September 7, 2026

Lilting strains of opera accompany the coffee in Mario’s on Howe Street in downtown Vancouver. Opera and coffee, a new experience. Vancouver was a new experience.

At dawn last Sunday our ship, Westerdam, was making nine knots, then four. The harbor was filled with tug and freighter traffic. After a week of watching wilderness along the vast Inland Passage that separates British Columbia from the Pacific, we were entering a city. It discharged us with the other 2,000 passengers at the cruise terminal. We found our hotel in the middle of downtown.

The next morning we walked a bit, enjoying the cool northern Pacific air. Mario’s was cramped, a half-dozen two-person tables. An elderly man in a baseball cap brewed the coffee, two young women smiled as they made sandwiches. We listened to the lovely sounds.  The old guy closed his eyes and waved his hand rhythmically with the music.

The city is named for George Vancouver, a British naval officer who explored the Pacific Northwest coast in 1792. He sailed through the region, creating charts in collaboration with Spanish explorers who mapped California. Today Vancouver is the land-sea anchor of “Beautiful British Columbia,” the legend on the province’s license plates.

Vancouver ranks behind Toronto, Montreal, and a few other Canadian cities in urban population, but close to the top among the country’s larger metropolitan areas. The city occupies a wide peninsula across the Strait of Georgia from giant Vancouver Island. The northern boundary is the Burrard Inlet, through which our ship sailed; to the south is the Fraser River, winding 850 miles deep north into the province, then south to the Alberta border.

Downtown is business; banks, brokerages, law firms, international trade, collapse in a couple of dozen square blocks. We were in the middle of all that. I thought of New York with way less traffic.  

We passed the blocks of skyscrapers on our way to Gastown, the eclectic neighborhood named after a talkative bartender, also famous for a steam-powered clock. Like the rest of the tourist crowd, we moved in for a photo and applauded when the clock struck noon. We passed the Catholic cathedral, the stone weathered and dark.

We were relieved by then to be finished with the ship. In the last three days at sea Sandy recovered, slowly, from the flu that called for an urgent detour to the Dahl Memorial Clinic in Skagway. The clinic visit, on our 48th wedding anniversary, was a bit of a downer. But the nurse practitioner, Shauna, was savvy and smart, she diagnosed Sandy’s symptoms and prescribed medication, which we picked up on-site.

We stood to leave, but chatted a bit. Shauna mentioned she grew up in Alaska, and that her medical assistant was heading to South Carolina for nursing school. I mentioned the anniversary. She sympathized. We appreciated that.

The clinic reminded visitors of where they are: “the Canadian border is 10 miles to the north by the only road in or out of Skagway. … For critical or in-patient care, residents must travel 100 miles to Juneau by small airplane or ferry, both of which can be delayed due to high winds or snowstorms.”

Still, a couple of days afterward we sat in easy chairs on the stern, enjoying the sun and watching without luck for the telltale spouts of whales.

The ship pressed on through the Inland Passage, following another sleek liner and leading a third, as if in a cruise-ship convoy. That evening we sat for twenty minutes to listen to the final entertainment, an unfunny comedian. We left after the second joke attempt.

For our first Vancouver evening we hiked Granville Street, looking for dinner. A dozen or more blocks had been closed to create a pedestrian mall. The promenade was filled with younger folks, guys and gals enjoying Sunday evening brews and live music in the late Canadian summer. Not a senior citizen in sight, no political talk, no worries. We recalled it was another country, really another world. We found an unlikely table along the sidewalk and took in the scene.

We found Mario’s. The music echoed on the sidewalk and swept us inside. The fellow in the cap, we learned, is the original Mario’s son, who inherited the business. He asked how we liked our coffee.

We rode the subway out to the airport to get boarding passes. The transit system resembled the D.C. Metro without the business-suit clientele you get in Washington. The train, like the city streets, was full of young people of many nationalities. About 50 percent of Vancouverans speak a language other than English or French.

Back in town, traffic sped through intersections, autos competing with electric bikes and scooters. The city had warmed up, but without our choking South Carolina humidity. From the hotel we could see the cruise ship terminal, the ships that arrived yesterday already gone, retracing the course we had taken with a new company of vacationers.

Many of them would arrive in Whittier and Anchorage unaware of the intensity of Alaska’s emptiness, through the wilderness and across fast-moving rivers of the Great Interior, the rugged peaks, and dense dark fir forests that stretch for hundreds of miles in every direction. 

A light breeze cooled our last evening in Vancouver. We passed the giant Pacific Centre, the iconic Canadian institution Tim Horton’s, a row of Asian places. The city was relaxed, unstressed, Canadians enjoying the crisp self-assurance of their town, the jewel of their vast Pacific-Rocky Mountain refuge.

We felt the sense of the place, the city and the country, new, strong, bold, the heart of the Maple Leaf nation standing apart from and above the political grubbiness that awaited us at home. As we walked we recognized in the air a chord of courage, character, integrity, compassion, that prospers in the town, then soars above it.      

August 31, 2026

Fog rolled in on the second full day at sea, then lifted. We could see the ghostly summits of peaks and rises of land formations off the ship’s starboard, but didn’t know where we were. At 7:00 AM we were making 12 knots. The plan was Glacier Bay National Park in a couple of hours.

We boarded Holland America’s Westerdam at Whittier, Alaska, after a two-hour train ride from Anchorage. Whittier looks like a port town and only a port town. The industrial activity we could see all had to do with supporting visiting ships. They arrived, loaded and offloaded passengers and cargo, then departed.

The salt-water cruise was a first for us; the Vietnam-Cambodia junket up the Mekong in January was in a different dimension, a tranquil passage up a placid, glass-flat river as wide as the Mississippi in places, but a river. Now we were on the ocean.

Getting settled aboard is a chore, the train, the winding line while hefting your backpack or suitcase, the security check, the hunt for the stateroom through a maze of corridors. Eventually we found the room after an elevator ride to the 10th deck. It seemed okay, and included a floor-to-ceiling glass door to a narrow balcony.  We stepped out for a spectacular, dizzying view of the harbor.

The ship got underway slightly behind schedule. It didn’t matter, we were there to sit, to look out at the view. We declined the barrage of sales pitches for excursions at the three scheduled stops: whale watching, gold panning, tram rides to mountaintops, helicopter rides for glacier closeups. The plane, bus, and train rides to Whittier took a toll.

We know people who love cruising and recommend it, we never before bit on the idea. But Alaska was Sandy’s dream, and it’s getting to be hurry-up time for dreams. The cruise typically goes with the Alaska visit. Some folks do the cruise then continue with an inland segment, battling the trains, buses, and hotels after the easy part. We listened to good advice: do the reverse.

For cruise people, Westerdam is considered a small ship, 82,000 tons, 900 feet long, accommodating about 2,000 tourists. Some of these behemoths take on 7,000 leisure seekers. Even so, our ship resembles an apartment building laid horizontally on a hull: 10 levels of cabins linked by 14 elevators, feeding the sailing public at five restaurants, a burger and hot-dog place up to an exquisite white tablecloth setting where jackets and dresses are expected.

A single day aboard reveals the allure of cruising. The cruise company offers pampering—everything (nearly everything) human beings desire: endless food, abundant alcohol, some at extra cost; entertainment (music, cinema, theater, gambling, nightclub acts, bingo, board games); healthcare (fitness classes, massages, hair styling, skin treatments, yoga, sauna, swimming, hot tub, first aid classes, lectures). There’s a pickleball and a basketball court, a library and a high-end jewelry store. The ship scheduled AA meetings, church services, singles and LGBTQ meetups.

When we arrived at Glacier a team of park rangers motored to the ship in a small boat and offered lectures on the park’s history and wildlife.

The décor is contemporary Las Vegas: garish wall coverings and tapestries; facsimiles of classic sculptures (e.g., David, Venus de Milo); wall-high reprints of colonial art; ship models ranging from 17th century four-masters to those of Holland America’s current fleet. The casino, with poker and blackjack tables and rows of slot machines, is a seagoing Vegas. The elevator doors are covered with ornate gold veneer.   

We took photos of the Grand Pacific and Margerie glaciers at the northern end of Glacier Bay. The ship then turned south into Lynn Canal. Westerdam arrived early next morning at Skagway, nestled between towering peaks along a narrow inlet. Three other cruise ships tied up nearby. We deboarded with the crowd and browsed the souvenir shops, jewelry stores, and teeshirt markets, the economic lifeblood of the place.

Souvenir-hungry tourists jostled along State Street and Broadway. I recalled the wisecrack by Eric, our Denali driver: “We don’t mine for gold any more, we mine wallets.”

A chilly rain fell, the ship departed about 9:00 PM, backing out of the quay at three knots. In the morning, in a thick fog, we pulled into Juneau, the state capital. Like Skagway, the city is perched at the northern end of a narrow bay. Juneau’s Broadway runs from the harbor through the heart of the shopping district up a steep hill. The state capitol, a nondescript office tower, overlooks the harbor.

Across the street from the capitol is a statue of Secretary of State William Seward, who in 1859 negotiated the purchase of Alaska from Russia for $7 million or about two cents an acre.

That evening we got to Mass. Father Jack read from Matthew’s gospel, the passage about the good and faithful servant. “The servant persevered in his duty, in his life’s mission, even when it was difficult,” he said. “Christ asks us to be like the servant, to be present, to do what he calls us to do.”

We took that note with us to Ketchikan, the salmon capital of the world, they say. It was another night’s sail, zigzagging through a thickly forested, uninhabited archipelago. Around midnight the sky cleared, the moon gleamed across the sea over dark peaks. We tied up about mid-morning. Dozens of fishing boats lay pierside. Homes and businesses stretched along a north-south highway, city streets ran to the harbor.

As at Skagway and Juneau, the marketing was intense, folks waved signs hawking various tours. We leaned over a rail to gawk at packs of salmon swimming in circles in a stream that ran to the harbor.  Some of the fish leaped into the air, as if on cue. Shops offered the usual racks of souvenirs, “Alaska” clothing, jewelry, ceramic and plastic carvings, Christmas-tree ornaments, on and on.  We saw the museum but missed the famous totem poles and lumberjack contests.

We straggled back aboard. In late afternoon the ship departed for the homestretch, a full day and night en route to Vancouver. One day there, then it’s the airport back to hometowns, jobs, chores, doctors’ appointments.

The ship transported us close to 2,000 miles into and out of an unreal world. The crew, mostly young folks from Indonesia, the Philippines, and other Asian places, cheerfully hustled to meet the needs and whims of the passengers, probably 90 percent senior citizens.

We docked in Vancouver. Folks lined up at the gangway, regretting the end of the pampering, the crew’s smiles, the week of dreams. We all said so long and trooped ashore. Within hours Westerdam welcomed another 2,000 aboard, and headed out to sea.

August 24, 2026

When the clouds lift, Mt. Denali gleams. The jagged snow-covered peaks that surround the summit are shining and massive, even at 60 miles. Dozens of other craggy heights of the Alaska Range line up for miles like partners to the summit complex.

Native Athabascan people called the mountain Denali (“the tall one”) for hundreds of years. In 1897 a local man dubbed it Mt. McKinley, after President William McKinley, who never visited Alaska.

Lobbying for creation of a national park began around 1905. In 1917 President Wilson signed a bill establishing Mt McKinley National Park, encompassing more than four million acres. In 1980 President Carter approved an addition of roughly two million more.

In 1980 Alaska’s state government unofficially changed the mountain’s name to Denali. In 2015 President Obama approved the change. Trump changed the mountain’s name back to McKinley in 2023 (the park remains “Denali”). Signage was changed, but locals still call it Denali.

The 20,310-foot peak has a steeper base-to-summit rise than Mt. Everest and most of the world’s mountains, meaning its elevation begins at a lower level. The mountain, which makes its own weather, usually is shrouded in clouds. When it shows itself Denali is a ghostly presence, the centerpiece of a magnificent wilderness.

The southern and northern segments, Denali National Park, are managed like other national parks, allowing some camping, hunting, fishing.

The difference is wilderness: the central one-third of the park, about 1.3 million acres, is the Preserve, untouched wild country. A 93-mile park highway was completed in 1938, but no private vehicles are allowed on the road past the 15-mile point. A park ranger stands guard at a small station, waving car traffic into a parking lot. Tour buses are permitted out to 43 miles.

At the station, a ranger welcomed us. We moved on. Our driver-guide, Eric, tells us he’s a slow driver. We puttered along as the altitude increased. He pointed out the U-shaped valleys of the Savage and Teklanika Rivers, which flow from glaciers. Off to the north we spotted Dall sheep and caribou, tiny dots far up the mountain slopes. We stopped at the Teklanika overlook to snap photos, then pressed on into unmarked country.

Far from Mt. Denali the peaks soar on both sides, an ocean of multiple shades of green, the firs, the grassland, the tundra, the thick underbrush. The aspens, which grow at crazy angles because their roots don’t penetrate the permafrost, already are showing fall colors. Alaska’s winter is eight months, spring, summer, and fall are collapsed into the other four.

Folks who came prepared with binoculars would call out when they spotted the sheep grazing surefooted high in the cliffs. Here and there we saw caribou in twos or threes. Both males and females have antlers, the males’ much larger. We learned that caribou and moose hooves are splayed like snowshoes for firmer footing in the thick snow.

Someone who knows about these things pointed out that the early supporters of the preserve argued against a paved road. The hard surface, they said, would handicap moose and caribou with their hard hooves and give an advantage to pursuing bears and wolves, with their soft padded paws, although bears typically don’t hunt big game.

The caribou and moose consume huge amounts of vegetation, up to 80 pounds per day as they gain weight for winter. Both species remain active through the brutal winters, when temperatures may dip to -50F. Eric pointed out the bare branches of saplings at moose-head height.

We did see one grizzly moving along a ridge, head down, prospecting for roots and berries, fattening for the coming winter. Late August already is autumn in Alaska. Even at a healthy distance the animal was huge, the fur a pale tan to orange, the telltale hump showing the bear’s massive muscular shoulders.

We made our turn at the 43-mile end point with a sharp backup maneuver. We dismounted a couple of times to snap photos. Within 10 miles of the park entrance the terrain shifts gradually from rugged to rolling, wide, deep green hills stretch into plains. We spotted three female moose within a couple of hundred yards of the road. A half-dozen cars and trailers slowed and stopped, typical of crowded lower-48 parks. We got our moose photos.

We stumbled from the bus, worn out by nature, and took a day off. The next morning we got aboard the McKinley Express for the 240-mile rail trip to Anchorage. The train chugged smoothly but slowly, never above 50 mph, mostly 30-40. We crossed the Tanana River and plunged into the southern Denali mountains, thick fir forest, more near-trackless wilderness, rushing white water, an occasional settlement, cabins of solitary off-the-gridders.

One of the forest residents is Shannon Cartwright, author of dozens of well-loved children’s books. Another, nicknamed Repo, formerly worked as a repo man but also served as an Air Force F-16 pilot. Both have modest cabins in the middle of nowhere but near the track. We spotted a bunch of abandoned cabins, a stillborn AirBnb development. Not a soul in sight, though.

The passage showed us more spectacular country. We also were halted to switch tracks while waiting for a speedier freight train. The conductor got off and turned the switch by hand. By mid-afternoon the landscape flattened.

We passed the odd but tourisy village of Talkeetna, where the mayor is a cat. Eventually we saw a chain of pretty lakes, then Anchorage suburbs Willow and Wasilla before pulling through the Chugach Mountains, which ring Anchorage. The city, Alaska’s metropolis, was drizzly and chilly. We deboarded, said thanks to the train crew, and hopped the hotel bus. We took our memories of Alaska: endless green, lonely, mysterious, but magical.

August 21, 2026

Our flight made it to Fairbanks around 11:00 PM local time, meaning 3:00 EST. We trudged to the baggage carousel, grabbed the suitcase, then herded with 20 other exhausted seniors to the door. A woman with the cruise line lectured us on the contents of our tour packets. We listened, bleary-eyed, surrendered the suitcase to the handler, and marched to the hotel bus.

A few streaks of light blue decorated the horizon at the fringe of the night sky. Not exactly the midnight sun, but an attempt.

The Alaska land tour and cruise is a first for us. The Vietnam-Cambodia adventure, which required applying for a visa, was comparatively a breeze. Before leaving home for this Holland America junket we faced an onslaught of details-packed emails and text messages reminding us to set up accounts, log in, register for side excursions. We accumulated a thick file: numbered tags, reminders, briefings, and sales pitches.

At home, South Carolina suffocated in 90F heat and choking humidity. Central Alaska is overcast and cool.

In the morning we wandered the eight blocks to downtown Fairbanks. It was around nine Monday in the state’s second-largest city (population about 30,000), but not much was going on. The side streets, laid out in a grid, were nearly free of traffic. We walked past vacant lots, small frame houses, a few businesses. The main thoroughfare, Second Avenue, was quiet.

We noticed the electrical-connection posts installed along streets and the outlet cords protruding from radiators of parked vehicles that plug into the posts to warm batteries and oil pans on minus-30, minus-40, and lower winter days.

We straggled across Second to a city park along the Chena River, which runs through the city. A sign reported on the Chena Flood of August 1967, when after a week of rain the river rose over its banks and flowed through downtown. Office buildings displayed lines showing high-water marks.

That evening we met Bob, who I know from the Office of Naval Research years ago and his wife Debbie, who arrived in town on the back end of their cruise-first, land-second tour. Bob was both amused and dazed by the regimentation and bureaucracy of the cruise. We got a nice dinner, talked about ONR days, kids, health.

The next day we got to the Morris Thompson Historical and Cultural center, a museum offering fascinating education on Alaskan life, the richness of the natural world, the months of winter deep freeze. We saw a film made by Dick Proenneke, who lived alone for 30 years in a wilderness cabin in southwest Alaska. His cabin now is a state landmark. Inspiring, but scary. Others have perished trying similar feats.

The city, the region, the state are permanently braced for winter. City buildings are mostly austere concrete blocks with small windows. Local folks already are in thick jackets and wool caps, clothing stores are stocked with Eskimo-type parkas and boots.

The cruise lines, Holland America and Princess, use Fairbanks as a transit point. They circulate their people through town to jump off by bus to Denali National Park or excursions to the Canadian hamlet of Dawson, once a booming mining town, now an in-and-out tourist stop. You can get a short, expensive flyover visit to the Arctic Circle, which rates an “I was there” certificate.

Some, including us, will head to Anchorage to board the ship. Those who do it in reverse, cruise before land, come to Fairbanks for their flights home.

So the hotel lobbies fill up with senior citizens coming and going, lugging their bags or bending under their backpacks, mostly in winter jackets, some showing off “Midnight Sun” sweatshirts. They sprawl in the lobby sipping coffee and people-watching.

On the last day, Holland America took over. They sent us with a couple of hundred others on a paddleboat ride up the Chena to a fishing and hunting camp modeled on those built by the Athabascan natives who lived in the area thousands of years ago.

 Before boarding the boat, just for fun, we sampled a simulated -40F chamber, the point being to give the tourists a sense of local winter extremes. Some wore parkas, I had a sport coat and summer shirt. I stepped in and gasped. It was invigorating for a few seconds. I lasted about two minutes.

The antique paddlewheeler pushed us upstream to the camp, near the merging of the Chena with the wide, fast-flowing Tanana River, which eventually joins the mighty Yukon. We watched poised young Athabascans, college students and new graduates, teach eloquent lessons about the lives of those ancient people. They explained and demonstrated fishing and food preparation techniques, hunting for moose, caribou, bear, curing of furs and hides, the creation of beautiful and warm clothing.

The brief side trip, two or three hours, reversed our ebbing enthusiasm for this adventure and restored some confidence in the generations now rising. The young guys and gals showed us skills, energy, sparkle and spunk, stepping up to entertain the grayheads, which can be tedious.

Most of us, after all, came following orders of the tourism gods. We left happier, smarter, and hopeful that this state, and maybe the country, will be OK.           

August 17, 2026

I shuffled forward in the security screening line at John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana, California. In the X-ray booth an alarm sounded. A grim-faced blue-shirted TSA officer ran his wand over me. I tried again, another alarm. Another wanding, another alarm. After the fourth alarm he thumbed through my wallet. I found two quarters in my pocket, the fifth wanding was the charm.

John Wayne is much smaller than its nearby cousin, Los Angeles International (LAX). It’s farther from Hollywood, but only 15 miles from Disneyland. There’s a statue of John Wayne, less traffic and congestion. Otherwise, it’s a cookie-cutter replica of any American airport: pricey coffee shops, restaurants and bars, magazine and candy counters, souvenir places.

On the way out from GSP (Greenville Spartanburg) the TSA fellow had given me a red “old guy” card. Don’t bother taking the laptop out of your duffel bag, he said in a friendly tone, okay to keep your belt on, too. No slack in Santa Ana. I removed my belt and put the laptop in the plastic bin and stepped into the booth. The fun began.

This was my trip home from my uncle’s funeral, reported in last week’s post. It was going to be a long one, Southwest Airlines from Santa Ana to Phoenix to Nashville to Greenville. About five hours of flying plus four hours of waiting. 

Throngs of travelers slog through the security lines, dump their stuff in bins, empty their pockets, hold their arms up to be X-rayed, then maybe wanded. They trek through the concourses looking for their gates with a focused, distant stare. Where are they all going? Vacations. Business. Family visits. School. Job interviews.

The romance of flying cultivated by Pan Am, TWA, Eastern, and Lockheed’s giant Super Constellation and Douglas Aircraft’s DC-6 turboprops is long gone, along with those airlines and aircraft. The experience is more like riding a city bus.

Gone are suits for men and dresses for ladies. Summer flying now is like the rest of life: teeshirts, with sleeves and without for guys; tanktops and bathing suit tops for gals; souvenir sweatshirts. Very short shorts for men and women; also those long drooping ones that hang below the knees; running shoes, sandals, and flipflops. In winter all of the above plus a jacket. It could be about maximum comfort. It could be about anything.

Still, for some of us, the sensation of taking off, watching the earth fall away, cruising above the clouds, the feeling of being swept along effortlessly to distant places, is exciting.

In Phoenix, after a 50-minute flight, my gate area was packed with passengers. Agents shouted like carnival barkers. Phoenix is a major Southwest hub. The deep-blue, red, and orange aircraft taxi in and out of gates. Outside it’s 100-plus degrees, you sympathize with the guys out there loading bags. From the windows, the barren desert hills bake in the Arizona sun. A chicken sandwich and a bottle of water cost $23.00.

Southwest used to be different, no fees for bags, more laid-back about boarding. Flight attendants dressed casually and told jokes about the pilot. Now it’s as militarized as the others. Instead of calling boarding groups from the crowd loitering around the gate, passengers queue up in “odd” and “even” lines. Agents yell about bin space and threaten to force people to “gate-check.” Other airlines do that, too. Southwest flies only narrower Boeing 737s, so often less bin space.

I got lucky on the Phoenix-Nashville leg, an aisle seat in the emergency exit row, so slightly more leg room. The flight attendant needs a verbal “yes” that you’re willing to handle the door if that were needed.

The flight is three hours, easy after our back-to-back 15- and seven-hour flights on the Vietnam trip in January. My center-seat partner was a handyman going to Tennessee to build a walk-in bathroom for his mother. He was upset, and he let his seatmates know, that he couldn’t access the in-flight wifi with his cellphone. And sure, for some folks it can be awful to be without wifi for three hours. He yelled at the flight attendant. He never did get connected.

The Nashville gate area, like Phoenix, was bedlam, agents shouting flight numbers, destinations, boarding groups. I recalled, wearily, our time living there four decades ago, when what is now gigantic Nashville International Airport was tiny Nashville Municipal Airport with one tower and one runway. Two airport staffers, pushing wheelchairs, offered a lift. I said no thanks. I told myself I’m not that decrepit.

Lugging my bag and a cup of yogurt for dinner, I spied a seat next to a young woman talking on her phone. I grabbed the seat, gulped the yogurt, and left the seat for ten seconds to toss the empty cup. I turned around, an old guy, probably my age, had taken my seat. None others free.

The young woman in the next seat was off her call. She noticed me, stood up and offered me her seat. I hesitated, but I was tired and hot, and accepted. As I sat, a fellow in the next seat stood and left, freeing the seat. I motioned to the woman, she smiled and sat. Her good deed was rewarded.

Conversations with strangers in airports are unusual, but we talked a bit. She was a professor of education at Clemson, returning from a conference in Kansas City. She mentioned her family roots in Morocco, her doctoral work, the conference sponsored by the Stevens Initiative on applying technology in education, her reason for attending.

We didn’t ask each other’s name. Her boarding group was called. I said, “Good Luck,” we shook hands. As I got in line, the agent approached. “We’re out of bin space, you need to check your bag. It will be on the carousel in Greenville.” He pointed to the customer service desk. I surrendered the duffel bag, which had fit neatly under the seats of all my other flights.

We landed at GSP. I trudged to the baggage carousel empty-handed. The woman from Clemson caught up with me. “I’m sorry they made you check it,” she said, smiling again. I appreciated that. I noticed she had to wait for a checked bag.

We stood watching the bags roll out. It was 11 PM and storming outside. Thunder cracked, lightening flickered. My duffel bag showed up. We both said, “Good luck” again. I trooped out into the storm. Sandy waved from the pickup line. We headed home.