Wow, smilinize! It sounds like you could write your own book! I'm particularly intrigued by the fact that once you went "all the way around the world." Tell me more about that!

I had to laugh at your France-tennis shoes anecdote. I can absolutely picture that happening. Parisians do have a somewhat inflated view of their little slice of the world. I found, though, that their willingness to meet me at least halfway increased in direct proportion to the increase in my fluency in French. The better I spoke their language, the kinder they treated me. I also noticed that the mildly irritating haughty attitude ends at the Paris city limits. I've traveled to many other parts of France, including Brittany and Normandy in the north and Provence and the Cote d'Azur in the south, and the people, while quiet and reserved, were lovely, welcoming and gracious. Paris is a phenomenon unto itself. Take it with a grain of salt and a dash of humor.

Generally, I've found in my travels that there are more things that unite people than divide them. It's extraordinary to absorb and experience the rich cultural differences that exist around the world, but at bottom, people are people, and travel teaches you that we're all in this together. That lesson is the main reason why I've made vagabonding part of my kids' lives. Travel has helped them develop into curious, empathetic teenagers who have zero tolerance for racism or any other-ism. I'm proud of them.

My son just returned from a high school trip to Greece. (If you cruise the March archives in my blog, http://RibbonsofHighway.blogspot.com , you'll find 10 fun posts about places they visited.) In a newspaper article I wrote about the trip, I used a quote from one of the kids' Greek guides. A student asked the guide how the Greeks felt about the war in Iraq. Her answer: "The more you travel, the more you realize that the things that are important to you are the things that are important to everyone. You know what we care about in Greece? We care about our families, our homes, our country, our religion. And we don't want to lose our young men."

It sounds like you've had an interesting life so far, smilinize. What is your Indian heritage? On our trip across America, I made it a point to include many Native American areas and communities in our journey. A trip that ignored the lives, traditions and heritage of the country's first people would be an incomplete picture of this nation. We spent time absorbing as much as we could of Indian cultures like the Navajo, the Jicarilla Apache, the great Acoma pueblo community at Acoma Sky City in New Mexico, the Pojoaque, Tesuque and San Ildefonso who live near Santa Fe, the Sioux in South Dakota and around Devil's Tower in Wyoming, the Crow near Little Bighorn in Montana, Wisconsin's Chippewa, who harvest wild rice that grows along the shores of the Great Lakes, the Seneca Nation in western New York.

Yes, smilinize, you got it right when you said "the U.S. is the best and most diverse place to travel and live." It is amazing.

Talk to you all later,
Lori