The Traveling Widower

Category: travel

Default category for all travel related posts.

  • A Slightly Better Thanksgiving

    November 27th, 2025

    A man in a green t-shirt holds a martini glass while smiling at the camera, standing in front of a beautifully arranged dining table featuring a large roasted turkey, various side dishes, and candles, with an elegant restaurant backdrop.

    Thanksgiving has not been a happy day for me the past two years. In 2023, we were still in the hopeful stage that Jan might get a couple of good years, and that maybe a cure might be developed by then. I was not exactly in a thankful mood about anything, other than that she was still with me, and we could enjoy dinner (and life) together. For Thanksgiving 2024, Jan was gone for over 6 months. And I had just returned from the Galápagos Islands, and my brother had just died of undiagnosed, stage 4 liver cancer while I was away. Yeah, forget being thankful about anything.

    Fast forward another year. What have I got to be thankful for? Well, I’ve been on a lot of really interesting trips and seen some amazing places. Right now, I’m sitting in the forward lounge of a National Geographic/Lindblad expedition ship, watching as we approach the Argentine coast line which is free from glaciers, snow, ice and penguin poop. A welcome site after the past week in Antarctica. I should be thankful that I was able to go on such an incredible trip, and I am. But I still wish Jan had been with me…or at least that she was waiting for me at home. She never would have gone on this trip. 

    But, I’m past the awful stages of grieving, something else to be thankful for. Other than that, I’m thankful that I’ve had a strong support group of friends and family…a few more locally would be a good thing. I’m thankful and surprised that I’ve adapted enough the past year to be able to go off on my own and socialize with a ship full of strangers. Each trip does get easier.  

    And I’m thankful that my soul mate did such a great job with our financials, so that I can live this new life of mine as the travelingwidower.com. But I would rather that she were still here with me to enjoy all the travel. Something I’ll never get over. But, I’ve learned that As Good As It Gets is good enough for me.

    One more thing to be thankful for – they served a traditional Thanksgiving dinner tonight – nothing weird, and a marvelous pumpkin pie.

    Hope you all had a happy Thanksgiving

    A rainbow arching over a calm ocean with cloudy skies and distant mountains.

  • Cruising Antarctica  – Photos only

    November 26th, 2025

    I have completed a very brief first pass through the images that I’ve capture from this incredible journey. Some I have already posted, others are recently curated, but I thought it would be nice to just have a single post, with a few of the best what I’ve digested so far. Unfortunately the software has limitations on how many images I can include in a gallery. I’m grouping them by topic: Penguins, Seascapes, Mountains & Glaciers, Ships & People & Everything Else. I will limit my blatherings to just brief description of each category.

    Remember that you can enlarge any photo by double tapping it.

    Penguins

    I placed this on top, since it’s probably what most readers are interested in. We visited four different colonies, and spotted penguins pretty much everywhere we traveled to or through. The little critters cover a lot of territory to feed. We saw two types, Adelie and Gentoo. There were a few Chinstraps spotted, but I did not see them. The birds were nesting at all of the colonies, and I did include one picture where the penguin stood up and you can see the mottled egg. Chicks were not born yet. The colonies are all large, noisy, stinky and very messy. You have to clean and disinfect your boots when you get on board. The photos are all mixed up, so if you are interested, the Adelie penguins have the all black heads, and the Gentoos have the black and white with the longer orange beak.

    Seascapes

    This category is mostly icebergs and sea ice – pretty much all the ocean images that were not of the shoreline (next category). We did see a lot of whales during our cruising, but I did not bother with the camera since there was nothing really worth capturing. We did see a very exciting encounter between a pod of Orca’s and two Humpback whales last night, but the photographs would just have shown some fins at a distance. Apparently, the Humpacks were adults, and the Orca’s were just being jerks. It was not a real fight. Once one of the Humpbacks started fin slapping, the Orcas beat a hasty retreat. I’m blathering….sorry.

    Mountains and Glaciers

    I’d have to say that this was some of the most amazing scenery I’ve seen in my entire life. I have seen (and fallen down) mountain glaciers before, and cruised around the glaciers in Alaska, but the views of huge mountain, and the continental glaciers literally falling into the sea were beyond belief. I was speechless so often.

    Ships & People & Everything Else

    I did manage to photograph subjects other than penguins – a lot of pictures of the ship, zodiacs cruising around, people on the stable sea ice (a new term for me), and some other odds and ends that I photographed. I have not written about everything we’ve done on the trip (yet) and may do another post to cover some of these leftovers.

    And a couple of others for good measure