Pilgrimage update: As I suspected, it’s been challenging to post photos regularly while we travel, so I’ll do a bigger upload in a few days when we return! It’s all been STUNNING. 🤯 (Our group photo pool counts over 1.5k photos so far… never fear, I’ll post an nth of a percentage of the total.)
Day 6: Cologne Cathedral and Koblenz.
Day 5 (I think? I’m losing track): the Dutch and German countrysides. Plus, a lot of chill time ambling down the river in the boat.
Days 3 & 4: Amsterdam, Schaanse Zaanse and more.
Day 2: a day trip to Leiden was just the ticket to getting over jet lag quickly (lots of walking + vitamin D). It’s a delightful little university town.
Day 1: Amsterdam — jet lagged but smooth sailing.
And we’re off!

I am, once again and gratefully, leading another pilgrimage this summer. Lord-willing, I plan to accomplish that which I merely hope to do each time but never manage: post photos here of our experience along the way.
Bookmark this page if you’d like to see regular visuals of our journey. Bon voyage!
My grandparents, roughly 1944, and my parents, circa 1974.
Last summer with new friends at St. Benedict’s monastery in Subiaco, Italy. Man, I love traveling with kindred spirits.

Coming soon…

I’ve wanted a family library stamp for years now. Finally ordered one.

Prepping for the upcoming winter school session.

Aiming to get 12k more words written in my novel before the end of 2022. 🤞

Backyard basil.

20 years. 🥂

Doing the obligatory family field trip. …Daughter’s a senior in high school and we realized she hadn’t been here since she was 6 weeks old, and her brothers never have. Oops. Bad Texans.

The end of Hamlet, when almost everyone is dead. (If you’re in the Austin area, go see The Baron’s Men perform it!)

Spooky season? I’m a fan. Indie bookshops? A fan. Spooky season and indie bookshops? Big fan.

As seen in the school library where I host my English class. …Nine of the authors we’re reading this year.

Friday afternoon office. I love this coffee shop 200 steps from my front door. There’s something (literally) sacred about living locally at the speed of life.

I found the Luke Danes of Costa Rica and I don’t hate it.

From Italy to Costa Rica. So much to love about this world.

When Charlemagne commissioned this Benedictine abbey to be built in an Italian field where his arrow landed on a plant that ultimately healed his soldiers after praying for God’s guidance, our country wouldn’t even be a fragment of an idea for 900 more years.

Yesterday I was at St. Benedict’s monastery in the hills outside of Rome. Thinking of painting a replica of this somewhere in our house.
