“Oh, shoot,” I said as we pulled the car up in front of the post office. “I forgot to bring along any paper so I can write about this weekend.”

“Well, you run in and mail the thank you cards, and I will run across the street and buy you a notebook.”

That would be why, on October 4, 1997, I had married that man. Himey was the friend of a friend. As soon as my divorce from Dan was final, a friend of mine told me that as soon as I was ready to date, she knew a guy who would be perfect for me. Well, no guy is perfect, as we all know, but Himey did turn out to be my soul-mate. And that is about as good as it gets.

That particular day, two weeks after the wedding, we were leaving town for a weekend honeymoon to southern Wisconsin. Himey ran across the street to the Ben Franklin and bought the most amazing book. “Project Planner” is inscribed in gold on the cover. He told the checkout at the store what the book was for and even the checkout agreed that it would be ideal.

So guess what? My main reference for the next twelve years’ worth of travels will be this perfect travel log. Unless it is pertinent to the particular trip, I will try not to bore you with the mileage or the money we spent, even though it is all documented. I’ll also try to skip some of the potty breaks and benign purchases we made along the way. But it is always hard to tell what I might find interesting on any individual journey.