Late last month, my husband, another couple, and I went to the Strategic Air Command Museum in Ashland, Nebraska, outside of Omaha. The four of us stayed at Lied Lodge in Nebraska City, where my husband and I have stayed before. Lied Lodge and Conference Center is an oasis of peace […]
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To Russia, at Long Last
One of the prime selling points of the Baltic Sea cruise for me was the scheduled stop at St. Petersburg. I had studied Russian in high school and college. I’d lived in the Russian dorm at Middlebury College for one year and eaten countless meals at the Russian table in […]
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Our Alla Tour in Helsinki
As I mentioned recently, my sister did most of the planning for our Baltic Sea cruise. She decided to use Alla Tours for the St. Petersburg shore tour, rather than the cruise line (Celebrity). As she and I explored at the Alla Tour options described on their website, we found […]
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My Life On Board Ship
My husband and I traveled for twelve days in July aboard the Celebrity Eclipse on a cruise through the Baltic Sea. I didn’t really know what to expect. I’d never been on a large cruise ship before, only the Viking River Cruise in 2014. Well, that’s not quite true. I […]
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Reflections on Past and Present (and Future) After a Visit to the Nixon Presidential Library and Museum
One of the places that my husband, mother-in-law, and I visited in California in June was the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda, where Nixon was born. None of us had been there before, and we spent a pleasant half-day going through the exhibits. The topics covered […]
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More Beaches to Write About
As I’ve written before, any year is a good year when I get to walk on the beach. This summer, I’ve walked along two beaches and seen several others. The first beach was in California—on Balboa Island in Newport Beach. My husband and I took his mother to visit in […]
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I’m Back!
The reason I took most of July off from blogging is that I’ve been traveling a lot in the last couple of months. First a trip to the Los Angeles area in June, and then a cruise on the Baltic Sea during the first half of July. I couldn’t write […]
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Insomnia and Train Whistles
A few nights ago I was awake in the middle of the night, one of those nights when I could not sleep. About 1:38 am, I heard a train whistle cry mournfully through the dark. And I got to thinking about all the train whistles I’ve heard through the years. […]
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Random Photos: Unaccompanied Minors and a Love of the West
As I look back on my childrearing years, one of the things I’m glad I did was to send my kids away from home. It gave my kids more independence and adventures than my husband and I could give them while we were busy with our jobs. Other than a […]
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A Pox on Chickenpox (Part 2)
I wrote recently about my son’s bout with chickenpox in January 1986. Well, as I feared, a couple of weeks after he recovered, his little sister broke out in spots. She was not quite nine months old at the time—just a baby. But a baby with a forceful personality. As […]
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