An amazing new goal

I love to travel. I’m not the kind of person who does the “if it’s Tuesday it must be Paris” tours either. Instead, I like to go places and poke around for as long as possible. When people ask me where I’d like to travel, it’s easier to tell them the few places I wouldn’t like to go: places with active wars or genocide. That’s it.

But there are some places that I want to go more than others. When I was a little kid, someone gave me an old stamp collection that had a first day cover in it. That envelope had an explanation of Admiral Byrd’s expedition to Antarctica. That was all it took. I wanted to go to someplace that remote and beautiful. Just think! Antarctica! I looked up Admiral Byrd in the encyclopedia. I imagined trying to outfit an expedition of that sort. I daydreamed about penguins and huge sheets of ice. Heck I was thrilled to see penguins at Sea World in San Diego. I pretended we were really in Antarctica.

But it wasn’t until recently that I realized it was actually possible for non-explorers and non-scientists to go to Antarctica. We could really go! The only thing was, for even just my husband and myself to get there, the trip would start at about $15,000. $15,000!

That’s uh, a lot. Really a lot. And a few years ago I didn’t see how we could possibly save up that kind of money. But now I know that we can. Even on top of our other goals.

You see, I want it badly enough. So I’m setting up the Antarctica account, and will be doing other things that will help us get there. Reaching a goal is easier when something really captures your imagination.