Very large. When I was a young boy I looked at maps and globes and learned where I was. I hadn’t traveled very far and didn’t know then how large the world is. One of my first memories of traveling far from home was when I flew from Denver with my sisters to visit my Grandparents in Fort Lauderdale Florida. I remember being in the airplane sitting beside the window and looking down to the ocean very far below.
We were between the mainland and Florida over the Gulf of Mexico recently renamed as the Gulf of America. Eventually I saw land below and that was Florida. When we arrived in Fort Lauderdale my Grandparents picked us up at the Airport. One of the first things I noticed was the humidity. I could feel dampness in the warm air. It was thick and I loved it. I remember on the drive to their home looking out of the car window and noticing how different the trees looked from the trees back in the dry arid climate of Colorado.
When we arrived at their condo a gate opened, and we drove under the building into a large parking garage. We got out of the car and put our luggage on a dolly with four wheels and a handle just like in a hotel. We rolled our luggage to an elevator and rode in the elevator many floors up to their floor very high in the building. Their floor looked very different from the lobby area of the condo where we stopped briefly. Their floor had several doors on it. We rolled our luggage to my Grandparents door where there were fancy decorations and entered there home.
Their home was very fancy. It was clean and bright, and everything looked good to me. I noticed a large wall at one end of their home that was almost all window. With my Grandpa I walked out onto the patio. The patio was long with a solid gate built around it. The patio was the whole length of the building and looked out over the beach and shore and Atlantic Ocean below. That was the first time I saw the ocean.
Later that day we put on our bathing suits and went down to the beach. I loved it. I recommend you visit a beach if you haven’t been to one. There is no beach in Colorado. We all had fun playing on the beach and I went swimming not far into the waves and ocean. The salt water and sand felt so good. The water was warm and the waves were powerful. We collected sea shells in a bag and enjoyed being together on the beach. I have many good memories from that summer vacation.
Back at home in Colorado I looked at maps of America and the world and globes with a new perspective. I could see where Florida is on a map in relation to Colorado and looked at the dot on the map of Boulder in Colorado the city where I’m from and the dot on the map of Fort Lauderdale in Florida where my Grandparents lived. I saw the distance between the cities and looked farther. I’ve been looking farther since.
Interest or not 