Wherever we go across the Pacific or Atlantic we meet not similarity so much as 'the bizarre'. Things astonish us when we travel that surprise nobody else.

You travel across the country you visit departments you give talks you talk about the work at your laboratory - what's going on what the opportunities are there - you talk about your own research.

It's hard now to imagine that kind of travel and the daily tasks they simply took for granted. If a wagon axle broke you had to stop and carve a new one. To cross a river you sometimes had to build a raft.

But as far as being an American and loving this country and getting a chance to travel across it every day and meeting people on the road and folks in the military I love this country on so many different levels.

I'm terrified of bugs and I travel with sprays lotions potions the lot. I have to check the room before I go to sleep and if I come across a bug and fail to remove it I have to sleep in a separate room as I'm paranoid that I'll be taken advantage of as I sleep.

For many years it seemed as if nothing changed in Norway. You could leave the country for three months travel the world through coups d'etat assassinations famines massacres and tsunamis and come home to find that the only new thing in the newspapers was the crossword puzzle.

Don Quixote's 'Delusions' is an excellent read - far better than my own forthcoming travel book 'Walking Backwards Across Tuscany.'

There are so many things I want to do. Like I want to get an artist a musician a photographer and a bunch of dancers that I know and just travel across Africa and just film it and just see what happens. Do and learn as much as I possibly can. Luckily I have a lot more time.

The good news is that real-world hands-on conservation is alive and well and catching on across the America I travel.

I am going to spend my time today just thanking the people that played a role in my career because I truly do believe that I was blessed by a lot of people that paths crossed mine as I went down the road in my career.