In the summer of 1989, when our daughter was four and our son seven, we took our first “real” family vacation. By that I mean, it was just my husband, me and the two kids, and we went somewhere other than to visit grandparents. We’d taken our son on a […]
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Fortieth Anniversary of a Speeding Ticket
I’ve mentioned in earlier posts that this year my husband and I celebrate our fortieth wedding anniversary. We started dating in March 1977 and were married that November. We were apart for most of the summer of 1977, each working in different locations after our first year of law school. […]
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The Bahamas: On Slavery, Service, Dependence, and Independence
I wrote last week about the recent vacation my husband and I took to the Bahamas. That post focused on the beauty of ocean and beach and on all the things we saw and did. Today I am writing about what I learned from Bahamian history and art. Because that […]
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Retirement and Spontaneous Travel
I have been to all but three states in the U.S. I still need to get to the two Dakotas and to Alaska. Alaska, obviously, will need to be a specially planned trip. However, my husband and I recently considered taking a quick trip to the Dakotas. But at the […]
Continue readingAvoca Blankets: Evoking the Generations
In the summer of 2001, a few months before September 11, my daughter and I took a trip to Ireland. The trip was sponsored by her all-girls Catholic school. About ten mother/daughter pairs went, along with two teachers. The school had arranged several such trips over the years, but due […]
Continue readingInfrastructure, circa 1962
There’s been a lot in the news in recent years about infrastructure. Which projects are “shovel ready”? Which will create more jobs? How do we bring our aging roads and bridges into the twenty-first century? When I hear about infrastructure, I think of the development of the interstate highway system […]
Continue readingChihuly Garden and Glass Gallery
I’ve done a fair amount of sightseeing in Seattle, but I’d never been to the Chihuly Garden and Glass Gallery until a trip this autumn. The gallery and gardens sit under the Space Needle, but somehow I’d always passed them by. This time, I made a special visit just to […]
Continue readingOn Glaciers, Goats, and Change
I’ve written before about the family hike we took in Switzerland in 1998 when my kids were teenagers. It was a good experience, but far more strenuous than I enjoy. My husband and (now-grown) kids recently took another hike in Slovenia and came back raving about the scenery. I had […]
Continue readingThe Summer of ’64: Pacific Grove
I’ve mentioned spending summers with my grandparents in Pacific Grove, California. It seemed like I spent several idyllic summers there, but there really weren’t that many. Only twice did my brother and I spend long vacations with our grandparents. In 1963 we spent a month there, but our mother was […]
Continue readingHighland Fling or Irish Jig?
In June 1992, the same month that my kids spent at camp in North Carolina, my parents toured the British Isles. In fact, part of the reason we sent our kids to the June camp session was so they could visit my parents later in the summer, after my parents […]
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