From finding a motel, making it to dinner, getting the last spots on the morning’s sold-out ferry, seeing a finback whale on the trip back, and having fantastic weather, we felt like winners . . . an all too rare feeling since the 2024 elections.

Is America also in decline? It certainly feels like it. I want to feel about America the way I did
today—enjoying the community joining together to cheer their children on, rooting for each
to win, and all of us just Americans celebrating our country’s birthday.

Friends in Israel cheered Trump; my friends in Iran cursed him and us. All of them are held hostage to heinous governments, just like we are. When are they innocent victims? When will we be?