Beyond Levittown: Travel photos from early Division Avenue graduates. The first of a series.

Frank Barning, class of 1960, in Tallin, Estonia in 2003. The sign helps to tell the story.

June Johnson, class of 1963, at the Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy. "I was trying to adjust the leaning," she said of the photo.

Annajoy Herman Romdalvik, class of 1960, on safari in South Africa at Kruger National Park.

Eddie Rotker, class of 1962, in Scotland at a fossils finding area in Northern Skye (Scottish Highlands). Eddie was truly off the beaten path.

Warren Zaretsky, class of 1960, on Isabela Island in the Galapagos just a few days ago.

By FRANK BARNING

A new concept is being introduced to our blog with this entry. We have done almost 30 posts of childhood photos, and now start a series of travel pictures, shots of Division Avenue alumni in foreign lands plus Alaska and Hawaii. We will skip the lower 48 at this time.

The photo at the top of this page is of me in Tallin, the capital of Estonia. It was a stop on a cruise that Vivian and I took in 2003 that started in New Orleans and sailed as far as St. Petersburg, Russia. One of the really nice things about some cruises is that you visit ports that you would never have considered while planning a vacation, and then you sometimes have great memories of having been there.

Tallin is such a place. It is situated on the northern coast of the country, on the banks of the Gulf of Finland, 50 miles south of Helsinki, west of St. Petersburg. Tasmania, an Australian island 150 miles south of the continent, comes to mind. Also, in that category is my travel experience to Madeira, a Portuguese archipelago in the north Atlantic. I long to return to both of these exotic destinations.

While traveling, I go out of my way to find signs that tell me where I have been. Travel on a cruise ship can be a blur when there are several ports, so signs help me label my photos. My Tallin photo is a perfect example of this. There is no doubt where this was shot, but I have hundreds of photos about which I am clueless. Hey, it is difficult to find a sign in a rain forest in Mexico or on the Great Barrier Reef.

So, you can look forward to photos of Division folks in China, South Africa, Italy, Peru, Scotland, Slovakia and other lands of enchantment. The name of our blog is Early Levittown and Beyond, so this truly is "beyond."