I promised myself to take Maria to Florence one day, for a vacation in a wonderful place where she can drown in all of her very beloved art. I’m not sure when that will be. It has been four or five years since we have had a real vacation, but I have mastered the art of the short and sweet vacation. We have a wonderful relationship with two or three beautiful old inns who e-mail us when they have a lot of empty rooms and offer us $300 or $400 rooms for $100.

Sometimes we end up in New York City, where my daughter Emma lives, most often in Vermont, where we are headed Sunday.

It’s a neat way to vacation, the trips are very short and very sweet.

This all has a kind of sweet guerilla, resourceful feel to it. I feel we are getting a way with something.

We grabbed a room in Central Vermont for three nights beginning Sunday through Wednesday morning. It is a good thing to do, we are both exhausted. I know I am. I have been working every day for a long time, writing a lot, and some of it has been intense – Blue Star Equiculture, The New York Carriage Horses, Joshua Rockwood, the farm, the animals, the dogs, my own complex and evolutionary life.

My recovery from open heart surgery has also been exhilarating and draining. I am more emotional than I think sometimes. I feel it right now. I work so continuously I sometimes forget to stop and see the bigger picture, trips are good for that.

I work  hard on the blog, I write on it every day, usually more than once.  I am taking photos all the time, or working on my book, or training Fate. Or walking with Maria. When I am away, I give the blog a breather – for both of our sakes – and concentrate on thinking, resting, reading, Maria and re-charging.

I always ask myself, what is the blog for? A good person named Cindy McCoy posted a message for me recently, she explained what she came to the blog for, and this re-charged and re-focused me even before the vacation.

“I come here for peace, introspection, like mindedness, escape from materialism, and wonderful words and photos. Thanks for these things, Jon.” Thank you, Cindy, these are the things I seek in my own life, the things I search and struggle for, the things I write about, the things I hope my photographs capture.” Good of you to put them in words.

So I am off with Maria for a few days of rest, I’ll leave the computing stuff here, take my camera and I phone, reading the new Alice Hoffman novel, The Marriage Of Opposites, maybe I’ll find a new mystery in the funky little mystery bookstore in Brattleboro, Vt., one of the few remaining in the country. I won’t be blogging or looking at Facebook.

I want to listen to a lot of music – especially  Van Morrison. I want to sleep late, walk for miles with Maria, buy a new pair of jeans and a new shirt. Both blue. Training Fate is a hoot, it is also tiring. I don’t think she needs a break from work, but I think I do.

I will buy Maria some new socks, maybe a strange necklace.

I will return thinking of piece, introspection, an escape from anger and materialism and the best words and photos I can find. I re-dedicate myself to those things, and to creativity. Thanks for coming along with me on this great trip, see you in a few days.

In the meantime, I should mention subscriptions to the blog. They matter, and thanks for them.