{"id":2685,"date":"2012-08-04T22:00:31","date_gmt":"2012-08-05T02:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/?p=2685"},"modified":"2024-12-03T17:03:23","modified_gmt":"2024-12-03T22:03:23","slug":"shes-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/?p=2685","title":{"rendered":"She’s Here!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Linda Burton posting from Helena, Montana <\/em>\u2013 \u201cI ate at my first Applebee\u2019s on that trip,\u201d Matthew reminisced during Tuesday\u2019s final goodbyes before I headed for Helena. Grandson Matt was referring to our trip of 2001, when he was almost 10 and we went to three capital cities and three national parks in a three-week period. Helena, Bismarck, and Pierre were the capitals; Glacier, Yellowstone, and the Badlands were the parks.\u00a0I chuckled that he remembered the Helena Applebee\u2019s stop; he didn\u2019t want to go to an unfamiliar place but I promised an oreo shake. He tried something new, and he loved it; the next day we visited the capitol. He loved that too. Little did we know that day just how it would affect our lives. Matt is 20 now; he’s\u00a0studying Japanese with plans to head for Japan next year for more study; he plans to live there, and teach. Matt\u2019s vision expanded under the wide-open skies of Montana; my vision expanded by watching a kid in a capitol.\u00a0That\u2019s why I\u2019m here today. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Matt was a ball of fire that day in 2001; he ran ahead of me up the sidewalk, turned and threw his arms into the air in a great swoop of \"\"<\/a>liveliness. Inside he ogled his eyes upward at the old-fashioned lights, sat grinning on the imposing stairway, posed confidently in front of the governor\u2019s door. Every inch of that capitol building became a part of him, he claimed it all. Outside, he touched the statuary; plopped down on the grass in front of the \u201cMontana 2001\u201d flowerbed. \u201cGet my picture here, GMom\u201d \"\"<\/a>was his request in every spot, and so I did.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The idea of writing something for kids (and for everyone) about capitols and capital cities began to take shape that day. Those pictures sat stored in my photo boxes; waiting for the time to be right. And then it was. Capital Cities USA was created; the Board of Directors was organized; the route was planned for the Journey Across America<\/em>. The Scion needed a design; I wanted to inspire enthusiasm for \u201ccapitol visiting.\u201d The long-ago picture came floating\"\"<\/a> into mind \u2013 Matt, arms up and smiling. It took a while to find the\u00a0pre-digital print, and the image of Matt was small, but the graphic artist took it and ran, pulling the \u201cjoy of the boy\u201d to the front; changing the Boeing emblem on his shirt to \u201cCapital Cities USA.\u201d I was pleased with the result; the Helena capitol representing every capitol in the USA; Matt representing every child, everywhere,\u00a0so in love with life. Be enthusiastic! That’s the message. Be curious! Take risks! Stick to it! Those messages are important too. See the possibilities, I say, no matter what your age.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Dreams can be realized. I thank all my grandkids \u2013 Jeffrey, who used his expertise to\u00a0set up\u00a0this beautiful<\/em> website and helps me keep it working smoothly, tweaking it when it needs a tweak; Jason, who tickled my fancy with\u00a0creative marketing ideas way back when he was only\u00a010 and continues to inspire me with possibilities<\/em> today; Alec, Brett, Matthew, Justin, Jake, Andrew, and Kaitlyn, who are s0 diligently immersed in their studies and in building a solid future for themselves, doing great<\/em>; Kayla and\u00a0Sam, who just revved my life up a notch by\u00a0helping me explore Honolulu and Juneau, with enthusiasm<\/em>.\u00a0Here I am today, arms up!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Linda Burton posting from Helena, Montana \u2013 \u201cI ate at my first Applebee\u2019s on that trip,\u201d Matthew reminisced during Tuesday\u2019s final goodbyes before I headed for Helena. Grandson Matt was referring to our trip of 2001, when he was almost 10 and we went to three capital cities and three national parks in a three-week […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4586,814],"tags":[845,844,3071,846,838,171,850,3069,847,841,840,842,843,673,837,3070,849,848],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2685"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2685"}],"version-history":[{"count":71,"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27274,"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2685\/revisions\/27274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}