One of the things I have to be thankful for is the fact that my job takes me to so many wonderful places in the course of a year. I get to enjoy the landscapes and the creatures of so many destinations all across North America, and generally at least one place in Europe. Even at home, I live in place where other’s come to vacation…2 miles from the ocean beaches and the rocky coast, a few miles from Rachel Carson NWR and Wells National Estuarine Research Center. I have a remnant sand plane inland and the southern most peat bog not far north. I just discovered there is a large Nature Conservancy reserve, the Waterboro Barrens, full of rare butterflies and dragonflies, totally unexplored (by me), not 30 miles from my door. Wonderful.

Of course, I realize that the wonder is in me, not in the landscape or even in the creatures. Wonder is something I carry with me when I travel, and the one thing I never have to worry about forgetting to pack. I take no credit for it. I suspect, rationally, and I believe, faithfully, that the capacity for wonder is in us all. Everything I know says we are born with it…it is part of our inheritance as children of God. Over the past few years, through the thousands of people who have touched my life through this blog, and my posts and their post on Facebook and Google+, I have come to appreciate just how universal that sense of wonder is. And that only makes it more wonderful!

This image is from my trip to Bosque del Apache in New Mexico last November. Just one of the wonderful places I got to. My wife and I are making plans for later today to take our sense of wonder out around home here. It is good thing to do on Sunday afternoon. Happy Sunday.