Backpacks And A Wine Key

Wandering winos on a pilgrimage to nowhere searching for a glass that is more than half full.

Stories

Travel, food and wine, life, health, and the occasional sermon on perspective. Here is the latest – read the rest here.

The Latest

The Ins and Outs of Oak

Oak, to a winemaker, is like salt and pepper to the master chef. It’s not the main ingredient, but it matters more than you think. Used right, you get a product of exceptional flavor and quality. Used incorrectly and you are switching to beer. Of the top 100 wines in...

Yet Another Useless Travel Blog – Zadar

We just ended our time living in Zadar, Croatia for 2 months, and as I sit down to write about it, I honestly can’t remember a single thing about it beyond vague memories and fleeting mental images. So here you go…

Minimalists’ guide to collecting wine

Sorry, but for a post about minimalism, this is going to be surprisingly long… I’ve been working on this minimalism thing for a while now. You know, simplify – own less and make sure your possessions don’t own you? It seemed easy and exciting at first, and has been a...

CDS Day 1 – Failure, Food, and A Rainy Day Playlist

Please note, typed with my thumbs so be kind…bad grammar and misspellings are a certainty! It was a day of failure. See, I look at failure differently. Failure for me on this pilgrimage started with taking a bus on the very first leg from SJPDP to Roncesvalles due to...

The Theory Of The Witness Wine

When my mother told me I would have to use math when I grew up, this is exactly what I was hoping she meant. The Math: A normal wine bottle contains 750ml of wine, or a little over 25 ounces. Our extraordinary math skills tell us that is equal to five glasses of wine,...

2023 Year In Pictures And A Few Words

A look not so quick back at our last trip around the sun with some not so random images along with random thoughts and pretty useless observations.

Pilgrim Journal – Not Every Day Is Fabulous

Everything is wonderful, inspiring, and fabulous…until you wake up on the wrong side of the world and it suddenly isn’t.

Photo Journal – Mexico

A photographic journey and small sample of images from our pandemic life in Mexico

Wino Journal

Stories, logs, and blogs on moving on from a life of work and routine.

Notes On The Feeling Of Freedom

Notes On The Feeling Of Freedom

When I was 18, I left the house to go to college. I took with me all I owned, a duffel bag full of clothes, a guitar, and my bed to set up in my first apartment. For the next few years I lived in the moment. Now I’m over 50, done working, and have spent the last year roaming the world. I’ve gone from having nothing to having everything, and then intentionally back to nothing again.

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Adventure

Stories, logs, and blogs on our pilgrim journeys as we grab our backpacks (and a wine key) and walk through Italy, Scotland, Spain, and the great wine regions of the world – including New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, and Argentina, to name a few.

Urban Food Adventure London

Urban Food Adventure London

It’s been over 20 years since we strolled through London. First time was for touristy stuff, this time…pretty much just to eat. How priorities change over the years.

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Paris Café Culture

Paris Café Culture

A not-so wise man once said, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop to look around for a while, you could miss it.” Nowhere is that advice more needed than here in America. Nowhere is that advice more honored than in Paris. Paris is a busy, bustling city of over...

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Finally a real wine rating system

Finally a real wine rating system

The thing I hate most about wine ratings is the thing that makes them what they are. Wine ratings are subjective. They are one person’s judgement of quality and don’t take into account what really matters – how much you drink, what you can afford, when to drink them,...

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Photography

Professional And Personal Photography On Travel, Adventure, Outdoors, Food, Wine, and Life.