Carol and I had a “gentleman’s” (and the quotation marks may become more self-explanatory as the blog goes on) bet that I could not pull this story off in a socially acceptable way. So if you’re reading this, I’ve pulled it off, at least as far as Carol might be concerned.    So here […]

Photo Credit: Carol Madigan Omg!  I just looked at the date. The game is tomorrow!! We need to drive today!!    The frantic message came from Carol, while picking up the little Baileys three pack for our Spring Training road trip that we’d both programmed into our evidently derelict brains as beginning Tuesday morning. Her […]

Photo by Carol Madigan    The forecast was a good one for someone like me heading for the beach. A ninety percent chance of rain meant an extended happy hour, and when the other ten percent unfolded, at least the beach sand would be wet and firm for walking.    For me, sand is a […]

Photo credit: Carol Madigan    Carol dug up one of our first written exchanges, courtesy of my fledgling widower travel blog showing up on her Facebook timeline. It would be a little more than two months before we actually met face to face, but by that time we’d already exchanged the L word. While it […]

Photo Credit © Lovisa Photo    At times I’ll be sitting in an almost perfect state of complete inactivity, and a sharp shooting pain will come out of nowhere. It could be the side of my head, a knee joint, thigh muscle, finger or toe, or my hair (I may be exaggerating that one). It’ll […]

   What if you make a trip to some place, and it’s a total disappointment? Does it still count as travel?    Of course it does. You get blown away by the Grand Canyon, and rightfully so. But what about a strip mining or a Super Fund site? Aren’t you blown away by that scene […]

© Lovisa Photo 2020    The other night we were watching the Stanley Tucci series Searching For Italy. In this one, he was looking for Florence. When Tucci started talking about the bread there, I casually mentioned to Carol that Florentines bake their bread without salt, the result of a medieval-era trade war with Pisa, […]

Photo Credit – Carol Madigan    This year the streets of New Orleans on Mardi Gras day looked like scenes from an episode of Life Without People. While, personally, it would have been “the best Mardi Gras ever” to be able to walk the streets completely empty of Fat Tuesday drunks, I have mixed emotions […]

Photo Credit: Carol Madigan    Carol and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary on Saturday. It’s called Paper. I mention that only because I’m hoping a joke or smart ass remark about it will occur to me before I get to the end of this.    And yeah, virtually this whole first year was spent […]

Photo Credit: Lovisa Photo    Carol had stumbled across an old blog where I’d recorded that Carolyn had once told me I was the most romantic man she’d ever met. “Wait,” Carol said, “she thought you were the most…etc., etc…” The incredulity that hung in the air was so thick you could hit it with […]