It isn’t the mountain ahead that wears you out; it’s the grain of sand in your shoe.
–Robert W. Service

One of my favorite things to do as a child was play in the sandbox on a summer day.  I did many other things, like ride bikes and tromp around on the nearby railroad tracks and even turned a refrigerator box into a mini-house.  However, my green plastic, turtle-shaped sandbox was always sitting on the back patio baking in the summer sun.  I would pluck ants from the lawn every so often and watch them struggle in a funnel of sand I made.  Then I would go back to get some more and that ant would be gone.  A few years ago–on a cross-country road trip with two good friends–I had a chance to play in the sand box again, but this time I was the little ant in the…