文 / 图片 Peter Freund
V行者按：
本日志作者 Peter Freund 是我们微看世界团队美国线路负责人，2016年和2017年暑假的行走美国，Peter为我们介绍了非常友好的住宿家庭，安排了很多当地特色的活动。在他的帮助下，我们的美国的理解，越来越立体，越丰富。
有了过去两年大孩子（12-18岁）行走美国的经验积累，小童版本的（6-12岁）美国行终于要和大家见面了。从大童到小童，行程设计上需要做很多调整。微看团队（中国）和Peter经过半年多筹备，已经基本完成。行程最终版本将于本周日（3月18日）上午10点对外公布（有过预约的家庭会单独发送，提前收到）。
本文是Peter在给小童行走美国行探路时写的探路日志，文字轻松活泼，又不乏思考。推荐给大家，相信你们一定会喜欢。
PS：为了最大限度贴近小童行走家长和孩子们的需求，Peter探路时是全家总动员。妻子Kim，大儿子Jack-10岁，小儿子Hudson-6岁。一家人一起周游世界，是多么的幸福和浪漫呀。今年暑期，他们一家也会全程和中国家庭一起旅行，一起交流中美文化，一起做各种有趣的事情。
Colorado, San Juan Mountains - Wolf Creek Pass, 10,812 feet
This morning I met a local lady at the gas station having coffee talking to a few locals in the small town of Pagosa Springs, Colorado. We had just decamped in an icy field by a mountain river at 8100 feet and my toes were still frozen from the night. She asked if we were headed to the mountains, and I told he were actually just coming down, trying to warm up a little. Most people only come out here this time of year to ski, not camp. But in the summer, it’s beautiful and green with cool evenings and bright stars. We can’t wait to go back in summer weather.
I told the lady we were headed to the Grand Canyon and she said she had never been there. At first I was surprised - we were just a couple hundred miles away and she had lived here 17 years but never visited? But this is life - if we don’t make it a priority to explore around us, most people never venture out 50 or 60 miles from where they were born.
She also told me her grandmother had offered to take her when she was a girl, but she had given her a choice - go to the Grand Canyon or go shopping. She laughed and told me how foolish she had been and she wondered what she bought and how long she had worn those clothes and how it wasn’t worth it. It’s important to give our kids choices, but it’s just as important to guide them to make wise decisions. I almost wanted to invite this lady to join us.
Yesterday, our first day on the road, we went to Great Sand Dunes National Park, the first of four national parks we will tour on this trip. We are trying to find some great places to share with our Chinese friends this summer when they visit the US. I learned on my first trip to Europe in 1997, the first time I ever traveled on my own, that I hated being a tourist. I quickly learned that travel was only meaningful if I had an opportunity to connect with the local culture in some way. So now I hate to visit a new country if I cannot stay with locals or meet friends to show me around. We hope we can give that opportunity to our friends, old and new, when they come to America.
So, the National Park we went to yesterday: Right in the middle of two mountain chains, a huge wall of sand has been piling up for thousands of years. Our first stop on our trip afforded a unique geology lesson for all of us. Usually national parks have a lot of geology and frankly it’s mostly boring or simple. But my 10year old son, Jack, immediately saw how cool this lesson was — thanks to the wind patterns whipping sand off the river miles away and blowing it across the San Luis Valley, he could go “sand boarding” down these hundred-foot tall dunes. It was like our own desert and beach in the middle of the mountains at 7000 feet in cool dry mountain air. And we could play there as much as we wanted with no fences, no rules, and no worries.
To make it more interesting, on the drive there, we started reading a book about a boy catching a wild stallion on the dunes and breaking it with the help of a crazy old man. Visualizing the story became so much easier as we drove by landmarks and crept up on the dunes. And the story helped us learn more about the local ranch life and culture of the mountain people. We even saw a heard of wild antelope galloping across the fields in front of the dunes as we entered the park.
Many of the parks we are visiting this week will be formed by erosion and the powerful forces of wind and water. While we’re trying to learn about the history of the ancient indian peoples who lived here hundreds of years, it’s also cool to reflect on the nature itself. Could it be a mistake that some of God’s most beautiful places on earth took thousands if not millions of years to form? If only we were this patient in our own lives. I usually hate the storms of life that send me off course, that chip away at my perfect plan for my own life. But maybe the natural challenges that strike my life will form something even more beautiful than I can imagine, let alone control in my own life. And this is a valuable lesson for my boys too - how do we handle adversity and change as life seems to wear us down? How do you teach your children to face hard things? How do you show them a good example when life washes away some of your hopes and dreams?
