As the Paris portion of our first trip together ended, it was already clear Carol and I were well-matched as traveling companions. And by this I mean, Carol is the polar opposite of the flake that I am. She’d made peace with my OCD approach to train schedules, and had gently nudged me toward finding […]

The one drain plug in this whole footloose, carefree and otherwise leaf blown approach to travel I outlined earlier presents itself when it comes to scheduled departures. Whether it’s planes, trains, busses or river ferries, the posted schedule has the same play on my neuroses pertaining to time as melting ice packs have for climate scientists.

At the time Carol and I took off for our first European trip together, I had completed two solo journeys of my own during my year of widowhood. I had not traveled solo since my vagabonding days of the early 1970s, and I immediately experienced the true “freedom of the road” again that traveling alone […]

Monday was just going to be an easy prep day of shopping and perhaps a little pre-packing for our short Tuesday and Wednesday trip to Crystal Cove, a scenic state park of 1930’s era cottages along Laguna Beach’s oceanfront. Monday morning, however, my phone buzzed the calendar notice, “Crystal Cove.” “Hey, I thought you said […]

While Carol has proven to me that companion travel is superior to solo, nothing has changed about my attitude to group tours. I have the one direct experience to look to for proof. When the door to Cuba had opened up back in 2016, Carolyn and I had booked a Roads Scholar tour of that […]

There are two ways to travel internationally. The one is to stand out like a sore thumb in dress, be loud and obnoxious, condescending to local customs, steadfastly refuse to try to communicate in the native tongue, complain of every inconvenience and disparagingly compare every experience to how it’d be better back home. In other […]

The idea of seeing Europe the way Europeans live there has been a strong organizing principle in my travels, both solo and with Carol. It’s an odd choice, but among my many of choices in life, it doesn’t surprise me. It actually cozily fits my natural incuriosity concerning life. But observing Parisians as they scramble […]

I initially saw Carol walking across the parking lot. It was my first live sight of her, but I recognized her immediately. Then her gaze met mine, and I was at that moment of truth only matadors and people taking that first sip of milk that has turned know.

With this, I will slide into another of my hiatuses. Unlike the last one, which was fake (I merely shoveled in old, recycled material from decades earlier), this one is a real interruption, serving an actual professional purpose.

WhaI did not want a photoshoot. The fact that it was my idea is beside the point. That dang cabbage patch kid diet, or whatever it was called, was also my brilliant idea, but that doesn’t mean I had to like it, and I didn’t.