Introduction

What's this blog about? 

A year or so ago, I became a member of the club nobody ever wanted to join, when my

beloved wife of 49 years died from Glioblastoma, an aggressive, incurable brain tumor.

I then became a widower. I will not be discussing the miserable 11 months my wife

suffered through until she passed, nor am I going to cover my journey through the

wilderness of grief. This blog will focus on how I’ve learned to cope with all this

change, and began to move my life forward through something my wife and I both

enjoyed - traveling to new places, and new adventures. I’ll try to keep this light and

somewhat amusing as best I can.

During our 49 years together, my wife and I rarely if ever planned major vacations, but

we somehow managed to spontaneously wind up in strange places, sometimes domestic

and occasionally in foreign lands. We were both working on graduate degrees in Geology

when we met, and therefore were used to scrambling around in the dirt in various locations

throughout the US (me more so than my wife). I had already built a reputation on field trips

for doing stupid, dangerous things (sliding down glaciers without an ice axe in the Tetons),

but she married me anyway.

As we progressed in our careers, we discovered the joy of sleeping in hotels instead of tents,

and began venturing out on more significant vacations in Mexico and Hawaii. My wife’s

work as a geophysicist afforded her the opportunities for working with a seismic crew in

the North Sea. My travels were much more mundane working in Information Technology,

at least early on.

As we moved on with our lives, work brought us to more interesting places which became

vacation spots as well - Australia, the UK, Ireland. Hawaii became a regular vacations for us,

and we ventured into tennis related travel as well. Italy became a favorite place for us -

especially for food and wine. After we were both retired, my wife became a certified scuba

diver and we started on a new set of adventures, including a Bull Shark dive in Fiji. 

We had so many plans now that we were settled into retired life, which included travel in

Northern Africa, Europe, and who knows where else. And then our world exploded. My

wife was quite adamant that I continue to travel and enjoy life when she was gone. It was

hard to imagine going anywhere without her, but after coming out of shock, I started by

visiting friends in Colorado and doing some hiking in the mountains. I followed that up

with my first real adventure - a National Geographic/Lindblad expedition trip to the

Galapagos Islands. That was a true test for me - being on a ship with 84 perfect strangers.

That’s not easy for an introvert. But I survived. After passing that test, I have continued to

book interesting (and some strange) trips, and continue to browse through piles of touring

company catalogs. I have always loved being out in the wild, and this couples well with

my main hobby - photography.

So, what can you expect from this blog - first of all, a lot of photos, my ramblings about

the places I visit, a snarky comment about current events once in a while, and maybe a

reference or two about my past life, with my soul mate. No matter where I go, she’s with me. 

One more point - I’ll be adding posts based on the trips I have been on since my wife passed

in April of 2024, and will continue to post on future trips once I have that content posted. I

intend for this to be another one of my hobbies. I hope I can learn how to improve my skills

using Wordpress over time.

My wife