Okay, I’m ready to be done with my last vacation, but it took me this long to pull together my favorite photos out of the 250-some we took and load them onto a Flicker slideshow. So for those of you who would still like to see more of the Russian fabulousness, the link is HERE. […]

It’s a terrible thing to find that you’ve used up all the superlatives you can think of, just when you need them most.
Saint Petersburg was always the biggest attraction of this cruise for me. Judging from the fact that the cruise stops there for two full days, it obviously is for a lot of people. […]

When we last checked in with our heroine, she was whining that Copenhagen was too modern to suit her tastes. What a fine bit of irony, then, that the next stop in the cruise was Tallinn, Estonia. Not to say that a person can’t find Starbucks, McDonalds and such in the newer part of Tallinn. […]

Oh dear, I was afraid of that. We didn’t care much for Copenhagen.
Well, there’s nothing to say you have to make a love connection with everyplace you stop. And I don’t think it’s any reflection on Copenhagen. It’s breathtaking, bustling, full of life.
But the reason it wasn’t a hit with me is that it’s definitely […]

Since we had walked over some of the basic Edinburgh sites back HERE in ‘05, I was looking for something a bit “off the brochure,” and also wanting to indulge a current interest in the abbeys and monasteries in the U.K. that were shut down in the 1500’s. A Scottish commenter on a cruise chat […]

With most of the ports on this cruise — Dublin, Edinburgh, Copenhagen, St. Petersburg — the question wasn’t “What do you do?” but “What don’t you do?” Knowing what to leave off the itinerary can keep you from running around trying to do it all. But that didn’t seem like it was the problem with […]

Does it sound just terrible to say that on our big first day in fabulous Dublin, we landed at the hotel, sloughed off luggage and yesterday’s clothes and slept for five hours? I hope not, because that’s what happened. But that’s why we gave ourselves an extra day, to get rid of some jet lag […]

Going off on the big cruise. I don’t so much want to get away. I want to come away.

The apostles gathered together with Jesus; and they reported to Him all that they had done and taught.
And He said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a secluded place and rest a while.” (For there were […]

Just got back from some time in Death Valley. My mom and I were hoping to catch some of the wildflowers. We missed the peak season but still saw many thousands of little purple and yellow blooms littered across the oceans of bubbling ochre sand. Here are some of the more choice images. I was […]

Greg and I are on the last day of a short cruise that took in several stops in British Columbia. Today’s the last day, and it’s a “sea day,” a day when the ship doesn’t dock anywhere. Today in my Gospel reading, I happened on Mark 6:30-32:
Then the apostles gathered to Jesus and told […]