Posts

September 4, 2026

Lighthouses of Southern Norway: Part 1

May 5, 2026

Florida Road Trip '26

Winter 2026 roadtrip to Texas, Florida, Kentucky, Illinois and points in between.

November 4, 2025

Lighthouses of Southern France Part 3

Part 3 of Southern France

November 3, 2025

Lighthouses of Southern France Part 2

November 2, 2025

Lighthouses of Southern France Part 1

In June of 2025 I decide to take a tour of French lighthouses put on by the United States Lighthouse Society. I’m not much for tours, but this proved to be a good decision and a great tour—51 sketches of lighthouses and other aids to navigation (ATONs).

May 20, 2025

Maine

I’d been on lighthouse roadtrips before—West Coast, Gulf of Mexico, East Coast up as far as Virginia. This would be a monthlong sojourn from Maryland to Maine. Seventeen states and one province, 62 lighthouse sketches, and 6,200 miles later, here’s my story in nine parts.

March 5, 2025

Down Under

Australia boasts 350 lighthouses that announce the coastline—and the continent as well.

June 18, 2024

Lake Superior: Marquette, Michigan to Ontonagon, Wisconsin

In May of 2022, after a family reunion in Hazelhurst, Wisconsin, I headed north toward the Upper Peninsula (UP) of Michigan planning to sketch some lighthouses. It was late afternoon by the time I got to Marquette on the shores of Lake Superior. The Marquette Harbor Lighthouse was easy to find, but I arrived too late for a tour. I set to sketching and then drove down to the Marquette Breakwater Light.

March 19, 2021

Night Train to Leningrad

We’re stopped on a siding now and I hear the blaring screech of a steam whistle as a train passes us going the opposite direction. Our sleeping car is shaking. As the train starts to move again I swing my legs over the side of the bunk and rotate so my feet find the ladder. Stepping into my shoes I quietly open the compartment door and slip into the companionway. There are no sounds except the clacking of the wheels on the track. At the end of the car a great bronze samovar sits over a charcoal fire, glass cups in pewter holders and small spoons stacked on a ledged shelf.

February 15, 2021

Lost

Lost I’m on a street called Medhat Basha. I’ve walked the three quarters of a mile from Baba ash-Sharqi to Bab Al-Jabiye two times. The exotic sights and smells of this historic thoroughfare no longer entice me. I can’t find the shop with the striped awning which signals the hotel turn.

April 20, 2020

Sketching Around Home

Sketching around Minnesota

January 10, 2019

Out and About

Out and about in St. Paul, Minnesota

January 10, 2017

Haiti

Ayiti I went to Haiti in April of 2017 as a supernumerary on a nursing mission trip in conjunction with the Episcopal University Nursing School in Leogane. My interest was the usual curiosity of a seasoned traveler, but also, as a healthcare architect, I had prepared preliminary drawings for a surgery center in Canaan