Traveling Thoughts

I was fortunate to have had a childhood with a great deal of adventures. Much of that time was spent on a large area of land near our home in Brazil, where the native vegetation remained mostly untouched. There were lots of big trees and dense shrubbery. We would play games and explore areas where we imagined no one had set foot before us. This sense of wonder stretched out beyond our neighborhood, inspired by books, movies, my siblings and our parents' continuous teachings on many subjects including geography and politics. I remember certain things more vividly, like when my father brought home a giant world map and hung it in our living room. We'd spend time together, learning about distant lands and imagining ourselves visiting them. Alongside this, my mother would often share her dream of traveling by car through the Americas. Many years later, she would make a portion of that dream a reality by embarking on a cross-country journey by car and train across the United States...