We like to travel!

Someone made a crabby comment to me recently about our travels. Seems I irked someone by sending our Christmas greetings and detailing where we went last year. I'm not going to stop traveling and I probably won't stop putting that info in our Christmas letters because many more kind, genuine, non-jealous, loving friends commented on how great it is we do get to travel here and there.

I grew up in Springville, Utah. I didn't get on a plane until I was 19. I didn't leave the United States until I was 28 (the 4-minute trip into Tijuana when I was about 12 doesn't count). Even still, the trip at 28 was one my friend Leslee and I won to Acapulco and I didn't travel abroad again for quite a few years. I think that trip did it though - getting on a plane and being somewhere totally different and exotic just a few hours later, seeing new things, meeting local people of a different country, eating the food of the area - I was hooked. Yet we really didn't travel much until we moved to Utah 12 years ago - picking up Jason from Taiwan and Andrea from Argentina, going to Tahiti for Riley's research and traveling to other countries with Riley for bug meetings. In fact, we've only taken two trips that weren't tied to bug meetings, research, a contest win or picking up missionaries - that was Paris in 2010 and England last year.

This is something Riley and I enjoy - traveling to a new country, seeing new sights, taking pictures, making new memories and hopefully new friends. We aren't "thing" people - we don't buy all the latest gadgets, we don't drive new cars, we are pretty frugal people. We save up Skymiles and find other ways to be frugal even when traveling. Riley travels a lot more than I do yet the past two years I've been able to get away about 20 days of the year. That leaves 345 days here at home to take care of our needs, my 82-year-old mother's needs (and there are quite a few under her umbrella), our cabin, my job, my church callings, helping in my neighborhood and town, working on personal goals and just generally trying to keep up with all the demands. Traveling also lets me get away from demands. It lets me rest my brain from all the "needs" here at home. I think I am due that once in a while.

I won't grant anyone the chance to make me feel bad for leaving for 20 days a year because they think it's unfair or they don't get to or they are jealous or whatever their reason is. We aren't wealthy people but we are blessed with a wealth of good friends and abundant memories, some made in distant lands. That's part of the fun of life, isn't it, to explore?