Nature: the Great Unifier

As we’ve traveled across the USA and Canada this summer, we’ve found one thing true wherever we’ve gone and whatever we’ve seen. The beauty of nature draws us all in, no matter who we are. Whether we lean red, blue or purple; read the Bible, Koran or Torah; whether we speak English, Spanish or Chinese; ride in a car, on a Harley or a bicycle, nature is there, available to everyone and we forget who we are in its awesome presence.

In Yellowstone National Park recently, we heard English, Spanish, Portuguese, German, French, Italian, Japanese and Chinese (I’m sure more). But the wide-open eyes of awe on the faces of children and adults alike was translatable across all of these languages.

On just this roadtrip, we’ve been fortunate enough to have seen and visited Acadia National Park, the puffins off the coast of Maine, a whale on our ferry ride to Nova Scotia, Cape Breton Island’s amazing terrain, a deer swimming across the bay of Port Medway, the Adirondacks and Green Mountains from Lake Champlain, the beautiful coastline of northern Michigan, the splendid shores of the Door Peninsula in Wisconsin, the parched earth of the Badlands, the rolling hills and ranch land of Wyoming and the awesome land of ice and fire and roaming bison in Yellowstone Park. We’ve seen incredible sunrises and sunsets; brilliant stars in dark sky country and the northern lights. And we’re not done yet.

One thing this trip has proved, yet again, is that this country of ours and the world is a beautiful place, and its unifying beauty is something to behold, if we can only make time to do it.