3 minute read
A Geography Hobby
from March 2022 KAPPAN
Mary Krause, CA Beta Tau, has embarked on an amazing journey with her husband, Paul. Their goal is to visit every county in the US.
Traveling has always been a part of our life. From our map you can see that we have lived in various places in the US. Since both of us were educators, we had time off in the summers and at certain times throughout the year that could help us attain our goal. Where we lived also contributed to how we visited all the counties in the US. When we were first married, we spent time in South Dakota, as Paul was a seasonal Park Ranger at the Badlands National Monument, now a National Park. So, traveling to that destination each of three summers allowed us to explore areas we had never been to on our travels to and from, never using the same way to get there and back. Later, when we both taught at Eastern Illinois University, Paul arranged two summer trips for students accompanied by us for six weeks to see as many National Parks as we could. We tent camped every night, and it is still hard to believe that we were willing and capable of doing that type of thing. Of course, each year had a different way of getting to and from our destination, and then the counties started to add up. Later, when we had a really cold winter in Illinois, we decided to go west. We ended up teaching at Chico, CA: Chico State for Paul and Chico Unified for me. So now, we had more places to visit, and we did. California is a huge state with many states bordering it. We certainly took advantage of that as we drove cross-country to get there.
What happened after that? Well, we have been to a lot of places. Getting older, we took opportunities to attend Alpha Delta Kappa conferences in areas that we wanted to visit. At that point, we planned our route getting to those places early to explore counties around those destinations. Later, we decided that we needed to visit as many National Parks as possible that we had not visited in our younger years. This always led us to visit nearby areas as well. Then, we realized the accumulations of counties we had built.
As a side note, our children are extremely well traveled, too, probably more than most children today. They spent a year in New Zealand and Australia. They had to travel with us no matter what. Even today, we make them meet us in very remote areas at holiday time, for example. They don’t complain, and they get it. Our son Adam tolerates us and drives us around to new destinations. Of course, he too accumulates counties. Now to pull all this together. All these experiences helped me to look at the United States to see how much we are alike, but truly different in many respects because of where we live. This country is huge, and we all have different ways of how our lives are related. Some of us are rural, some of us are cosmopolitan, but overall, as educators we wish to make everyone’s lives better, and education is the only way. We must make sure our educators are smart and paid well enough to make the differences for our students in every county in the United States. Hope to see you all on our next adventure.
Interview by Susan Whelan, KAPPAN staff writer. Mary Krause has been a member for 29 years and served as California State Historian.
“Since you cannot do good to all, you are to pay special attention to those who, by the accidents of time, or place, or circumstances, are brought into closer connection with you.” ~Augustine of Hippo
Catherine Bart, VA Gamma Mu
