It was the day Carol looked into the living room and didn’t see me on the couch. She called out for me. The thing was, I was sitting on the couch as I’d been for the last whenever. “I’m right here,” I said waving to her, a wan smile on my face. When I realized that she could no long discern my outline on the couch from that of the couch itself, I said, “We need a road trip.”

   Upon our return from our last European trip, someone asked me if I’d met any interesting people. Carol stifled a laugh; I thought the question, asked of me, was rhetorical. While I do prefer to travel invisibly, and ask only that humankind for the most part act the same, some personalities strike you in a profound, if unobtrusive way, that you’re happy to deactivate your cloaking device and meet them openly on common ground.

  I believe most tourists to any place on the globe at one time or another, confront the same question: what would it be like to live here full time. A number of these tourists went on to do it and then write about it. I’ve read several of these well-written memoirs (Peter Mayle’s A Year in Provence always comes to mind first). They’ve all taken me on amazing journeys, but have wound up at the same terminus for me: Don’t do it.

Those who knew Carolyn’s travel photos and are now viewing Carol’s on my blog may have noted a marked similarity in photographic eye, color and composition. This has come as a bit of a surprise to Carol, as she has seen several of Carolyn’s Shutterfly books.

   “They’re so beautiful and professional,” Carol has remarked. “It was her hobby.”