Winter 2016 – photo by Reagen M.
Hello all! It is about time that I started a travel blog; I should have started this years ago. I’ll try to update this on a regular basis when I travel. For now, feel free to contact me or ask any questions about any of the photos or destinations. I hope you enjoy the blog!
While I am sitting here on my first day of my 2nd attempt at retirement, I am finally able to reflect on last month’s epic adventures. It started with a road trip from Louisville to Pittsburgh to New Hampshire. It continues on to a short stop in Maine and then down to Cape Cod for a short stop to participate as the bike leg of the Buzzards Bay sprint triathlon. After a long drive back to Kentucky, I had a few days’ rest before heading over to Switzerland with Stephanie and friends for a two-week road trip through Switzerland, Austria and the northern Italian Dolomite region. I stayed an extra week in Milan to visit my college friend, Tony, while the rest of the crew headed back to the US. I worked another four days and have decided to try retirement one more time.
Here are some more pics from NH, Maine, and the Cape:
I’ll start with the trip to NH where I camped at the Passaconaway Campground for a couple of days. It was fortuitous that my friends Jackey and Jarrett were spending a week there. I found out this detail a few days before hitting the road. The primary reason I was heading to New England was to be the bike rider for a sprint team triathlon in Buzzards Bay. That was only going to be an hour-long commitment, so I needed to find some other things to do. The few days in New Hampshire and Maine were perfect. Jarrett and I hiked Hedgehog Mountain, and I quickly learned that biking shape and hiking shape are two entirely different things. It nearly killed me but was good preparation for the Dolomites. I got to experience Jackey’s Dutch baby egg and flour concoction, which was fantastic, played way too much cornhole, and had a wonderful stay in Jarrett and Jackey’s RV…I didn’t want to leave. Shout out to Jackey for recommending N to Tail Korean restaurant in Portland where I had a solo lunch of bibimbap and pork dumplings. I hope this plays stays around for a while. Link below:
Authentic Korean Restaurant in Portland, ME | N To Tail
Another shout out to Poland Provisions in Poland, Maine for a great breakfast and a proper cappuccino:
Poland Provisions | Cafe and General Store
After lunch, I drove down to the cape and stayed in a dive hotel near Bourne and went to the local theater to see The Odyssey to kill some time. I woke early the next day and drove to Horseneck Beach, made sure my recently updated, 25-year-old bike was ready to go. I met Joe and his niece, CJ, in the parking lot and we completed registration and waited around for the race to start. It was a bit of an overcast day, a bit windy with temps in the high 50s to low 60s. A perfect bike riding day. We had a good race and my biking time was fairly close to what I expected. I think I averaged about 19mph, but it could have been better if not for a four-mile stretch of killer headwind I had to deal with. Still very fun and we received a very good BBQ lunch after the race. Right after lunch the rain began, so it was perfect timing as I packed up everything for my trip back to Pittsburgh and eventually Kentucky. It rained the entire drive back.
The trip to the Dolomites was fantastic. Our choice of Zurich as our entry and exit point, not so much. Zurich is an OK city, not much as far as sightseeing (I’m sure others will argue this point), and is super expensive. We knew going in that this entire trip was not going to be cheap…and it wasn’t…lol.
Our first two days were spent in Innsbruck, which turned out to be a great place. We kind of wished we would have made Innsbruck our entry and exit point…or Milan. We didnt have much time in Innsbruck, but we did have enough time to explore the city and the city’s alpine zoo. I’m not an animal person but I even enjoyed it. Big shout out to the NALA individuellhotel in Innsbruck. It’s a funky hotel with a fantastic Sunday brunch and everyday breakfast. I want to go back to Innsbruck just to stay there again:
After Innsbruck, we made our way down the Brenner highway towards Cortina d’Ampezzo (where the 2026 Olympics were). On the way, we planned a stop at Lake Braeis before heading down to our hotel near Cortina. We quickly found that all parking lots close to the lake were full and everyone wanted to give up and head to the hotel. Everyone but me that is. We found that the far parking lot still had some spaces and after some discussion, we decided to stay and take the shuttle bus back to the lake. I think everyone agreed that this was a great decision as the short hike around the lake was spectacular. We even had time for a short detour through the forest to have lunch at Malga Foresta–another easy recommendation:
Afterwards we made our way down to San Vito di Cadore for our three-night stay at the Dolomiti Sport Hotel. We couldn’t find many decent options in Cortina and the Dolomiti Sport Hotel was just about perfect for our stay. The included breakfast was a big bonus. Though I will mention that there aren’t many restaurant options in San Vito.
From this point on, things become a bit of a blur. The Dolomites are overwhelming and it’s difficult for a first timer to keep up with everything. In the Cortina area we hiked Cinque Torri and Tre Cime di Lavaredo. The Cinque Torri hike was on a nice mostly sunny day and the Tre Cime hike was on a colder, very gray day. We couldn’t see the tops of the Tre Cime peaks. Still the Tre Cime hike was one of the highlights…our longest hike at almost 7 miles with a lot of uphill climbing. Stephanie was able to persevere and made it through with some regular rest stops.
After Cortina, we made our way to Ortisei for the 2nd part of our Dolomites trip–another three-night stay. We quickly found out that one of the major expenses traveling in the Dolomites is the cost of the lift tickets that take you to the best areas to hike. We decided to spend $160 each to get the Val Gardena card that allowed us to use most lifts without any additional charges.
In Ortisei, we did the most popular hikes: Seceda, Alpe di Siusi, and Resciesa. Its hard to pick a favorite from the group, but I would say that Resciesa has the least people (almost no one when we went), and if you can climb the short, steep grass field to the edge of the mountain, you will get spectacular 360 views.
One other thing to note is the lunch stops we had at many of the mountain refugios (huts). Most were very good and included much needed beer and wine options. Nothing better than a great lunch with great mountain views. I hope to have time in another post–or I’ll update this post–to go into more details about the refugios.
Our next to last stop was in Verona, Italy. We had a difficult time deciding where to stay after the Dolomites and we settled on Verona. Verona was OK, but I think Milan would have been a better choice…or even Bologna. We ran out of things to do in Verona fairly quickly, but we had a great Airbnb. I think the thing I will most remember about the Verona stop is watching Derek park our large VW van in the underground apartment parking space that was meant for a car the size of a Mini Cooper. He did it, though. It was an equal challenge getting the van out. We decided to find an outside parking space the last night, so we didn’t have to deal with the stress of parking it inside again.
One thing to note is that we scheduled a winery tour outside of Verona which turned out to be one of the trip’s highlights. The tour was at Giuseppe Quintarelli, one of the best Amarone style wine producers in the world. We had a fantastic tour of the entire process including seeing the grape drying process, barreling, and tasting. The tasting was very comprehensive and included some very expensive Amarone options ($1000+ a bottle). Of course, I had to get a couple bottles (not $1000+ but still expensive) and I’m thankful they made it back unscathed in my packed luggage.
I won’t post much about the short stay we had in Zurich to end the trip…other than it was expensive. I’ll try to create a separate post for my solo Milan trip, which turned out to be very good. Since I have been typing for far too long, I’ll just leave you with some pics from Innsbruck and the Dolomites. Thanks for reading!
As I approach my 2nd retirement, I am looking for things to take up my time. I’ve been bike riding more than I ever have so I decided to take it to the next level and enter a gravel race. I traveled to tiny Eminence, Indiana to participate in the Dust Bowl 100 gravel race (dust being a very accurate description–see photo above). No. I wasn’t dumb enough to enter the 100-mile race; instead, I entered the less adventurous 44-mile category. The weather couldn’t have been better with gray skies and low 70-degree temps. A brief rain sprinkle as the race started was refreshing and I found a couple of guys who set a great pace and rode with them–mostly in silence–for more than half of the race. My goal was to stay upright and finish the race. I accomplished both, but staying upright was in doubt at one point when I took a hairpin turn way to fast and hung onto my handlebars for dear life as I managed to stay upright. I finished a hair under 3 hours (despite what the official time says) which was good for the middle of the road for my age category. I’m OK with that as a first timer. Now I’m ready for the 50-mile Unbound race in Kansas next June–if I win the lottery, that is.
I didn’t take many photos as I was busy taking everything in.
It’s been quite a while since my last post, and I have been getting a bit complacent maintaining the blog. So, I’ll post a couple noteworthy items from this summer. I’ll start with our recent trip back up to Maine for our one-year anniversary trip which included a trip back to our venue–Primo–for a wonderful dinner with our friends.
It started as a solo trip with me heading up a week early to do some biking. I spent a short time in Kennett Square, PA visiting with my cousin, Pete. It’s been a while since I last saw him and Joelle. We had a great time visiting with his friends who cooked us a fantastic dinner along with great conversation and music. I hope I get a chance to do this again.
My original plan once I reached Maine was to do a solo multi-day biking trip up the coast. I had to scale back my plans for various reasons and biked from Portland to Wolfes Neck Campground in Freeport. My trip only lasted a day and a half as I had Derek pick me up due to a threatened rainstorm that never really materialized. I deserved all of the criticism hurled at me for being such a cupcake.
The first part of the group trip involved visiting Rockland again one year later. We had a great lunch at The Causeway Restaurant in Spruce Head, ME. Highly recommended for their brunch and great drink selection. We had a great stay at the Limerock Inn in Rockland–another easy recommendation if you are visiting the region. We finished our Rockland trip with a very nice dinner back at our wedding venue, Primo. Since I don’t remember the wedding food very much at all, it was nice experiencing Primo in a less stressful situation where I could relax and enjoy the food for the almost three hours we were there.
After Rockland, we spent three days at the Gorman Chairback AMC lodge near Moosehead Lake in northern Maine. The AMC runs several camps up in the area that are fairly remote. No Internet, electricity and cell phone coverage–but they do prepare all meals for you. There is also hiking, gravel biking, canoeing and relaxing to do. One last notable thing about our Gorman stay, I won my third lunch bag art contest–I’m sure it is some sort of record.
The last few days, we spent in Deer Isle, Maine–an area I never visited before. The weather was a little gray and the pace a bit slower than we were used to, but, in retrospect I think it was just what we needed after a busy week. I would like to give a shout out to Brooklin Inn for the stay and better than expected dinner we had, 44 North Coffee and Bagaduce Lunch for our impromptu rain-soaked lunch.
One thing I learned while in Brooklin, Maine–this is where Charlotte’s Web author E.B. White lived and died. His gravesite was a mile down the road from the Brooklin Inn. We visited the small graveyard and found his site on our way out of town.
Another great trip to my adopted “home” state. As usual, some pics from the two weeks.
Too much time has passed since our recent trip to Italy and that makes it difficult to write as clearly as I would like—but I’ll use some of the photos in this blog to help with my memory.
It has been close to six years since our last trip over—probably the longest break I’ve taken from Italy. I wasn’t very excited for the trip at first, but my attitude improved once we arrived.
Although it was meant to be our honeymoon, we hardly planned anything for the trip, except for the Airbnbs. We rented a car to explore small towns for the first time, and it was such a success that we plan to do it again.
The towns we visited were the usual Italian favorites—Rome, Florence and Siena, but we were able to drive into some of the smaller towns that we always wanted to visit—Montepulciano, Montalcino, and San Gimignano.
It was also a Vatican Jubilee year—something that happens every 25 years or so. So, I thought I would reconnect with my Catholic roots and partake in some of the important Catholic activities—more in the Rome section below.
The trip started with our plane being delayed in Atlanta, so our two-hour cushion to catch the train from Rome to Florence was reduced to about 15 minutes. Everything had to go perfectly once we reached Rome, and much to our surprise, it did. Our luggage was the first off the plane and the train to Rome’s Termini station was ready to go as we raced to catch it—me buying tickets on my iPad as we were running toward it. We arrived in Termini ten minutes before the train to Florence departed. My recollections of the trip for each city/region:
Florence
We stayed farther away from central Florence this time around—in the area a little northeast of Santa Croce. The Airbnb was ideal and was located near a very good brewpub (Birreria Art. 17). Though we were a bit older than the typical local crowd, the vibe was still fun and the beer was very good. We were also near an excellent morning coffee shop (Cibreo Caffe) which is a necessity in Italy.
The weather was mostly good with a little rain, but mostly high 60s to low 70s in the day. We visited several restaurants, and I ended up having more Florentine steak than usual. It was enjoyable, though not exceptional. We also tried affogatos for the first time, which is a shot of espresso over whatever gelato flavor you desire. I consider it a must do and I would recommend the Vivoli Affogato bar near the Piazza Santa Croce (before or after a visit to the Santa Croce church, of course). I’m not quite sure, but Florence may also be the place where we started our run on Negronis—a drink that I don’t think I ever considered but is now something I have in the home bar—Campari, gin and vermouth—equal parts. We returned to several familiar spots, including the Uffizi Museum. From there, we strolled through the Vasari Corridor, crossed the Ponte Vecchio, and arrived at the Boboli Gardens. Our first visit to the Boboli Gardens involved more walking, stairs, and hills than expected, particularly in the rain. A highlight of the trip was a visit to the Strozzi Palace for the opening day of the Fra Angelico exhibition. The exhibition showcased the remarkable talent of an early Renaissance artist who often remains overshadowed by more prominent figures in art history. The NYT has a great article on the exhibition and it’s well worth reading and learning a little more about this artist:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/07/arts/design/fra-angelico-florence-palazzo-strozzi.html
We stayed three days in Florence and then rented a car to drive to Siena. My first experience driving in Italy and getting out of Florence was a bit rocky, but once we got outside of the town limits, into the Tuscan countryside, it was fantastic. But first, some pics from Florence:
Siena
We drove from Florence to Siena via the quiet SR222, enjoying a relaxing trip through picturesque Tuscan wine country. We tried to go to a wine tasting on our way, but the place was booked. We enjoyed wonderful weather and made several stops during our journey to take in the stunning scenery, much of which featured wineries. One notable stop was at a food truck called Antica Macelleria Cecchini where we had an otherworldly pastrami and cheese sandwich and a one euro cup of wine. I could have had this sandwich every day for the rest of the trip and I would have been happy.
The major challenge of driving into Siena was finding the parking area, which turned out to be a long street outside of one of Siena’s main gates. We were lucky enough to find the last space on the street. Paid parking from 8AM to 8PM made things a bit tricky, but luckily, they had an app to make managing it easier. It was about a mile walk from the car to the Airbnb, which turned out to be a great place. It was on the top floor with a wonderful balcony overlooking the hills around Siena and a large estate where they seemed to have parties every night (one of them to celebrate the neighborhood’s recent victory in the Palio horse race). We went grocery shopping the first night and cooked pasta with pesto and ate it on the balcony—a great first night in Siena.
Siena is a very nice town, but I wouldn’t recommend three nights there like we did. Fortunately, we had our rental car and got to experience Italy on a completely different level. We could stop anywhere we wanted and be much more flexible with our plans. We visited some of my top wish list destinations, including San Gimignano, Montalcino, and Montepulciano—the heart of Tuscan wine country. San Gimignano was a very lively tourist town and was our favorite. Stunning Tuscan scenery with many shopping and dining options. We had a great lunch there at Forno Boboli. Montepulciano and Montalcino are famous Tuscan wine towns—not nearly as crowded as San Gimignano, but worth visiting especially if you are an oenophile. Montepulciano has a unique wine tasting experience provided by Enoliteca Consorzio Vino Nobile. You are issued a computer chip card you can use in automated vending machines for wine pours from dozens of vineyards. You pay after you are done, but be forewarned, it can add up quickly.
We had a very nice lunch and wine tasting at a small winery called Cantina Chiara Vinciarelli which was located in a fairly remote and scenic area about 10 miles outside of Montepulciano. Cantina Chiara is also an agritourismo with rooms, lunch, dinner, and a very nice swimming pool. I think our next trip will be staying at places like this all over Tuscany.
We spent most of our time walking in Siena, with the Siena Cathedral as the main highlight. We had one memorable al fresco dinner but not so memorable that I can remember the name of the restaurant or what we had…but other than that, I remember it being a very good experience…lol.
Leaving Siena was another bit of an adventure. Trying to find the rental car drop off was more difficult than it should have been, followed by a mile-long walk, with luggage, to the train station where we caught a bus to Rome. We rarely take long-distance buses in Italy due to its excellent train network. It turned out that the ride was a very pleasant three-hour direct ride to Rome’s Tiburtina train station. Here are a few photos from our trip to Siena and Tuscany:
Rome
We took an Uber to our Airbnb which was in a great location directly across the bridge from Castel San’t Angelo.
Rome is very much a walking city where one of the joys is getting lost in the maze of streets. I’ve been there enough to know how to navigate the city fairly well, but it is inevitable that I will still get turned around. Using Piazza Navona as a navigation point is my trick to navigating to other sections of the city. Rome has grown on me over the years as a city I just enjoy walking through, grabbing something quick to eat, and finding a resting spot to plop down to people watch.
We enjoyed two notable restaurant experiences: Ristorante Ad Hoc, where we previously dined with former high school classmates a decade ago, and Mastrociccia – Osteria Pizzeria, which is distinguished by its extensive menu selection. We enjoyed excellent pasta and a light, airy Roman pinsa (pizza). We could have survived only on pinsas our entire time in Rome—highly recommended.
The rest of the trip to Rome, I was on a mission to get back to my Catholic roots. Being a Vatican Jubilee year meant that Catholics could visit the four main churches in Rome and walk through the four Holy Doors as part of a quest to receive a plenary indulgence. A plenary indulgence is the remission of all of the temporal punishment that a person deserves for his sins. After many years away from the church, I thought I needed as much help as I could get. There are other things that you need to do to gain a plenary indulgence, like confession, communion, and praying for the Pope. This seemed like a reasonable deal to get all of my sins forgiven, but the confession requirement had me more than a bit nervous. But I was determined.
I decided that I would go to confession as soon as I encountered an English speaking confessional. This happened at the Papal Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore where Pope Francis was recently entombed. Why not have confession at one of the most important Catholic churchs? The more important the church, the more powerful the indulgence—right? It seemed like a good idea until it wasn’t.
The line for the confessional was about seven people long, giving me plenty of time to back down if I wanted. However, my strong desire for the plenary indulgence kept me motivated. The line moved very slowly which made me even more nervous. I was hoping the priest had a sense of humor as he would probably need it with me. The young foreign girl in front of me was also a little nervous as she turned and asked me if she was in the correct English speaking line. She finally made it to the confessional, and it seemed like she was talking to the priest for over 30 minutes. I was nervous, but I couldn’t leave—I was up next. Just as she was getting up, and I was getting more confident and ready for my turn, the girl walked to the front of the confessional and the priest burst through the little front wooden window and put his hands on the girl’s head and started chanting. I had no idea what was going on. I had no idea confessionals had a secret door. I didn’t think Catholics did this kind of thing—the type of thing I would see on those early morning evangelical TV shows as a kid. It was at that point, I knew I was doomed and all of the confidence drained from my body. This was an old-school priest. This was not going to be fun.
It’s amazing what you can remember from childhood, and I remembered the confession routine fairly well. Google helped me fill in the gaps. I tried not to be specific when I told the priest that it has been a long time since my last confession, but he wasn’t having any of it. He guilted me into admitting it was over 40 years and that opened up the floodgates for the rest of my time with him, which seemed like days. I was given the Cliff Notes version of the Catholic Catechism, told how and when to go to church, asked if I knew how to say the rosary and quickly learned you shouldn’t try to lie to a priest when you are in the middle of confession. Lastly, I was told my penance was to have only bread and water the next day. The whole experience transported me back decades to my teenage years. Now I know why I haven’t been to confession in over forty years. At least they had a printout of the Act of Contrition taped to the side of the confessional so I didn’t have to read it from my phone (I Googled it, of course, before I went in).
The next day, I violated my penance before noon. However, I did go to communion in the best way possible. It was in a small church in Rome where an American priest was being ordained. His entire family was there, and it felt great knowing I was one of his first communion experiences. We also got to see Pope Leo at his Wednesday audience. I’m not sure if all of this adds up to a plenary indulgence–particularly for violating my penance. However, it was a good feeling reconnecting with my Catholic roots.
Well, I started this blog entry saying I wasn’t sure I would remember much, but it turned into my longest blog post ever. I guess that is a good thing. I’ll end with some pics of Rome:
Wedding of David and Stephanie at Primo restaurant in Rockland, Maine on Saturday, June 21, 2025
I believe this will be my longest post ever.
The day finally came for Dave and Stephanie to tie the knot, and many folks couldn’t believe it actually happened–as everyone reminded me all night long. Yes, a wedding day…in Maine…with spectacular late June weather. After months as serving as the primary wedding planner, the day went off (mostly) without a hitch. I wish I could say the same for the ferry to Monhegan Island the day before. Very rough seas caused most of the wedding guests (and the rest of the passengers) to get a bit seasick on the 60+ minute ride over to the island. When I say a bit, I mean quite a bit. I have never seen so many pale faces and full barf bags in my life. I genuinely felt bad for getting folks into this mess, but at least everyone’s stomach was empty for the wedding dinner at Primo the next day. Look at the positive side, right?
This was the only opportunity we will ever get to get everyone together from Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Maine. Judging from the photos, I think everyone had a great time.
We rented two Airbnb’s for family members and tried our best to give everyone a great introduction to Maine. Visits to lighthouses, lobster shacks, islands, restaurants, and Acadia National Park filled everyone’s time.
The weather was absolutely fantastic with temps hitting 80 degrees for the wedding day with a cloudless sky. After the wedding, we visited Bar Harbor where the temps hit the 90s–way too hot for me.
We had several sources of photos, so I’ll start with the photos from Tristan, the photographer we hired for the event:
And here are all of the phone call recordings that everyone left on our faux phone:
But that was just a few days in Maine. The week before, my Maine friends treated me to four days in the North Maine Woods, near Greenville. We spent three nights at the Little Lyford AMC camp where all meals were cooked for us by AMC staff. There was a large youth group there as well. The AMC had an art contest each night for the youth group, and anyone could participate. I am proud to say that I won the second night and, honestly, I should have won the first night too. No, I am not a sore loser. We had a great three days of hiking (10-mile hike of Gulf Hagus), gravel biking, canoeing, horseshoes and some restrained drinking. Here are some pics:
