I've been on the move for much of the last ten years. In that time I've had the chance to see a lot of the country. I counted one time and I have been to 38 of the 50 states.

Every time I have moved I have tried to see the sights along the way. I guess I'm just a big tourist. If there is a museum or historical marker, chances are I'll stop.

I've seen some pretty neat sites. When I moved to Utah from Southwest Florida I stopped at the Eisenhower Presidential Library in Abilene, Kansas. Just down the Interstate from there I pulled off in Russell, Kansas which some of you may remember is the home town of former Senator Bob Dole. If you keep on heading west you will come across a little town called Ellis and the Chrysler Boyhood Home and Museum. In New Mexico, I used to love to ride the tram to the top of Sandia Peak at sunset or drive up to Santa Fe. Kimberly and I still talk about going back to White Sands and Fort Sumner, where Billy the Kid is buried.

When we lived in Florida we drove to Key West. In Utah, we didn't live very far from Jackson Hole, Wyoming and the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone National Park. And there were trips to Moab and Arches National Park and Wendover, Nevada.

In Alabama, there were day trips to DeSoto Caverns; the Hank Williams Museum in Montgomery; Warm Springs, Georgia and Franklin Roosevelt's Little White House where he died in 1945; the Confederate Naval Museum in Columbus; Irwinville, Georgia where Jefferson Davis was captured in 1865, and Jimmy Carter's hometown of Plains. There have also been recent visits to Little Rock and Branson, Tunica, Memphis and Graceland, St. Louis, and Lincoln's house in Springfield, Ill.

Along the way I started collecting things for a scrap book which I still haven't put together yet. I saved brochures and post cards from all the places I visited.

But there is one souvenir I always try to bring back -- a squished penny. I'm sure many of you have a few in your own scrap book. It's where you put two quarters and a penny in a machine, crank the wheel and out comes a flattened penny with an impression of the museum or site you just visited.

I found out that squished pennies have been around since the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Today, just about every museum has one of these machines.

About a month ago my in-laws got us a couple of books specifically made to hold squished pennies. I think our squished penny collection got started in 1999 when Kimberly moved away to college in Massachusetts.

I took her sight seeing in Boston and we went to the Museum of Science. They had a squished penny machine there and I think she wanted one.

We've been going through our scrap book stuff the past few weekends and put our squished pennies in our little pocketbooks. I've got ones from the Grand Canyon, Plimouth Plantation, Temple Square in Salt Lake City, Lincoln's home, the Mark Twain Museum in Hannibal, Mo., Key West the Southernmost Point in the continental United States, the Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Museum in Branson and even one from Lambert's, the only home of "throwed rolls," and a few others.

Looking them over brings back a lot of memories. I can't wait to see what the book will look like in a few years. Squished pennies are just a neat, fun way to remember a trip.