Alghero: Hitting the Road

Our cycling tour began yesterday afternoon with bike fittings and a 25-mile ride down the coast from Alghero and back. It was plenty hot, but the scenery was amazing. It was a nice opportunity to get used to our bikes and stretch our legs prior to today's serious get-down-to-business ride to the northern coastal town of Castelsardo.

There are only eight cyclists on this tour, plus two guides. We all met each other yesterday at lunch, and by the end of dinner last night, we were all good friends. 

Ricotta cheesecake and sparkling Vermentino at lunch

Old Alghero waterfront

It's been great to sample Sardinian wines that I read about recently
in my wine course: sparkling Vermentino and Torbato, a Carignano
rose, and the favorite at last night's dinner - Monica.

Alghero: It Would Have Been Worth It

On a number of occasions when I have had the good fortune to travel, I have had experiences immediately after arriving at my destination when I have thought, "Even if I had to go home after this one experience, the journey would have been worth it." I recall, for example, feeling that way after Mark and I's first night in Venice in September 2015, or on several occasions when we had traveled to Maui. After my experience yesterday evening in Alghero, Sardinia, I felt - especially after the hiccups I had encountered in my travel to get there - that if I'd had to go home today (which, fortunately, I don't), the experience would have been worth it.

My flight from Salt Lake to Atlanta had gone off without a hitch, and as I boarded my flight to Rome, they were projecting that we would arrive 15 minutes early. I was very pleased to hear this because I was going to have a tight connection in Rome. I would have to deplane, go through passport control, retrieve my bag, walk to another terminal, check in, go through security and get to my gate for my flight to Alghero. All being well, I would have sufficient time to do this.

But just as the cabin door was due to be closed on the Rome flight, they announced that they had discovered a mechanical problem. Thirty minute delay. Then thirty minutes later, they announced a further 30-45 minute delay. That's it. I knew I would not be able to make the connection. 

This provided me with an opportunity to be philosophical. I had been concerned about this possibility ever since I had booked the flights. Now, that possibility was going to become reality. I could either fret about it during the entire flight to Rome or, with the assistance of a double gin and tonic, embrace the now and accept there was nothing I could do about it until I got to Rome. I thought of Mark and what he would do (beyond ordering another gin and tonic), then took a sleep aid and let it go.

Sun rising over the Ligurian Sea

Sure enough, by the time I reached the ticket counter in Rome, my flight had been closed. I had no choice but to come on the later flight - five hours later. I was supposed to meet my friend, Bob, at the gate and travel together with him to Alghero, but I would have to accept having lunch in the Rome airport instead of a cafe overlooking the Mediterranean. 

So I purchased my ticket, then went through security. I took out all my electronics and placed my phone with them in one of the baskets. Went through. Everything fine. Repacked all my stuff. Did a last minute pocket check and discovered - no phone in my pocket. I looked around. I checked the basket I had used, or thought I had used, and it wasn't there. 

With rising panic, I started checking other baskets until the security employee sternly warned me I shouldn't be doing that. I told him I had, within a matter of seconds, lost my phone. It all happened so quickly that I wondered if perhaps someone had picked up my phone. After all, my credit card (and drivers license) was tucked into the sleeve on the back of the phone. The security guy told me I would have to wait as the baskets recycled to see if my phone turned up. That wasn't helpful. 

"God!" I thought. "How could something like this happen at the very beginning of my trip!" I pictured contacting - somehow - the credit card company. I thought about not being able to keep in touch with my kids while I am gone. I thought, thought, thought about all sorts of unpleasant things, all the while hoping that my phone would somehow turn up.

After what seemed like 15 minutes, but was probably only 5, the security guy took pity on me and suggested we run my bags back through the scanner because if the phone was in there, it would show up. I had already gone through my carry-on and my hand bag, but I thought I should be accommodating. So I handed him my carry-on. Then I turned around and looked at the rest of my stuff that was sitting on an adjacent unused counter. That's when I noticed four baskets stacked next to my bag. I went over, lifted the top one up and VOILA!, there was my phone. Someone must have set these baskets off to the side immediately after I retrieved the rest of my stuff. I could breathe again.

The view that greeted me below our hotel upon arrival

By 4:00 in the afternoon, I was at my hotel in Alghero. I met up with Bob, who - annoyingly (just kidding, sort of) - had been sitting by the pool for hours, and after a dip and showers, we headed out on the town for an aperitivo and dinner. 

It was ... a perfect evening. Cloudless sky. Beautiful blue water. The magical light associated with Mediterranean sunsets starting to bathe buildings and turn the bay into a carpet of bobbing jewels. 

Dinner was at Osteria Machiavello. Sitting outside on the ramparts with a gorgeous view out over the water, the sun setting behind the distant hills across the bay. Bob had fish, I had Sardinian gnocchi, washed down with a bottle of Cannonau, Sardinia's signature red. It was magical.

The journey - despite its hiccups - would have been worth it if I had to go home today. Fortunately, I don't. We start our cycling this afternoon with a spin up the coast before getting down to business tomorrow. Meanwhile, I'm off to explore the old town before meeting the rest of the group at lunch.

Of Rosé and Remembrance

Since Mark died a year ago last March, there have been a succession of firsts in my life - the first time I did this without Mark, the first time I did that without Mark. Now, a week from today, I leave on my first bike trip without Mark. I have thought about him on every ride I have taken these past four months; but as my trip has drawn closer, memories and images of the European cycling trips we took in 2012 and 2014 have come more frequently and powerfully to mind. This was especially so today when I attended the last of a series of monthly noon wine classes, this one devoted to French rosé.

As I listened to the descriptions of the wines and to the banter around the room, images and memories of France came to my mind ... 

One of the rosés we tasted today, new to me, was from the Chêne Bleu winery in the commune of Crestet in the Vaucluse. As our instructor told stories of some years ago visiting this winery, which sits on a hillside not terribly far from the base on Mont Ventoux, my mind was drawn back to when Mark and I cycled in this area in both 2014 and in 2012. 

In 2012, we had started our first cycling trip in the Black Forest in Germany, in the areas where we both had ancestors. 

Mark in a vineyard near Sasbachwalden in the Black Forest

We'd then gone to the French Alps where we cycled the iconic Alpe d'Huez and other routes before heading further south to Provence. 

My man. Love this picture.

Alpe d'Huez

There, in the Luberon, we cycled around hilltop villages - including Gordes and Roussillon - as well as made our first ascent up Mont Ventoux.

The town of Gordes in the background

The Abbey of Senanque (the lavender, alas, having already been harvested)

Roussillon 

The last slog up Mont Ventoux after having started in the town of Bedoin

We continued our cycling trip that year with a two-week tour of the island of Corsica. There were many memorable moments from that trip, but one of the funniest and sweetest in my memory is captured in this photograph:

We had been cycling all day and had pulled into the town of Solenzara, on Corsica's southeast coast, on a Sunday afternoon. After finding one cafe still open for lunch, we inquired after our meal whether there was somewhere we could buy a bottle of gin. The owner said no place was open, but he'd be willing to sell us a bottle. We were on our bikes, and there was no place to carry the bottle the few blocks to our hotel but down Mark's bibs. The Gordons was henceforth dubbed the "marsupial gin."

We returned to France in the late summer of 2014, almost a year and a half after Mark's diagnosis. After spending a few days in the French Alps again, we joined our two-week tour that began in Geneva and ended in Nice.

Mark in the French Alps southeast of Grenoble

Once again, we would have the opportunity to climb Mont Ventoux, this time starting in the town of Malaucène. But first, we would, from our base in Vaison-La-Romaine, do a loop ride around the Dentelles de Montmirail through some of the (unbeknownst to us at the time) most iconic vineyards in southern Rhone region: Seguret, Gigondas, Vaqueyras and Beaumes-de-Venise, passing through, toward the end of our ride that day, the commune of Crestet - the home of the wine we tasted today in our class.

In the village of Segueret

The Dentelles de Montmirail

The next day, we rode up Mont Ventoux -- one of the most exhilarating, most beautiful days I've ever experienced as a cyclist. The visibility was outstanding. A perfect day.

On our way from Vaison to Malaucene, possibly in the commune of Crestet

The Alps in the distance

Me, near the top

At the top

Another wine we tasted today - one of my favorites - reminded me of the tail end of that 2014 tour. The wine: Whispering Angel, a rosé from Cave D'Esclans that is produced about 60 kilometers from where Mark and I cycled on the last memorable day of the 2014 tour.

Lunch at Gourdon on the last day

Our last descent on our last day - the last time Mark and I would ride in Europe

It's been sweet to remember. I cherish these memories. I appreciate sharing them through this blog because there are so few people who were there, the most important of whom is now no longer here. I want my friends to know this part of me.

Now, I look forward to my upcoming trip. Sardinia. Corsica again. New friends. New experiences; but never forgetting the memories ....

On a Trip

As I mentioned in a post on Facebook the other day, my kids and I have thought of Mark this past week as we have been vacationing at Disneyland and Universal Studies. Mind you, we/I think of Mark every day. But we've been especially reminded of him this past week and of the trip that he, I and three of my younger kids took to Disneyland in June 2013.

And being on this trip has brought to mind another trip - the one Mark is on. Time and time again, as I proceed down the road on my own journey of adjusting to life without the man who made me feel so special and my life so complete, I have had the feeling that Mark is on a trip. He has left on a long trip, I tell myself, and there are many times when I feel/expect him to someday walk through the front door of my house. Of course, I know he won't. But it's nice to feel that. It somehow makes him feel not so far away.

I also recently referred in a Facebook post to a picture of Mark that was taken with my daughter Esther and my granddaughter Hazel in June of 2013, a week or so before we left on our trip to Disneyland. "In what now seems like a long time ago," I wrote, "in a galaxy far, far away, Mark fell in love with being a father and grandfather." There are a couple of amplifications I'd like to make to that statement.

First, Mark never had children of his own, and though he welcomed my ten into his life, this was a process that evolved over time. Because of the train wreck of my divorce, some of my children had little or nothing to do with Mark (or me) for some time. Also, Mark had to adjust to his role as father - not being a father, per se, but being a father to so many while also, after we'd been together only 18 months, adjusting to the fact that he had a terminal illness. During the almost three years following his diagnosis, it was wonderful to watch him grow in love and tenderness and acceptance in every area of his life, including that of his role as a father to my children.

Secondly - I've often written that my time with Mark now almost seems like a dream. It was so intense, so full, so well-lived, that time almost seemed to stand still during those years following his diagnosis. When I wrote of "long ago" and a "galaxy far, far away," it is not because Mark now seems like a fading memory. Quite the opposite. It's because of that time warp that we lived in. That time, along with all of the emotions, love and memories that are associated with it, are sealed in amber; preserved; never to be forgotten ... but, alas, never again to be lived.

And so, as we prepare to head home today, I'm grateful for the new memories we created this week; but I'm also grateful for the memories we created four years ago and for the sweetness I/we have felt this past week as we have remembered Mark. We all love you, Babe ... and miss you.

New York: Of Wine, Woman and Song

One of the reasons I used to blog as much as I did was because of Phyllis. She was residency secretary when Mark was doing his ER residency in Denver twenty-five years ago, and the two of them had maintained somewhat of a friendship and correspondence over the years - a relationship that was renewed more strongly shortly before Mark and I met.

I eventually met Phyllis (pictured above) as well, and she added me to her list of correspondents (she lived in Denver). A divorced woman with no children, her residency doctors and some of their significant others became her "children." I was one of those. A woman of keen wit and observation, her emails almost always elicited a laugh. (Example: I wrote her in late December that I was considering giving up gin for January. Her response: "Don't give up boozing until February; it's a shorter month.")

Phyllis immediately fell in love with my blog and regularly encouraged me to keep writing and sharing. She particularly loved it when I would write about and share pictures from the travels that Mark and I enjoyed over the time we were together. In fact, many of my posts would not have been published but for the knowledge that she would read and enjoy them.

I - as well as all the many who knew and loved her - recently lost Phyllis. She had been diagnosed with cancer about 18 months after Mark was. As their respective diseases progressed, they would share observations on life and on death, on happiness and sadness, on meaning and meaninglessness. Unlike Mark, Phyllis underwent chemotherapy and various other treatments. About six months ago, she took another turn for the worse. I would write to her and not hear from her for some time. Eventually, I would rattle her chain again and she would respond, apologizing but explaining that she wanted to spare me the gory details. "You've had enough sadness in your life of late, Dear," she would write. "You don't need any more."

I miss Phyllis. She was one of the few people who knew about and "got" Mark and I's relationship and about what we intimately experienced together during the post-diagnosis journey. She knew where we had come from and the landscape we were passing through. She was someone with whom I could share, and I keenly feel her absence.

I've thought about her these past few days as I've been in New York visiting friends. I've thought about taking certain pictures of things that I've found interesting because I knew she would also find them interesting and appreciate me sharing them. Then I don't take the pictures because she's no longer here to share them with.

I have taken some, however, and I'd like to share them in memory of Phyllis. She would have loved me being here and would have been sure to share all her suggestions for what to see and do while I've been here.

Having dinner on Friday night with Dan (center) and his husband, Russ

My main purpose for coming was in my capacity as an executive producer of a documentary currently being made by my friend, Daniel Karslake. Entitled "For They Know Not What They Do", the film will pick up where Dan's first film, "For The Bible Tells Me So," left off, examining issues relating to conservative Christianity and gay and transgender people. We held a fundraiser for the film on Thursday night in Manhattan, and Dan is doing a screening of "For The Bible" later today at Rutgers University.

Phyllis thought it was great that I've been taking wine courses. There was nothing she loved more than a glass of good Cabernet Sauvignon. Now, whenever I travel out of state, I usually always head to wine stores to find some goodies to take back home to Utah. Wine has become my souvenir of choice, and one of the first places I headed to on Friday was the wine store next to Eataly off Madison Square. I just started a course on Central and Southern Italian wines, and I wanted to find a bottle of wine from the province of Marche - unavailable back home - to share with my class. It will be very rewarding to taste on Wednesday what our text describes as one of Italy's "finest and most age-worthy wines": Castelli di Jesi Verdicchio Riserva DOCG.

From there, it was off to another wine store to purchase a couple of bottles of Pinot Noir to share at the next meeting of some of my wine friends (a shadowy organization dubbed "The European Bootleggers Club"). German Pinot is unavailable in Utah, and the selection of Burgundy is somewhat limited, so I'm looking forward to tasting these two gems later in May:

Another reason to come to New York was to hang out with my friend, Bob, whom I met last summer while on a gay cruise in Croatia and with whom I'll be going on a cycling trip in July. We had a great lunch on Friday in Greenwich Village, followed by ice cream, then spent much of the day together yesterday - walking through Central Park, going to the Guggenheim Museum, then enjoying dinner in the theatre district before seeing the new Broadway musical, "Groundhog Day."

One of my favorites at the Guggenheim. It's SO gay.

Bob and me in Central Park

It's been a great weekend so far on so many levels, and I would have enjoyed writing Phyllis about it.