Daydreaming of other lands

October 31: I've started checking on airfares for a couple of trips next year--Norway in March, to go skiing with two of my sisters-in-law; and China in July to see a total eclipse of the sun (with a three-week stop in Hawaii on the way). That got me thinking about passports, and I hauled out my collection--which starts with my first independent passport, when I was 14 (but doesn't include my first two or three, when I was on my mother's passport . . . I wonder if she still has those?). Babar, with the camera around his neck, is my little travel idol: he sits on my desk and reminds me that there's a big world out there.