch and bet on a horse in the Kentucky Derby (& hopefully win), I want to earn beads (sorry parents) at Mardi Gras in New Orleans, Louisiana and eat lobster in Maine. I want to go to a Baltimore Ravens game in Maryland and visit the Salem Witch Trails site on my way to Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts. One day, I'd like to go sail boating on the Great Lakes in Michigan, and go to the Mall of America in Minnesota. I want to take an RV and go camping in Mississippi, and while I've been to the Arch and the lakes of Missouri I've always wanted to go to Silver Dollar City. White water rafting is something I've always thought would be fun so maybe I'll do it in Montana, and once I make it to Nebraska I've heard amazing things about their Zoo. It would be pretty cool to spend my 21 birthday in Las Vegas, Nevada, and maybe see Cirque De Soleil. I'll have to start working out more but I'd love to climb Mount Monadnock in New Hampshire. I'd love to walk along the Jersey Shore in New Jersey and I want to fully explore the culture of Albuquerque, New Mexico. I want to stand in Time Square on New Years Eve in New York and have a midnight kiss with someone I love. & it would be so cool to stand on top of a mountain in North Carolina one day and be on the beach looking for sea shells the next day. I want to learn to pick corn in North Dakota, and I want to spend a weekend in Ohio just to say I have. I've been to the Oklahoma City Bombing Memorial site, but I want to take my kids there just to show them that some times bad things do happen to good people. I'd like to explore the end of the Oregon Trail, and see the Liberty Bell in Pennsylvania. Perhaps take a Newport Harbor Tour and see the Victorian Natural History Museum in Rhode Island. I'd like to take a mini vacation and head to Myrtle Beach in South Carolina, or go to Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. I've always wanted to see the Elvis Presley Museum in Tennessee after seeing it on Full house, and I've seen the spot where JFK was assassinated but after making the Alamo out of sugar cubes in fourth grade I'd like to see it in person when I go back to Texas. I want to go to Salt Lake City in Utah just to see what all the fuss is about, and have some syrup in Vermont. In Virginia I'd want to see Colonial Williamsburg, and in West Virginia I'd like to explore a coal mine.  In Washington it would be cool to see Mount Saint Helen's, then I'd go to a Green Bay Packers game in Wisconsin (and take my lovely roommate), and lastly I'd go to one of the most haunted places in Wyoming, The Sweetwater County Library. 

I know this is a long post, and no one probably read it, but lets be honest, I don't care, I blog for me not for you (sorry!). But I believe as a fairly wealthy country we should help other countries. But there are a lot of problems in America that we have to address too. Like the tornadoes that have recently ripped through tornado ally leaving towns devastated, for example Joplin, MO and Reno, OK. I think sometimes I forget that our country has its own problems and on the flip side, its own beauty, that I over look. Part of my schools mission statement is to become a global citizen, and while I want to travel to all of those different countries, I'm going to be a teacher, a mother, I have to be realistic. My mom tells me every day that our country is becoming a melting pot, so instead of focusing so hard on trying to get out, I feel like I should explore the country people seem to be fleeing to.