50th Anniversary – Would have been wonderful

Today would have been our 50th wedding anniversary. It should have been an incredible, joyous occasion for my wife and I, celebrated with a great dinner, fantastic wine, most likely someplace far away – probably Morocco. Instead, I’m sitting in a bar at the Hilton Hotel in Scott’s Valley, by myself, after a day of chasing/photographing Humpback Whales in Monterey Bay. It was fun and a nice distraction for me, but that’s really all it was – a distraction.  This past week has been miserable for me – I’ve been pretty much alone for over a week, my knee issue has become worse so that I’ve completely given up on racket sports, and then there has been this impending anniversary date. I’ve been living in the past for a while, remembering back to how wonderful life was around the time we were married, and the ensuing life we had together for another 48 years. 

Seems like life just goes by in a flash. 

I miss her so much.

So this post probably belongs in the Journal page I started a few weeks ago. I moved it there, but this was just one of those days I felt like screaming out loud. And I did actually go on a whale tour. Lots of whales (24+ in one spot), but they were in a feeding frenzy on huge anchovy bait balls. So all you see are spouts, large swarms of sea lions, and occasional whale fluke as the dove to continue consuming anchovies. I may have shot 20 photos, none of which were worth sharing. A new record low. Tomorrow I’ll be in search of sea otters. Maybe I’ll have better luck with that.

Later this week I’m going to try my hand at night-sky photography. The problem with photographing the Milky Way, is that you have to do that late at night. Way past my bed-time.

And two weeks from tonight, I’ll be in Alaska.