I tent camped in Greenbelt Park in College Park, Maryland in 2010 and walked through the woods each day for about a week to catch the train to Washington, DC. I walked around the nation’s capitol and found no site that touched me more than the Lincoln Memorial.

In 2007 I retired from teaching after 34 years and set out to see my country via camping in my new REI tent, which has sat on the ground in 47 states. I begin photographing what I saw and established a record of my journey through America on dmforrest.smugmug.com.

The years have eroded my emotions in a way that means I do not tear up often, but I teared up at the Lincoln Memorial. I listened to a park ranger talk among a large crowd of Americans of all types and visitors from countries who languages were foreign to me. I don’t think anyone saw me crying but cry I did all the way over the Vietnam War Memorial.

This land is so deep inside of me as I drive across it to visit parks and camp on the portion of Earth known as the United States of America. I love American top to bottom with all my heart.

My faith in American is shaken today as I listen to the impeachment hearings that so clearly show President Trump to be utterly unfit to lead our country. What shakes my faith is not PresidentTrump per se.

What causes my love of country to falter is the unwavering support of what he calls his base. How can his supporters, my fellow citizens, blindly support everything he does? My imagination can not expand enough to follow how President Trump’s base forgives all of his obvious transgressions of what America is supposed to stand for.

I search my own admiration for Lincoln and more recently President Obama. They were wrong at many turns in their administrations. I admire both but not blindly, utterly, and completely.

I hope to live long enough to see my faith in my fellow citizens return to the bounds of reason. My faith in America is at a low point but not lost. We will eventually return to the nation that I hold in my heart: a nation that respects law and all of its citizens.