Martin and I traveled a lot. I mean a really LOT. We went to Africa and Australia and Antarctica...and that is just the beginning of the alphabet.  We were once in northern Russia and once in northern Iceland and once in northern Finland and probably a lot of other northerns.  We were once in Fiji, wondering why there were no other tourists there...and it wasn't until we got home that we discovered that Fiji was in the middle of a revolution and the state department had told American tourists not to go there. Oh, well.  Nice to be on a  deserted beach!

Martin's back went out in Denmark and he found himself in a Copenhagen hospital getting a taste of socialized medicine...(an excellent taste; and no charge)  We were robbed in Nairobi. We bathed in a unisex public bath in rural Japan. We did a little of everything and enjoyed every minute (well, maybe not the getting-robbed part)

Then, last year, Martin was hospitalized in Boston and there came the morning when the staff members gathered around his bed. They had asked me to be present at this meeting so i was there as well when they told him that there was nothing more they could do and that his life was coming to an end.

After they went away, he and I sat there talking, and I commented on how fortunate we were, really, because we had done so much, enjoyed so much, and there was nothing left on a to-do list.

Martin had a very wry sense of humor. And that morning, despite the most depressing of circumstances, he grinned a little and then said, "I don't know about that. I always wanted to go to Patagonia."

My new book, to be published in the fall, is dedicated to Martin's memory. And yesterday I completed the arrangements for what will be, really, a trip in his memory. Yup. I am heading to Patagonia in December.

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