R. Doug Wicker — Author | Stories of Mystery and Adventure

April 6, 2026 · 5:35 am

The Ghost Town Picture Series — Part 1

My last travel series, which took almost a year to present to you, wore me down a bit. And since that trip, we’ve done even more extensive traveling — Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, India, Prague, back to Cape Town, another cruise up the west coast of Africa and to Saint Helena, and a return to Luxor. Those destinations were over two months-long trips, and I’ll be presenting those to you in the future. As for now, I need a break. So, for the next five weeks I’m going to present a special photographer’s dream — a ghost town. With one exception, all the photographs over the next fifteen articles will be color-filtered black & white. For tips on what that means, see my photography articles: Black & White Photography—It’s All in the Color! and More Fun with Color Filtering for Black & White Photography. As for this series, expect minimal text and maximal photography. The location of this ghost town will remain a secret, for at least most of you, until the last Fun Photo Friday of this series. And while I did all the B&W conversions and most of the photos, some of these were taken by Ursula. Those will be so designated. I hope you enjoy the show!

Слава Україні! (Slava Ukraini!)

Fun Photo Friday — Tenerife and La Laguna Favorites 3

This week’s Fun Photo Friday not only concludes our journey to Tenerife, but also that six-week long journey I’ve been presenting to you for the better part of the last year. I hope you’ve enjoyed the many sights ranging from Romania, to Egypt, to Africa. A hint as to what’s coming up in the near future: We just completed another six-week journey, and before that we travelled extensively in Southeast Asia with several weeks spent in India. But before I get to those, I may have to throw a bone to my firearms fans and do some much anticipated gun reviews. I’ll let you know how I decide to proceed soon. Right now I’m leaning toward a black & white series on a particularly interesting ghost town we recently visited. So my options. Decisions, decisions. Until next week, here are today’s Fun Photo Friday selections:

Слава Україні! (Slava Ukraini!)

Canary Islands — Tenerife; Walking San Cristóbal de La Laguna

*Iglesia de la Concepción* (Church of the Immaculate Conception)

Time for a European-style pasty break, and Ursula found us a wonderful little stop. We were accompanied on this little excursion by my bridge partner aboard NCL Dawn, so we had a three-way share of delights. If you’re going to pin me down as to the particular pastry shop, I’ll tell you that I believe it was Café Palmelita (Google rating 4.2 out of 6,117 reviews). I’ll begin by showing you the display case of goodies that awaited us: