I’m starting to have more of an appreciation for my home town – at least right now while it’s warm. In January, not so much. It was a beautiful day here today so I went downtown to the art fair. After wandering through the booths of a wide variety of wares, I purchased a homemade ice cream sandwich and headed for a park bench facing the river.

There was enough of a breeze to make sitting in the sun just the place to be. As I watched the boats float by on the St. Croix River and the endless stream of cars coming across the bridge from Wisconsin – glad that I was parked up on the hill and walked down – I got to thinking what a really great town this is and how fortunate I am to be able to live here – if I have to live in the Midwest.

No, there isn’t an ocean and the river has no sandy beach, but it is beautiful and I am within three hours of one Great Lake (Superior) and about five or six hours of another (Michigan). And more often than not there is something fun going on in the area, and if no particular event, the restaurants with decks and rooftops are a fun place to be for awhile.

The winters seem so endlessly long and the summers preciously short, so I am going to try to make the most of what is here before the snow flies again.

In two and a have weeks I will be heading out on a huge adventure to Bali, Indonesia. It’s hard to even fathom how far away from home I will be, but it will be incredibly beautiful and very interesting! I know I will enjoy it very much, but have a feeling I will be fine with getting back to the states . . . until the next time somewhere far away calls my name.