Bishop Gerald Causse used to live near Paris. During the 22 years he lived there, he took his family on annual trips to see the "monuments, historic sites, and natural wonders of Europe," but as they were about to move away from Paris, his children pointed out to him how "shameful" it was that they had lived near Paris for 22 years and hadn't gone to see the Eiffel Tower.
Like Bishop Causse, we all have occasional desires to go on trips to visit great places and to see natural wonders, not realizing that we already live in great places and that we are surrounded by natural wonders. I live in Sacramento, the Capitol of California. Here, we have the Capitol Building, Downtown Sacramento, great rivers and bridges, an amazing bike trail, hundreds of parks, and hundreds of thousands of trees. Sure, I could go to a forest if I wanted to see a lot of trees. I could go to the coast if I wanted to go on a great bike trip. Or I could go to a bigger city if I wanted to take a walk downtown. Or I could do all of those things here.
Other places may have different interesting sites and natural wonders, but every place has its own attractions. Instead of going to different countries, or even different states, looking for great places to visit, we can save ourselves a lot of time and transportation money by visiting the great places in our own areas. Of course, there's nothing wrong with traveling the world, seeing the famous monuments, but there's nothing wrong with staying home either. Sometimes I think people get so caught up in visiting the amazing places beyond the horizon that they forget that there are amazing places right in their own backyard.
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