When I have personal travel upcoming, unless it’s specifically relevant to topics at hand (e.g. “I can’t do that meeting because I’ll be on PTO”; “I won’t be in town that weekend when you come because I’ll be in X city for vacation”), I rarely share it openly unless directly asked. I’m not the kind of person who likes to flaunt or brag, and I’m cognizant that even if that isn’t my intention, people can *hear* it that way because… well, people are people, and people are flawed. Chris’s mom has said she’s felt that way about sharing her travels at work, too. I’ve generally not shared openly unless asked.

So, today I told my colleague that I’d be in Colombia for about five days, and she exclaimed, “What?!!! You didn’t tell me you were going to Colombia!” It’s not like I purposely held it back; I just didn’t really know how relevant it was or if she even cared. And the other thing was: even if she now knew, does it really matter whether I told her two months ago or today? What difference does it really make unless she’d been there before (she hadn’t) or was the kind of person who discussed travel? While some of my friends share little to nothing about where they go and what they do, I have other friends who tell me their exact dates and cities when they travel. Everyone has their level of sharing and reasons for doing so, I suppose. But in my case, I just want to talk about what is relevant in the moment.

This Wednesday, we’re headed to Colombia for an early start to our extended Memorial Day weekend. I’ve gotten quite a lot of responses to this destination, everything from excitement to envy to downright, “Are you crazy? why are you going there?” A customer said he didn’t think it was safe for us to go there and said he’d never in his life want to go there and was happy just where he was; a partner suggested I watch my back and my purse at all costs. A colleague suggested I be careful and not drink any of the water there.

I’ve gotten all kinds of cautionary messages when traveling everywhere from China to India to Brazil. A friend who was worried about traveling to India kept recounting all the rapes of women and tourists there from media reports, and that even when accompanied by a man, it doesn’t make it safe for a woman to be walking around in the streets of India (in other words, just because I’m with Chris doesn’t mean I will no longer be a “target”). In general, I’d like to think I’m not a “dumb tourist” in that I always keep my purse in front of me, and I never flash a lot of cash in public or wear obviously expensive jewelry when traveling. But most of the time, I try not to think about that kind of stuff. It’s not that I’m being ignorant to the warnings, but rather I know that if I think about it too much, I will start getting nervous, and it would probably ruin my trip. I can’t foresee the future, and I can’t predict what bad things will happen because bad things happen around me every single day no matter where I am. Even though I consider New York City an extremely safe city to live in and walk around at all hours of the day and night, I still hear about friends of friends or acquaintances who have had their iPhones or other expensive electronics stolen from them, a few right out of their hands on the subway or on the subway platform. What are we going to do about that?

Because West Branch, the town where the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum is located, is two hours east of Des Moines, we unfortunately didn’t have enough time to see or do anything else on our last day in Iowa. But I actually got a glimpse of Herbert Hoover that I’d never quite seen before. In school, I feel like my history classes glossed over Hoover as a president. He was the president of the U.S. during the Great Depression and eventually got pushed out by FDR. He’s often been noted as one of the worst and most useless presidents in U.S. history. He’s also been blamed for exacerbating the Great Depression, as well.

But I didn’t realize that before he became president, he was well respected as an engineer and eventually as a humanitarian during World War I by leading hunger-relief efforts in Europe as the head of the American Relief Administration. Many people in Belgium looked at him as a savior since he provided food for those suffering famine. It’s odd that someone who was so helpful to Europeans during a time of crisis and who had traveled to and lived in Australia and China would not only be isolationist but also conservative and perceived as callous, insensitive, and unaware.

Visiting presidential libraries has educated me about U.S. history in a way that my history classes in school never did. Of course, the presidential libraries are always going to paint each respective president in a flattering way, so. it will take some effort and proactivity to read between the lines. It would be a good idea to do a tour of presidential libraries as a child, as well as of the vast variety of history museums, to supplement all children’s learning in this country… though it would certainly be costly. But it would provide a more well-rounded perspective of what this country is actually made of.

After doing some exploration in the Des Moines area yesterday, we did a day trip to Omaha, Nebraska, and went into my 44th state (and Chris’s 46th state). My general feeling of Omaha is that it seems more interesting of a place to visit than Des Moines, with a few more tourist attractions, including the Durham Museum and overall better art museums, as well as a few quirky neighborhoods that would warrant some extra strolling and exploring. It also helps that Warren Buffet is from here (and, well, he still lives here, in the same house he bought in 1958 for $31,500)!. We actually drove past his house just to take a look at it.

Chris and I almost never check any bags during our travel, and especially during three-day weekend trips around the country; that would be nearly blasphemy to him. The only exceptions to this are to and from Australia (for things like Christmas gifts, packing his supply of Arnott’s Tim Tams and other chocolates until his next trip), or places like Japan and Korea (where we all know I will be stocking up on beauty products and green tea/cherry-blossom/Asian-flavors of all things I can put in my mouth). We didn’t even check bags to and from Italy, Spain, or Portugal — all delicious foodie places where I could have easily brought back a lot of wine, olive oil, sardines, etc. But when we went to the Old Market Farmers Market, one of the most popular farmers’ markets that is open on Saturdays here in Omaha, somehow we all found ourselves captivated by the It’s All About Bees honey stand, which makes and sells raw and flavored honeys, jams, as well as other body products made from local honey. Honeys, with their antibacterial properties and health benefits, have gotten quite expensive, so it was actually a surprise to see these honeys which were raw and still reasonably priced, whether it was for a small 6 oz. container or a larger 24 oz. container. Their variety of honey was extremely extensive, and they generously allow you to sample pretty much all of them. We collectively ended up buying six jars of honey, mostly driven because Chris’s mom wanted to buy some, so Chris said that since this would require a checked bag that we might as well buy some, too. We bought all three of their varieties of raw honey (plain, orange blossom, and buckwheat), and also the lavender (I’m currently obsessed with all things lavender that are edible and even bought a bag of organic lavender for cooking purposes — it’s so good!). To think that we ended up checking a bag from a place like Iowa/Nebraska over Italy or Spain!!

The most amusing thing to me about visiting farmers markets around the country is that even when you might think that things may be cheaper just because you’re no longer in a major city, this definitely is almost never the case with “trendy” or “yuppie” products like hand-crafted soaps, lip balms, hand salves, and coffee. While the honey was cheaper than what I was expecting, all the pricing for these other items we saw were competitive with farmers’ markets back in San Francisco and New York — about $3.50-4 for lip balms, $10-20 for hand salves, and $16-18 for a 12 oz. bag of locally roasted (and very strong) whole coffee beans (wow – that’s just like Stumptown pricing!). The coffee stand we stopped at for a sample even had Keurig cups for their coffee. I marveled at this. “Hey, I’m a capitalist so….” the vendor said, smiling.

I suppose the demand for these items is everywhere, so everywhere a segment of the population will always be wiling to pay these higher prices for what they perceive to be a higher quality good.