The closest I'd ever gotten was a trip with Mom and Dad to Austin, Texas, through hill country: gently curving roads dissected by giant oaks, rolling rivers, and fields of bluebonnets so bountiful you'd think you'd stepped right into the heart of the ocean.

The colors melded in nature's tableau - green and blue and gold: the land, the sea, the sun. I could barely make out the whites of the waves as they broke over jagged cliffs below us.