Romancing Lighthouses, or If Fabio Were With Me, It'd Be No Problem Getting In

I'm literally writing a lighthouse scene as you're reading this. Okay, I'm writing this, but this morning, I was writing that. For me, lighthouses in New England weren't just a great photo, but all-essential to getting this scene right.

By day seven, I was anxious. I'd seen this one (I swear it's there if you zoom in)

and this oneand this one but couldn't go inside any of them. Was there some sort of secret handshake to access? Did I have to calibrate my visit to the precise twenty minutes of the month when a caretaker returned to make sure it hadn't collapsed into the Atlantic? Was my only lighthouse thrill this trip to be the mysterious stranger captured in this ill-angled photograph?

Zoom if you must, ladies, but he was a refugee from a nearby tour bus. Where are the semi-naked lighthouse keepers?

By the way, feather girl here would have had to be in a coma to have endured the icy spray of the Atlantic and felt nothing but the lightkeeper's rapture. My toes could barely stand it.

So there was no keeper, no peek inside, not even any rapture, really. I suppose it was for the best. The best tours are of the mind. They are perfectly crafted, unsoiled by reality and always accessible.

Tomorrow: Romancing The End, or Thank Heavens She'll Talk About Something Else Soon