The Traveling Widower

Tag: travel

  • Where to now?

    Looking into my cloudy crystal ball for the future of this blog. Where to go next? 

    Travel Catalogs Galore – so many choices

    So unlike a lot of blogs, where the author(s) posts on current events, politics, hobbies or other newsworthy items on a regular basis, my blog posts will be triggered by events which get me out of my house for at least a day, and involve hiking, photography, or some other outdoor adventure. I wish I could guarantee posts at least on a weekly basis, but there will be gaps in my travel schedule, where I need to do more mundane tasks like medical related appointments (I’m old), financial tasks like paying taxes, and just hanging around and resting from long trips. I no longer seem to take vacations to relax – I need to recuperate after 12 days of hiking, or from jet lag.  I am writing this particular post on one of the down-time periods, and it may be a couple of weeks before I venture out and have anything of interest to post. The one thing I don’t want to happen is to lose interest, as I have done with a few blog attempts in the past, or to just had a short term site like I had with Half-Dome blog I launched 9 years ago.

    Fortunately, I do have plans for more adventures in the next few months. Travel is a necessity for me – I hate being alone at home.  I am currently booked on a National Geographic trip to the Alaska Inner Passage in late August, Antarctica in November, and two interesting trips (more whales, Kodiak grizzly bears) so far in 2026. I’m also planning on a few semi-local trips in the area, places I have not been to and now have the time. I live in California, close to Nevada, and there may be one or two places I have not been to before. Plus, I have that big pile of travel catalogs to go thru for 2026 and beyond – Patagonia? Iceland? So many choices. And home is no longer where I want to be for very long – too many memories of a life I long for but can no longer have. Travel helps to fill that void. The life of a widower.

  • Part III – The long and smoky road home

    Grass fire on I-5

    Since I still had a few muscles and tendons in my legs which were not screaming in pain from the abuse of this trip, I made two stops on the way back to Las Vegas. The first was the Coral Sand Dunes State Park, which was sort of on the way out from Kanab. The park is a sort of a misplaced beach, or from a geologic perspective, an example of how all the huge sandstone formations are created. Wind driven sand eroded from the Navajo Formation blows into this area and builds up against the ridge lines, creating very large dunes. It is a perfect playground for ATV’s and other off-road vehicles. You can also rent a surfboard and slide down the larger dunes. Looks like fun, but not for me. All of this activity is well controlled by the park rangers, so it’s safe to wander around to look for animal tracks, or just enjoy the scenery. I’ve mellowed about ATV’s in my old age I guess. It was a pleasant stop for an hour or so, but I did manage to get a pile of coral sand in the car. I had to do some serious vacuuming when I got home.

    Getting back to the highway to continue my journey to Las Vegas was a challenge. This was another Google Map issue – I’ve had a few this year. Google had me travel about 20 miles in the wrong direction, just to circle around and come back past the park to finally catch the correct roads to get to the highway back to I-15.Very annoying, but the scenery was beautiful, so seeing it again was not so bad.

    I decided to hit the Valley of Flames State Park one more time, since there were large sections which I did not cover on the way in. Glad I did. This really is a gem of a park. I was not up for any serious hiking, but found a number of trails I’d like to follow on my next trip out here. 

    Another formation in Fire Valley – much nicer day
    A very strange rock – never seen one weathered like this

    After Las Vegas, I headed off to Westlake Village, a community NW of Los Angeles to visit family. I also made a cemetery visit, but no need to discuss that in this blog. I had a nice time hanging with my cousin, and had a pleasant cruise around the lake in their electric “party” boat. After two nights, I made the long trip back home. That should have been a boring, uneventful trip, but I had one more bit of excitement added to the trip. Driving through a wildfire. About halfway home, cruising North on I-5, I noticed a cloud of smoke on the horizon. It was extremely windy, so I was guessing there was a grass fire somewhere ahead. As I got closer, the cloud grew and appeared to be very close to the highway. Well, it was REALLY close to the highway. There were no cars in the southbound lanes, and people were pulling over to the side, or switching over to the south lanes, to avoid driving into the smoke. Cal-Fire had not closed the northbound lanes  since the fire had not jumped the median yet. I really wanted to get home, so I SLOWLY entered the wall of smoke, following behind a big rig which I could barely see. As we crawled ahead, you could see the flames on the other side of the highway, and the fire crews working the fire. I made a big mistake – I did not turn off the A/C or shut the vents, so the car filled up with smoke. Fortunately I was through the smoke quickly, but was gasping for air at the point. That hurt. It took a while, with the windows and moon roof open, to clear out the car. It took about four days to clear out my lungs. Smoke inhalation is not fun.

    The remainder of the drive home was uneventful…except for coughing. It was good to get home – I did absolutely nothing for two days. That felt good.

    So what’s next for me (and this blog). That will be in the next post (coming soon). I need to get this version of the blog fully functional first.