mountains

 Today is "International Mountain Day" according to my west coast brother.  He lives where he can see mountains whereas I live in northern Indiana which is quite level.  Some years ago I was showing properties near Woodburn to a client from California.  Some of you will know that that area was originally part of the Great Black Swamp which stretched from east of Fort Wayne well into Ohio, so it is very flat.  As we were driving around, the client said "You don't have many mountains around here do you?" to which I replied "No, but we do flat very well."  I'm happy to say that he has adjusted well to living on flat land.  I do love mountains, but I will admit, when I've come home from driving trips out west I have found it very relaxing to be back to driving on level ground.  But thinking about international mountains, one of the most amazing sights I've ever seen was during a trip to Italy.  Don't get me wrong, we have glorious mountains here in the USA, but on that trip we flew from Chicago to Amsterdam and then south to Venice.  That meant we were flying over the Alps.  It was a clear day and I had a window seat.  The view of miles and miles of snow covered peaks absolutely dazzled me.  I had a view of the Alps in the distance when I was in Switzerland this fall; they were beautiful but not nearly as impressive as the overhead view.