Photos-of-the-Week #194 - From Sea to Shining Sea and Gulf to Lake, America the Beautiful, 2014 - 2015

From Sea - The Atlantic Ocean

To Shining Sea - The Pacific Ocean

From the Gulf Shores - The Gulf of Mexico

To the Great Lakes - Lake Erie

I've been sitting here in sunny, warm southern California enjoying the time I'm spending with my son as I await the recovery of My McVansion from it's "heart attack" (engine failure). I began recapping the past 12 months of travel My McVansion and I have enjoyed and experienced. I have literally been from sea to shining sea and from the Gulf to the Lakes. What a wonderful year.

So, all I can say is that life is good and personal freedom makes it even better. Don't misinterpret my thought. It's not like there haven't been a few challenges and adversities. Of course, there have been some of those. Life would be pretty boring if everything was perfect all the time. And it's certainly not that I haven't been to both oceans and the Gulf of Mexico and the Great Lakes before (although it has been a long, long time since I've been to the Great Lakes). But, to experience all four extremes of our beautiful country over land, without the assistance of an airliner, within a 12 month period is definitely a first for me.

I was actually at the Atlantic a second time and at the Hudson River, the north shore of the Long Island Sound, on the shores of several of the Finger Lakes in New York State, at Ocean Pond (a large lake in northern Florida) and Lake Jackson in Sebring, Florida as well as crossing the Ohio River (at several crossings) and the Mississippi River again and at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi River, a place I've never crossed the Mississippi river before. I was next to the torrents of water passing over Niagara Falls and found several other waterfalls in New York State, one of which had a longer vertical drop than Niagara Falls. And there has been so much more and even more to come.

The amazing thing is that I've only begun to scratch the surface of seeing this great continent and country. It's not like I haven't been traveling most of my adult life through college and ever since. But, it's different now. I get to see it all from the ground view rather than the eagle's view. Additionally, I get to see it on my terms, not the terms of some business deadline that had to be met.

If you're a fellow traveler, you know exactly what I'm saying. If you're not, you don't know what you're missing. Americana is waiting for your and calling you.