Travel Archives

JFK > SEA, first leg of the trip to Japan

The cabin light has that familiar, late-afternoon glow—the kind that makes everything feel a little softer than it really is. I’m stretched out in my seat, shoes tucked forward, the screen in front of me running an ad about comfort and legroom, as if it’s trying to narrate the moment while I’m living it.

JFK > SEA is only the first leg, but it already feels like the threshold. Airports have their own weather: recycled air, muted announcements, the low tide of people moving with purpose. On the plane, time becomes something you can fold up and put away for later. The tray table clicks. The seat settles. A small pocket of stillness appears.

There’s a strange comfort in these in-between hours—suspended over the country, watching the world reduce itself to patterns and light. It’s not Japan yet, not even close, but the trip has started in the only way trips really start: by leaving.

Seattle is a pause, a breath, a handoff. Soon there will be different signs, different streets, different morning sounds. For now, I’m content to let the hum of the plane and the quiet choreography of travel do their work—carrying me forward while I sit still, thinking about the distance ahead and the stories waiting on the other side of it.

Spring Beach Time 1989

Spring beach time, 1989: not quite summer, not quite anything else. The sand is still cool enough to register, the wind sharp in that early-season way that keeps adults zipped up and kids unfazed.

In the photo, my mom walks along the packed shoreline holding my hand. I’m about a year and a half old—still learning balance, still trusting that the ground will mostly behave. A red sweatshirt is tied around her waist like a practical marker of foresight. She carries a weekend bag, the kind you pack when you don’t yet know how long you’ll stay or what the weather will decide. Behind us, tire tracks cut clean parallel lines, evidence that the beach has already been crossed, flattened, crossed again.

The best throwback photos aren’t dramatic. They look like errands. A walk. A hand held without discussion. Forward motion without a destination. The details date it—the haircut, the sandals, my small late-80s outfit—but the feeling isn’t stuck in a decade. It’s the ordinary certainty of being guided across uneven ground before you know how to do that yourself.

Spring at the beach was never about swimming. It was about arriving early, when the shoreline was still half-awake, and letting the day remind you how to be outside.

A picture doesn’t bring the past back. It just proves it happened. Sometimes that’s enough.

Seattle Space Needle

There’s something about looking up at the Seattle Space Needle from directly below that makes the city feel quieter than it is. The legs lean inward like a careful brace, and the saucer above hangs there with a kind of calm confidence—steel and geometry holding their place against a soft, shifting sky.

Today the clouds are scattered, bright and uncommitted, and the white structure catches the light in a way that feels almost domestic—like a familiar porch light in a neighborhood you haven’t visited in years. It’s a landmark, sure, but it also has the steady presence of something that has watched a lot of ordinary days go by.

I like monuments best when they don’t demand anything from you. When they just stand there and let you move around them, letting your thoughts fill in the empty space. The Space Needle does that. It doesn’t need to be explained; it just needs to be seen, from the street, from the park, from the angle that makes you notice the bones of it.

If you’re visiting, you can do the obvious things. But if you live nearby, or if you’re passing through with time to spare, it’s worth stopping for a minute and looking up—letting the wind and the traffic fade, and letting the city feel a little bigger, a little brighter.

Seattle Sightseeing

Seattle Sightseeing is supposed to feel like motion—tickets, turns, the bright insistence of places you’re meant to see. But this morning the city is doing something gentler.

From a hillside vantage, the Seattle skyline sits behind a seam of trees, as if the neighborhood is holding the view in its hands. The Space Needle rises like a compass point, less a spectacle than a quiet reassurance: yes, you’re here. The buildings gather around it in clean edges and softened grays, while the sky refuses to be tidy.

Clouds spread in layers, mottled and luminous, the kind of weather that can’t decide whether it’s clearing or arriving. The light is early and careful, turning glass into something almost warm. Off to the side, water glints faintly, not demanding attention—just present.

I think this is the kind of sightseeing that sticks. Not the rushing kind, but the moment you pause and the city becomes a landscape instead of a checklist. Green in the foreground, steel in the distance, morning threaded through everything.

If you’re looking for a Seattle view, you could chase the famous angles. Or you could find a hill, stand still, and let the skyline meet you where you are—beneath a sky that looks like it’s still deciding what the day will be.

Great Dinner in PA with my cutie

Dinner in Pennsylvania always seems to arrive the way weather does—quietly at first, then all at once. We stepped out into the evening with that small, earned kind of happiness: full plates behind us, a little warmth in our cheeks, and the sense that the night didn’t need to be anything more than what it already was.

I keep thinking about the way places hold you. A restaurant table, a familiar street, the soft clink of silverware and glass—ordinary things that still feel like a marker in time. It’s the same comfort I find in old houses: not perfect, not staged, just lived-in. You can almost hear the room breathing around you.

After dinner we paused for a photo, standing close like we always do when we’re not trying to make a moment out of it. Two patterned shirts, an easy smile, the dark shutters framing us like a memory you can step back into. The window behind us caught a little glow, as if the inside of the building was still holding onto the evening.

I don’t remember every bite, but I remember the steadiness of it—how good it feels to share a meal with someone who makes the world feel a bit brighter and a bit bigger.

Great Dinner in PA with my cutie, tucked away like a small keepsake.

End of Summer Cuteness – New Jersey Shore

| ?️⛳️?

| #minigolf #boyfriendswhobeach #avalon

| Angel and myself ended the summer with a trip to the New Jersey shore with my parents (Donna and Ray).

Clearwater Beach Boys

There’s a particular kind of brightness that belongs to a beach town—sunlight bouncing off pale sand, the sky stretched thin and patient, and buildings in the distance that look like they’ve been left out to fade on purpose.

This photo feels like that: two guys tucked into the frame, shoulders touching, hats and sunglasses doing their best to negotiate with the glare. Behind them, Clearwater Beach keeps going—flag up in the wind, a lifeguard stand posted like a small, quiet lighthouse, and the slow movement of people crossing the sand like they’re part of the tide.

Vacation pictures are usually proof: we were here, it was warm, we smiled. But the better ones carry something else, something you only notice later. A little ease. A little ordinary happiness, sun-warmed and unposed, the kind that settles into you the way salt does—subtle at first, then suddenly you realize it’s everywhere.

Maybe that’s what “Clearwater Beach Boys” really means. Not just the place, not just the day, but the feeling of being briefly unhurried. Two lives meeting the ocean at the same time, looking back at the camera as if to say: remember this, even when you’re far from the water.

And if the answer to “???” is anything, it’s this: yes. We’ll take the light when it comes.

Summer Vacation to Florida, Tampa, Clearwater, St Petersburg

| #mustanggt #vaca #fastcars
| ?☀️?
| My summer vacation in 2017 consisted of a mini tour of mid-west Florida. We landed in Tampa bay, stayed in St. Petersburg, and ended in Clearwater with Angel’s parents.

Philly weekend with Bae – Mom’s Bday

| #boyfriendswhobrunch #seafood #philly

| Truth be told, we were in Philadelphia for my mother’s birthday. My mother is a seafood fan and we decided to take her to Devon Seafood Grill for lunch and then some shopping.

Brunch’n with Bae at the Smile NYC

| #smile #brunch #boyfrindsWhoBrunch

| ??☕️

| One of my favorite and longest surviving cafes in New York City is The Smile. Always great coffee, yummy food, and great atmosphere! If ever in soho for breakfast or brunch I highly recommend taking the time to wait for a table at The Smile.

| Read Insta-comments -> http://bt.zamartz.com/2jNqCWp

Oculus

|@CalatravaOculus @Sept11Memorial #wings #911 #mall

| I was finally able to enter the strangely shaped Oculus at One World Trade Center in downtown New York City.

So Club – So Monaco

So Club – So Monaco feels like the kind of phrase you say to yourself when the day is bright but you’re moving through it with a quieter intention. A white ruffle-hem blouse, dark flared jeans, a structured tote swinging low at your side—simple pieces, but arranged like a small declaration.

The street is all cobblestone and practical noise: traffic rolling past, a big truck idling, the city doing what it does without waiting for you. And still, the outfit holds its own. The blouse has that soft architecture that makes movement look deliberate. The dark denim grounds everything, steady and clean, and the bag adds a little weight—like you’re carrying more than just the essentials.

There’s something I love about this kind of look because it lives alongside the day rather than performing for it. It’s polished, but not precious. Comfortable, but not careless. The kind of uniform you could wear from morning errands into an evening plan without changing your mind or your shoes.

If style can be a mood, this is one of those in-between moods: city air, sun on your face, and a small sense that you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be—walking forward, unhurried, letting the street keep humming around you.