The Traveling Widower

Tag: blogging

  • Another Long Trip Home

    Crowded airport terminal with a long line of passengers waiting in front of check-in counters, large windows allowing natural light, and several advertisements visible in the background.

    March 28th, 2026

    De-embarkation day is always a bit sad, especially when it was a fun trip like this one. You get your cabin well organized so it’s sort of like having a dorm room in college (for some of us at least), and you have a group of new, short-term friends to have lunch and dinner with. And then it’s all over. 

    A long hotel hallway featuring numbered doors and carpeted flooring in blue tones, illuminated by ceiling lights.
    Last look down steerage level

    We had pulled into port  in the early morning, relatively close to the airport (about an hour drive). Cruise ships was clearly not the main business here – we were parked between container ships, and got to watch them unload one of the ships – never seen that before.

    A cargo ship docked at a harbor with cranes, ready for unloading. The scene captures the ship's hull, the cranes, and a portion of the quay.

    The mobile cranes are huge – they look a lot like the rigs used to move space boosters to the launch pads.

    The San Jose airport is pretty well organized – check-in was about 5 minutes, and security about the same. Unfortunately, Houston will not be the same. The TSA nightmare continues – last evening, about the time I would be traversing security today, the wait time was 4 hours. I would not be making my flight, even with CLEAR which was shutdown today for a while. So, I’m nice and relaxed, sitting in a lounge at the San Jose airport, working on a blog post until my flight leaves in 3 hours. No stress for today at least.

    View from an airport window showcasing airplanes on the tarmac with mountains and blue sky in the background.

    I hope that volcano does not decide to blow before the plane takes off. That would be my luck.

    Home tomorrow, I hope. Peace.

    (Note: I have two posts in progress from the last two days of activities – many more pictures. I was just bored at the airport and decided to write a bit. It’s become a habit..a better one than drinking or smoking).

    A brief update – the flight from Costa Rica left about 30 minutes late, due to a medical emergency from the baggage handlers loading up the plane. We wound up landing about 40 minutes late – not so good for all the passengers with 2 hours to get to the next flight. I made it through customs in about 5 minutes – Global Entry is worth it if you are traveling overseas a lot. I just breezed on through. Baggage took a while, and the wait times to go back through security were not too bad. I might have made it. But it was nice not having to try and run through the terminals which most everyone else on the flight was doing. I cannot really run with my Forest Gump brace on…or with it off as well. So, I’m happy to be sitting comfortably in the airport Marriott. I’m really beat from the trip anyway.

    One other thought on that topic – I spoke with an airport employee as I passed through security, just to ask about the TSA lines and delays. He said that it has improved just a bit, since that person in the White House said the TSA agents would be paid next week. Most of them he knows are not sure they believe that will happen since the president says a lot of things and then changes his mind. But at least there is some hope that the delays may improve a bit in the next few days. That would be very nice. I’ve got another trip in 2 weeks.

    I might as well finish the story instead of starting another post.

    My flight to Sacramento was scheduled for 10:15AM this morning (Sunday), but I decided to play it safe and got over to Terminal E early….before 7AM. Even then, there was a sea of humanity in line. Even worse, they did not bother to open the CLEAR line, or the TSA Precheck. Everyone got to suffer together.

    The lines were well organized, and everyone just shuffled along until they got to the few TSA screening stations. After that you waited in another long line to go through the x-ray scanners. All told, it was about an hour from start to finish. Not that bad. I did like the little signs they posted along the way, with the estimated time from that point.

    I did get to see a whole bunch of ICE agents standing around, drinking coffee, and with one exception, not doing anything useful. Your tax dollars at work. I felt so much safer having them there. Not.

    And yes, I did finally make it home. I need a real vacation.

    And just to add insult to injury (I’m not sure that fits, but it sounds good), that guy in the White House issues an executive order to pay the TSA workers, and now the lines have suddenly disappeared in Houston. There was nothing stopping him from doing this a week ago. Would have been nice to a lot of travelers, myself included.

  • Getting Organized (Finally) / Greatest Hits (Part I)

    December 10th, 2026

    A computer monitor displaying an editing software interface with an image of an animal on screen, surrounded by a wooden desk, a keyboard, a mouse, a lamp, a coffee cup, and various office supplies.

    I did not make any New Year’s resolutions this year, since I usually forget about them by the following morning. But, I do maintain a task list on Google Tasks of all the various financial, travel and general things I want to get done sometime in the future, which I actually do try to follow. One of those tasks has been to consolidate all my photo libraries and archives. As Jan’s dad always used to say, I need to get organized. So, with another full month at home before my next major trip, I’m spending a lot of hours on the iMac, trying to do the impossible – get organized. 

    First on the list was to go through all the images from the Antarctica trip – I finally made it through the initial culling process, and then marked ones worth curating, with the potential for printing and/or submitting for competition. That leaves me with 192 images to play with. A lot easier to deal with than the initial 3000 that I started with. By the time I get through the next review, using Adobe Lightroom to cull through the images, I’ll hopefully just have four or five dozen images at most to work with. Some of which I’ve already posted on the blog. 

    As for my storage and archive tasks, that’s going to take some time. I have one 4TB disk drive attached to the iMac which is my primary archive – I copy all the images from the camera SD cards to separate folders, one for each trip, and then work through each to cull out images I’ll never use. Unfortunately, I rarely get around to going through them all….until now. I also have two 4TB SD drives which I use for image archives – that’s a lot of terrabytes. So my plan now is to go through all the images from the past year, cull that down to a reasonable volume, and then copy those to the two archive drives. That should give me enough backups. And somewhere along the way, I intend to replace the disk drive with a large (8TB) SD drive, for my primary archive. 

    Phew…..that’s a lot of work.

    A man sitting at a desk with a laptop, surrounded by numerous photographs of wildlife and landscapes.

    The final task I’m hoping to complete before I start accumulating more images, is to create separate folders for competition and print images, and a “Greatest Hits” folder. At the moment, I have copies of the images that I’ve used in competitions or in the blog, scattered across SD drives and in multiple folders on my iMac, iPad and Macbook. Time to centralize all of that, and then post the best-of-the-best on the blog.  Here is a first, partial pass on my greatest hits. Once I finish going through ALL of my images from the last year, I’ll do a separate post which includes these. I’ll probably have even more to post depending on when I get this review completed.

    I have started printing some of the curated photos, sending a few off to the two companies I use for glass/acrylic prints. We had started replacing the our framed photos with acrylics before Jan passed, and now I’m slowly filling open spaces into photo galleries. I don’t have a lot of open wall space – I might have to move. (No!)

    A cozy living room corner featuring a beige armchair, a lamp, and a small wooden table. Three framed artworks depicting penguins, a landscape, and a sunset are mounted on the walls.

    Greatest Hits From the Traveling Widower Part I

    This is a first pass – I’ll turn this into a new post, once I’ve completed my review.

    Alaska

    A group of sea lions resting on rocky shoreline, some interacting while others are lounging in the sun.
    A scenic view of snow-capped mountains under a blue sky, with a foreground of calm water and forested islands.
    A serene lake scene with mountains in the background, featuring calm water and a single bird in the foreground.
    A sea lion basking on a rocky outcrop next to two seagulls, surrounded by calm water and a clear sky.
    A serene view of calm waters reflecting the sky, with distant mountains shrouded in clouds and small rocky islands in the foreground.
    A serene view of calm water reflecting the sky, surrounded by distant mountains under a clear blue atmosphere.
    A serene landscape featuring tranquil waters surrounded by mountains and mist, with floating icebergs visible in the foreground.
    Two sea lions resting on rocky shorelines with moss and water in the foreground.
    A tranquil seascape featuring calm waters with several islands and distant mountains under a cloudy sky.
    A bird skimming across the surface of a calm lake, creating ripples in the water.
    A serene view of a glacier reflecting in calm waters, surrounded by rugged mountains under a clear sky.
    A group of sea lions lounging on rocky shores, with several sleeping and some sitting upright.
    Black and white landscape of mountains with snow-capped peaks and a calm body of water in the foreground.
    Scenic view of snow-capped mountains rising above a calm ocean, with rocky formations in the foreground.

    Baja (2025)

    A whale breaching the surface of the ocean with mountains in the background.
    A panoramic view of mountains in the distance, featuring rugged peaks and layered rock formations, with a calm body of water in the foreground under a clear sky.
    A vibrant sunset over the ocean, with a golden sun dipping below the horizon, casting warm hues of orange and red across the sky and reflecting on the water.
    A scenic sunset over the ocean, with vibrant orange and yellow hues in the sky and the sun setting on the horizon.

    Bryce Canyon

    A close-up view of layered red rock formations in Bryce Canyon, showcasing intricate ridges and hoodoos.
    Tall rock formation, known as a hoodoo, with a balanced capstone atop a slender base, surrounded by other reddish rock structures and trees, against a backdrop of layered mountains.

    Donner Tunnels

    A dimly lit tunnel with arched ceilings, featuring walls covered in colorful graffiti and a gravel floor.
    Interior of an abandoned structure featuring colorful graffiti on the walls and a gravel floor, with beams overhead and rectangular windows allowing light to filter in.
    An empty, dark tunnel with rough stone walls and a glowing light source at the far end.

    Moss Landing

    A whale's tail fin breaking the surface of the ocean with two birds flying above and a sandy coastline in the background.
    A bird in flight with its wings spread, soaring over a green landscape and distant mountains in the background.
    A brown pelican flying against a clear blue sky

    Antarctica

    A stunning view of icy mountains and glaciers reflected in calm blue waters under a clear sky.
    A large flock of Adelie penguins gathered on a rocky shoreline, with many penguins nesting and interacting across the area.
    A group of Adélie penguins on rocky terrain, with one penguin prominently in the foreground looking towards the camera.
    A large iceberg rising out of the calm ocean waters under a clear blue sky, surrounded by snow-covered mountains in the distance.
    A towering iceberg stands majestically in a clear blue sky, surrounded by smaller ice formations floating in the water.
    A group of four Gentoo penguins walking on a pebbly shore near the water.
    A scenic view of a calm ocean surrounded by snow-covered mountains and icebergs under a bright sun and blue sky.
    A group of Gentoo penguins standing on a snowy landscape with icy waters and snow-capped mountains in the background.
    A dark-colored whale surfacing in icy blue waters near a large glacier, with intricate ice formations in the background.
    A large blue iceberg floating in calm waters under a clear sky with scattered clouds.

    Whale Watch (2025)

    A group of seals swimming and splashing in the water.

    Zion

    Scenic view of Zion National Park showcasing towering sandstone cliffs under a partly cloudy sky.
    A colorful waterfall cascading down a rocky cliff surrounded by green trees and blue sky.
    A scenic view of Zion National Park featuring a prominent red rock mountain under a blue sky with scattered clouds, foregrounded by dry vegetation and a leafless tree.
    A panoramic view of a mountainous landscape featuring red rock formations, green vegetation in a valley, and a blue sky with scattered clouds.
    Scenic view of red rock mountains with green vegetation under a blue sky, featuring a fallen tree in the foreground.
    Scenic view of red rock mountains under a blue sky with fluffy clouds.
    A panoramic view of Zion National Park featuring towering cliffs, green vegetation, and a blue sky with scattered clouds.

    Hummingbirds

    A colorful hummingbird perched on green leaves, showcasing its iridescent feathers against a blurred natural background.
    A hummingbird perched on a flowering plant against a blurred green background.
    A small hummingbird perched on a green leaf with a blurred green background.
    A colorful hummingbird perched on a branch surrounded by green leaves and red flowers.

    More to come….