This afternoon I dropped Abby at the airport for a flight to Baltimore to spend a week with her daughter and son-in-law. From the instant we kissed and I turned to walk away, I had that same feeling I’ve gotten since I was 12 and that one little red-haired girl told me we could “just be friends”: heartbreak. The good news, of course, is that Abby will be my wife while she’s gone and when she returns, and that she is about 60 times foxier than that girl when I was 12. But just like when I go on my hiking trips alone, we will miss each other intensely until we are together again.

We are both super excited that she is getting to visit Chele (click her name to read her blog about it), and I know she’ll have a great time.