Category: Travels
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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…
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Roadside Grief
You see them along the Interstate highways in Kansas, Arizona and nearly everywhere else in the country. Those haunting small white crosses and bouquets of flowers that are mostly plastic. That way, they survive the weather. These are the roadside memorials for those who lost their lives, while driving along major highways and lonely roads.…
