Just back............................

 

..............from spending a week in South Carolina with friends of 55 years.  Highly recommended.

Judging by the weather forecast................

 

..........we should have stayed another week.

Sundown..............................

 

.........................................at Torch Lake:

Thanks Kyle

Never underestimate................................

 

................................................the power of zen.

taking a little R & R..................

 

Sunrise/Sunset........................

Vacation over................

................Cultural Offering is back in business.

Cruising................................

 My Sweetie and I just returned from a two-week jaunt: north to Alaska and back.  The cruise ship left from Vancouver and ventured up the Inside Passage, stopping at Ketchikan, Icy Straits, Juneau, Skagway, and Seward. In between the stops at Skagway and Seward, we cruised the Hubbard Glacier in Yakutat Bay. Disembarking at Seward, we bused north for five hours to Denali National Park.  After a night's stay there, we took a train back to Anchorage.  Flying home on the red-eye a day later, we arrived home safely and happy, and a bit tired.

Masks were required on the flight from Chicago to Vancouver.
Serious fines were threatened for non-compliance.  Not normally
compliant individuals, we both wore masks through John Glenn 
International and O'Hare, as well as on the planes.  You see, once
we landed in Vancouver, we needed to score "negative" on a
Covid test.   Scoring a "positive" would have disqualified us from
 getting on the boat.  Gratefully, we were all "negative."

A vacation................................

 ..............We journeyed south to Destin, Florida, with a brief layover in Nashville.  A few observations:  Nashville is an amazing place, but Broadway is a younger person's game.  There is music everywhere.  Next time we go, we will seek out more of the smaller, quieter venues.  The traffic on I-65 from Nashville to the Florida Panhandle is ridiculous this time of year.  Visiting Seaside is a wonderful idea, but during Spring Break the place is overrun with kids, of all ages.  It is really easy to get sunburned in April.  Renting a house for a week in Destin, and having the whole tribe join you, is a fabulous thing to do.

Anything happen while we were gone..................?

 

Us self-employed types.................................

………………...have only passing familiarity with this concept of "paid time off."  I think the last paycheck I received, that wasn't signed by me, was in February of 1977.  Still, reading Althouse is such a delight:

Not one word about the environment in that article. Why not celebrate the status quo? If we were traveling, WaPo should shame us for the impact on climate change, so why is the failure to travel treated like a problem? Maybe people like their day-to-day life — working, living at home, near friends and family, doing what is familiar. Isn't that what most people have done throughout human history and prehistory? 

Pretty sure we're still not in Ohio........................

Meanwhile, The Dog goes on Spring Break...

Living large......................

.........................................Some guys just know how to  vacation.

The first step is a doozy.................

After taking almost a half-a-year break, our friend Rick Platt re-surfaces in the blogosphere with this photo.  Can you guess where and what it is?   (A hint:  the feet pictured are 103 stories above the street level)

Welcome back, Rick.