Bespoke

Travel

  • What Progress Can’t Measure: A Ripe Life

    My brother visited over Thanksgiving. He drove, sorry, he sat in a self-driving Tesla and never touched the steering wheel from Utica, New York, to Bartlesville. He brought apples from a local orchard. They were perfectly ripe—crisp, sweet, juicy. It… Continue reading

    What Progress Can’t Measure: A Ripe Life

  • Downton Abbey: a reflection

    Karen and I went to the movie theater to see Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale. The concession guy apparently decanted my Pepsi into a small cup with a straw—not unlike Carson the Butler filtering wine through cheesecloth—before telling me with… Continue reading

  • Musings at 35,000 feet

       I recently picked up my son and daughter-in-law from the airport and the subject of airliner models arose. My first flight was on a Lockheed TriStar L-1011 equipped with a headphone sound system and I listened to Carly Simon’s,… Continue reading

  • Unfound Doors

    I’m writing this from the 17th floor of a beach-side balcony with one eye on the sun rising over the Atlantic Ocean and one eye on my screen. The sun rises in the east just like at home where Karen… Continue reading

  • This Land That I Loved Young

    Karen and I decided to do something this summer that we had never done before. We rented an RV and drove through Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, and Colorado with our friends Bob & Sheila. Why? Perhaps this western wandering… Continue reading

  • RV 7 . Coming Home: These are the Days

    We have wandered the west lassoing Wyoming, and taking in OK, KS, NE, SD, ID, and CO. My Dad loved wandering vacations so he took his teenage brother, his parents and three Taylor children and drove the eight of us… Continue reading

    RV 7 . Coming Home: These are the Days

  • RV 4 Greybull WY to Livingston MT

    Last night we slept near Big Timber. I love the cathedral of woods, sunlight scattering through trees on a summer afternoon like smoking lasers. The maternal side of my family came from a misnamed place in the panhandle of Oklahoma,… Continue reading

  • RV three

    When one wanders, one should still be keen enough to know when to continue wandering in a particular direction or when one’s fate is in jeopardy. That may come through the assistance of maps and guides. It may come through… Continue reading

    RV three

  • RV two

    After two days of RV life, I’ve determined that this is not the life depicted in Downton Abbey and if Robert or Mary magically appeared and asked who will dress me today, well, I would tell them you are on… Continue reading

  • The Tiny Home in Our Driveway

    There are two kinds of people in the world. (there are more than that, but let’s not nitpick) People who love to stay home and people who love to wander. Home people nest and settle in for the long haul as… Continue reading

    The Tiny Home in Our Driveway