Category: Travels
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A Hint Of Green: Southbound On Train #238
[Everything is ON TIME] Aboard the 12:10 train for Penn Station I check my watch as the train jolts into motion. It’s 12:09. There was a time when Mariam and I would make the trip from Manhattan to Rainbow Lake in one day. It was 305 miles from our apartment door on W. 93rd Street…
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NASA Director Sends Wife To The Moon
[A rare photo of the then Mr. Kramden, with wife, Alice and neighbor, Edward Norton. (ca. late 1950’s). Source: Google search] Washington, D.C. The Chief of NASA, Dr. Ralph Kramden, has big plans to celebrate his wife’s birthday. He intends to send her, literally to the earth’s only satellite, the moon. A short time ago,…
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Mystery of the Paris Photograph
[Photo source: unknown.] I don’t know where it came from. It was leaning against our brass lamp…since I don’t know when. A year or two ago, I began to glean the Kodak slides and other photos that came into my possession after my father passed away in 2004. There was a collection of letters and…
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Joshua Tree Diary: The Road to Wonder Valley
[Amboy Road…to Wonder Valley. Photo is mine.] I’m driving from Joshua Tree to Twentynine Palms. I turn left on Adobe Drive. Ahead of me is the largest U.S. Marine Training Base in the world. I don’t go there. I turn right on Amboy Road and pass the RV campground where we spent a week in…
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Joshua Tree Diary: Christmas in the Desert
[Desert view outside Joshua Tree. Photo is mine.] This is where it all began, right? I don’t mean California…I mean the desert. The Nativity story is set in the desert; much like the one I see from my bedroom window. Very much like it, except that desert, with the Star, is half a world away.…
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Joshua Tree Diary: Baby Steps and First Things
[On the way to Hidden Valley] I’ve been coloring. We’ve been coloring. You know those adult coloring books that are so popular now? Well, I’m not a bit ashamed to say that Mariam and I have been working separate pages in a book that I bought at a 7-Eleven for $5.99+ tax. [Occupying time in…
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Joshua Tree Diary: The First Days
I looked in the mirror late this morning and decided I would need a haircut sometime in the next few weeks. Trouble is, we’re a few miles from the Twentynine Palms Marine Corps Base (the largest U.S. military base in the world, I’m told) and nearly all the haircut places offer a “military cut”. Well,…
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Love At The End Of The Tunnel
[My photo. Elias leaves pre-K.] The longest and most uncomfortable, painful and seemingly endless flight I ever undertook began at 4:00 am on Monday, November 20 when I forced myself out of the bed. I forgot our wakeup call was for 4:15 am. Our flight was scheduled for 7:00 am. It was going to be…
patrickjegan 