The Traveling Widower

Tag: blogging

  • More Blog Changes – Something Different

    A travel guide titled 'The Traveling Widower' displayed on a wooden surface, featuring a blue cover with a coat of arms and a man in the background near water.
    Just kidding….not real

    13 October, 2026

    As I was reorganizing the Traveling Widower blog the past few days, I started browsing through the posts from the trips I’ve written about the past two years, just for the fun of it….Wow, I’ve been to a lot of really incredible places, and have overloaded my brain with memories. I’m glad I’ve been recording what I’ve seen on the blog since I’ve probably exceeded my internal storage limits. I need one of those storage implants that Keeanu Reeves had in Johnny Mnemonic (one of my favorite films…I want room service!).

    A man in a suit is wearing a futuristic visor and gloves, preparing to engage with a digital interface.

    I need more than the 80 GB he had attached to his head. Much like the SSD card I used the last day in Katmai National Park, I think a large portion of my brain is corrupted.

    Wait! This is not what I wanted to write about. Not enough coffee this morning. Let’s start over.

    One thing I noticed while reading my stuff is that while I do write a lot about each location in excruciating detail sometimes, I do not really spend too much time describing what a lot of people are looking for in travel related sites. While my intent has never been to turn the blog into a Rick Steves or Travel Advisor type of site,  some viewers might want to know more details about where I stay – hotels, restaurants, interesting places to visit. Or the company I travel with. My recent Iceland trip is a good example – we visited many of the major tourist sites, and also visited quite a few places off the beaten track. Along the way, we stayed at seven different hotels, ate at a lot of restaurants, and hiked or stopped at many locations that most of the larger travel companies ignore. If I were planning a road trip in Iceland on my own, I might be interested in some of the places I stayed at.

    So, what can I do differently without going through yet another time consuming redesign? Using my Iceland trip as an example, with the new format for the blog, maybe I’ll create a post summary for each trip, something like a “Best of My Iceland Trip”, which lists each place I stayed at, what I liked about it, focused more on what I liked about that village and/or hotel along with some pictures. For Iceland, this might include (as an example):

    Reykjavik

    Places to Stay – I only stayed at one hotel – The Hilton Canopy City Center, and it was one of the best hotels I’ve stayed at…anywhere. The hotel is something of a maze, but other than that, the rooms are large and modern, there are a number of great sitting areas to relax in, a great bar, excellent restaurant, and very helpful staff. It is also located on the main street with gobs of restaurants, bars and shopping just around the corner. Excellent location for getting around the city as well. And the gelato shop is just a block away.

    Food – Reykjavik is a foodie city…really. It’s not just weird fish dishes. You can find just about anything there, including the famous hot dog stand (never got to try it…too crowded. I do recommend the Baka Baka bakery – great food, pastries and breads.

    Akureyri

    Food – We had our final group dinner at a seafood/sushi restaurant, Rub23) across from out hotel. Very upscale, with a nice wine list. The dinner was pre-ordered by our guide – all sushi, and some of the best I’ve ever had. There are lots of restaurants, bars and coffee shops along the main shopping area – most looked pretty good, but we only at the hotel (meh) and Rub23.

    I can then create a new group on the home page – My Favorite Places or something like that. Or maybe “Max and Aperture’s  Favorite Places”:

    A man sitting on a deck with a golden retriever dog beside him, holding a book. The setting features a wooden railing and large windows with sheer curtains.

    This new category group will then have composite blog entries for each of my trips. And maybe some generic travel tips as well, on things like gear that I bought for some of the trips.  I will have to start taking more photos of the towns instead of animals, but I’m taking classes on street photography.

    I’m liking this idea. As Captain Picard would say, “Make it so!” Version 2.1 of the site will soon have this new category on the home page, with an entry for Kodiak. I’ll back fill some of the places over time – Iceland for sure since I still have all the maps and itineraries from there. And I’ll take more photos in Puerto Natales and Ushuaia on my upcoming trip,

    And in case you are wondering, I am not writing a travel guide book. That was just more AI humor.

    Peace

  • 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.

    Long queue of travelers waiting in line for standard security screening at an airport, with a colorful decorative display overhead.
    Crowded airport terminal with a long line of travelers waiting at check-in, colorful decoration hanging above.
    A crowded airport terminal with a long line of travelers waiting in line, surrounded by a modern architectural design and colorful art installations hanging from the ceiling.
    Sign indicating estimated wait time of 15-30 minutes at an airport check-in line with passengers in the background.

    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.