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In Croatia we went up two bell towers. It was scary because it felt like you we were going to fall down the stairs! Mom got freaked out about us. She got especially freaked out by me. There were tons of cats too! My favorite animal! We also had the yummiest gelato yet!!!

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[British] Open Minded

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About a year ago, a friend asked us if we’d be interested in going to Scotland for the British Open if he won the chance to buy 4 tickets in the ticket lottery. At the end of October he found out he’d won. For a few hours I was celebrating my opportunity to see top-notch tennis players, until my ignorance became apparent to the rest of the foursome. Turns out it’s a golf tournament; I offer that tidbit for anyone else out there like me. After 9 months of anticipation and almost 2 weeks of touring Scotland, the big day was here. Our fellow traveler not only won the chance to buy tickets, he won the chance to buy them for the final day. Again, for those like me, that means they have already played a round of golf for each of the first 3 days, and those that made the cut play a last round on the final day. The excitement of it was heightened because it was the 150 th anniversary of the British Open, and it was being played—as it is every 5 years now—at the birthplace of golf, St Andr
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[Wander] Lust in the Time of COVID, Part I: Fennville and South Haven

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It may come as no surprise to find out that I’m afflicted with itchy feet. In normal times, I will seek out any way I can to explore via planes, trains or automobiles. Of course these are not normal times. But the point of travel isn't only to see far-away places. We travel to experience the joy of new  places.  For Mother’s Day this year, I gave out a few copies of books about traveling in Michigan.  Rebel , a fun gift store in Grand Rapids, put many of their products online so you could order curbside when retail was still shut down. One book was  Backroads and Byways of Michigan,  and another focused on hikes in Michigan. I gave myself the Backroads book, and this summer Brian and I have been exploring some areas we haven’t before, or finding new ways to enjoy places we have been. We avoid crowds, watch for well-spaced outdoor dining, and stay masked up whenever we get near other people, which puts us in the majority in some places and the minority in others. Most of the places
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Little Earthquakes Everywhere

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This morning, just before 5 am, a 5.0 earthquake somewhere northeast of us made a Tokyo’s ground tremble. I happened to wake up to the bed shaking a bit; this is the fourth time I’ve felt one in my life. Three of those four times I’ve wondered what Brian could possibly be doing in his sleep—a constant leg twitch? a terrifying nightmare?— to cause our bed to shimmy this way. One of those times was three days ago in the middle of the night in the same hotel room, but it didn’t occur to me then what it was. This morning I heard the wall shift slightly as it was happening and it became clear. Japan has small earthquakes almost every day, so this should be no surprise, but of course my nighttime self is not the most reasonable version of me, so I lay in bed another half hour wondering what might come next. I am the family seismograph—everyone else slept through both tremors this week.  This echoes my function in our family in real life. When one of our children is going through
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