October 7, 2026 How Big is Your Umbrella? Mokošica, Croatia For the three days it was forecasted to rain cats and dogs — uhh, mostly cats — people in the streets and stairways of Mokošica had one umbrella each. The clouds were swirling but no rain to speak of yet. Everyone walked their usual routes to school and work and had full size umbrellas […]
October 4, 2026 Landscape and History – the shape of a place Croatia Roadtrip: Zadar to Dubrovnik This drive reminds me of I-70 from Denver to Grand Junction, except without the bald mountain tops and traffic issues. It is gorgeous with rolling hills, wildlife tunnels, fall colors of reds and oranges on the close foothills, and the craggy points of the more distant mountains. […]
October 3, 2026 The 3 National Parks – Plitvice, Paklenica, and Krka Zadar, Croatia Plitvice Lakes National Park It’s known as the most beautiful National Park in all of Europe. Yes, it’s crowded. Tour groups from as many countries as you can think of in gaggles up to 50 people. Some are families like us, taking a day trip and exploring all there is […]
October 2, 2026 Croatia: Distinctively Different Zadar, Croatia Something was different here. As soon as we boarded the plane to Croatia and realized the Ryanair crew was boarding us onto a plane owned by another company! Were we really still headed to Zadar. We took a bus out to the tarmac to board. Maybe they brought this bus to the wrong plane? We found […]
Thursday, October 1, 2026 She Who Shows the Way Matera, Italy (and all of Southeast Italy) The art and theology of Matera. The Church of St. Mary of Idris was from a Greek phrase – a church in the rock. The women would come to pray for rain. They would drop to the ground and crawl to the altar, begging the Virgin Mary for […]
October 1, 2026 ITALY – Part 2 (September 14th-30th) – In Review Traveling up and down Italy was a huge highlight of the trip.I had to reference Stanley Tucci many times when telling the family why we needed to go somewhere or try something. There are many more places I would love to visit someday. Italy truly is a treat for the eyes and […]
There are varying levels of being sure. And each person has a different level of baseline acceptance before they are sure of something. This runs through everything and I’m beginning to have a better understanding of the parameters each character in the scene has around being sure. Is this greek yogurt 9% fat or 2% fat, because whatever we got last time was no […]
September 27, 2026 What Do We Need? … and can we make it to Southeast Italy? Polignano a Mare, Italy This is truly the question we are asking in every way. After 27 days, what do we need? This is longer than a vacation and not quite a “moving in,” so I find that we are in a bit of an interim time. We […]
September 25, 2026 Stolen Phone. Stolen Excitement. And the Restoration of the Island. Ischia, Italy Such a bummer to have a bad luck event happen right before traveling to a small Italian island. I know. I need to let it go and have the best time on this amazing little island. It does not help that this small hotel building, owned by a brother […]
Long time reader, first time poster here – its Eric! I’ve got a front row seat to learning! The bigs are both in chemistry right now. I’m getting a first hand reminder of what its like to learn something completely new from the ground up. What’s the difference between the S and P orbitals? Which thing is the one that is always in motion? […]