Has a book ever inspired you to travel to a particular destination? --- YES, of course they have! - I'm lucky I got to actually visit a few!

[PinkSodaPop]

One particular book that really muchly inspired me to think and dream of far off places and that beckoned me to visit was...   'Treasure Island'  by Robert Louis Stevenson.

I had first read the book when I was like 8 or 9, and then when I was 11 years old I actually got to live where Robert Louis Stevenson had been inspired by and visit his actual house on location.

American Samoa --- One of the cook Islands somewhat near Australia.

It was a beautiful paradise... 
For almost 3 years I lived in a complete and utterly fantastic tropical paradise.

I would play in the ocean and see a vibrant underwater world full of tropical fish and corals in every color of the rainbow. --- I actually compare it to the scenes you see in the Disney movie Finding Nemo...it's very much like that, so much life and in abundance!

This place was ever so cool, I could actually put my finger under a rock in a tidepool and pull out a seahorse ---- on any given day!

I loved playing in the jungle with banana trees and papaya trees all around me with ready and ripe fruit for the taking! --- I especially loved the tiny banana's appropriately named after the 'white' people who'd visited so long ago ... 'Palangi'  --- tiny bananas! --- Because Samoans are big in stature... I guess this is what inspired this thinking.

Coconuts! --- You haven't lived until you had a REAL coconut, and not those ugly old brown dried out ones you get in the states.
Coconuts ripen in stages, they are sometimes filled with sweet cream and you can scoop the entire insides out with your fingers like whipped topping! (Super sweet and creamy and just so wonderful!)

I had a wonderful time exploring jungles, making 'forts' and all of it was much safer than my own front yard could ever dream to be.



I was allowed to explore and play within the big 'banyan' trees...they are so pretty and very unusual with all their roots exposed and high above you ....They appeared like tree's that had been uprooted and dressed with stilts on!


I also got to visit Robert Louis Stevenson's home there in Western Samoa, it was a beautiful mansion, and such an awesome opportunity! ----  I'll never soon forget.




I'll never forget Robert Louis Stevenson....a wonderful poet and story writer that cannot be compared ----At least for me, because .. I have  lived 'Treasure Island'.

[Lb128f]

May. 28, 2009 at 11:12 PM

Cool!!

[shell81]

May. 29, 2009 at 12:13 AM

Very nice!