I took this photo of Mount Rushmore looking straight on from a helicopter – so it may be from an angle you have not seen before. On the eve of America’s 250^th birthday, it may be worthwhile to think of these four heroic Americans from a different perspective, to reflect on the almost unimaginable -- in the light of our comfortable lives we live today – challenges they faced and triumphed over to create and sustain our America.

It is worth asking what would they say to us today, what advice and counsel would they give us on how to face and triumph over what unimaginable – to them during their lives – challenges of ours as Americans today.

Look into their eyes. What are they saying to you? This 250^th Fourth of July is a time of deep reflection on the meaning of being American. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #173 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Cap Haitien, Haiti. On a steep mountain top three thousand feet high above the north coast of Haiti, stands this staggeringly gigantic fortress.

It is the Citadelle Laferrière, revered by professional distortionists of history as "the greatest monument to black freedom in the Americas." What it really is instead is a monument to totalitarian insanity.

In 1807, the leader of a victorious slave army against the French named Henri Christophe (1767-1820) seized Haiti and proceeded to re-enslave his people. With their slave labor, he built La Citadelle – 20,000 slaves died under the lash or from utter exhaustion building it, hauling hundreds of cannons, tens of thousands of cannon balls, and millions of bricks and rocks 3,000 feet up the steep slopes to the site.

Finally, in 1820, Christophe’s slaves rebelled, his body dissolved in a huge vat of liquid lime, the mortar for the fortress’ bricks. The Citadelle has been a deserted ruins ever since. I was the only visitor there. So much for "the monument to black freedom." Haiti has never experienced a single day of freedom in its entire existence to this very day.

Haiti, in other words, is not only a failed state – for over 200 years, it has always been a failed state. Tragically, the odds are high it always will be. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #265 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

West of the Himalayan giants of Annapurna and Dhaulagiri in Nepal lies a roadless high wilderness inhabited only by Tibetan nomads called Dolpa. The region is named after them, Dolpo. The Dolpa practice the ancient pre-Buddhist animist religion of Tibet called Bön. They worship sites of nature they consider holy. And holiest of all is the Sacred Lake of Phoksundo.

The Dolpa consider the blue of Phoksundo an act of magic by the gods. Once you see it, you can only agree. This picture is not photoshopped – it is real. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #41 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)

What would be an ideal place to escape from all the lunacy washing over our country – for a few days to a second home?

Let’s see… it would have to be a First World country with all the civilized amenities of modern life, and a cultured, educated, and welcoming people many, many of whom speak English.

A First World country that brushes aside all Woke nuttiness engulfing the US as silly rubbish to be ignored, and traditional Christian family values revered instead. That is not much farther away than a US cross-country flight. That has Goldilocks weather, not too hot, not too cold. That has sunsets in the ocean, fabulous food and wine, incredible castles in the sky, history that’s thousands of years old yet so hip and current it’s the cultural capital of its continent.

We’ve had Glimpses of this place before: The Europe That’s Still There, and The Portuguese Riviera. Yes, the Ideal Escape Hatch for us is Portugal – a quick overnight flight getting there, a morning flight return.

Rebel and I have conducted a Portugal Exploration many times for TTPers.  I'm sure we will do it again. You owe it to yourself to be entranced by this ideal place. (Glimpses of our Breathtaking World #157 ©photo Jack Wheeler)

Halfway between Samoa and Fiji in the South Pacific lies the French Territory of Wallis and Futuna.  It’s so hard to reach I had to charter a King Air private plane to get here in 2016.  The capital is Mata-Utu on Wallis Island which the native Polynesian islanders call Uvea.  French missionaries arrived at Uvea in 1837 to convert the islanders to Roman Catholic Christianity.  They were Marist Brothers, a branch of the Society of Mary. Today, 99% of the native islanders are Catholic.

The spiral church you see, Église du Sacré-Coeur (Church of the Sacred Heart) was built in the early 1900s out of hand-cut volcanic rocks .  The interior is spectacular, and if you look high up on the fourth tier you’ll see a figure in an opening.  That’s a statue of Jesus with arms outstretched in welcome to all who worship here.  The islanders consider themselves French citizens with representation in both the French Senate and National Assembly in Paris.  At the same time they consider themselves ruled by their own king – the King of Uvea (Wallis) and the King of Sigave (Futuna), which the French government recognizes.  This is a peaceful, friendly, interesting place.  (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #299, photo ©Jack Wheeler)

April 1990. When our oldest son Brandon was six years old, I took him with me to the North Pole. It was my 14^th expedition there, and as always, we stopped to visit friends at Canada’s northernmost community, the Inuit hunting village of Grise Fiord on Ellesmere Island. Brandon thought it would be cool to sleep in an igloo, which the Inuit do only when they’re hunting seals or walrus far out on the ice.

So the villagers happily complied, showing him how they built one, carving out blocks of wind-blown snow, shaping and placing them in an inward-sloped spiral with one block on top, and packing snow as mortar between the blocks. When it was bedtime – still daylight with 24-hour sunshine by April – they lined the inside with caribou skins, which shed like crazy with hairs everywhere but sure are warm. Snuggled into our arctic down sleeping bags, we slept like stones.

It was an experience both of us will never forget. Never pass up an opportunity to have an adventure with your kids they’ll always remember. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #50 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Jack Wheeler is Escape Artist’s World Exploration Expert. He is the founder of Wheeler Expeditions at WheelerExpeditions.com.