Journey

Eleven days ago, Erik Kratz pointed his white, 1998 Honda Accord toward Harrisonburg, Va., and started the 270-mile drive home. "It's still a good ride," Kratz said of the car, which has taken him about 190,000 miles to and from obscurity. He thought about his wife, who is expecting the couple's third child in October. He thought about how he would spend the day away from baseball. He thought about how grateful he was, and then it hit him. "I drove down some familiar roads," Kratz said.

TAMPA - Ann Romney can't seem to stop talking about her five boys, even though they're hardly boys anymore. Hours after her speech to the Republican National Convention, the wife of nominee Mitt Romney campaigned across the critical battleground state of Florida on Wednesday, talking about her sons, her physical challenges and, of course, her husband. "Know that this is a man you can trust," she told about 100 people at a Latino Coalition luncheon. "Know that this is a man who will work hard for this country.

THEY HEARD THE warnings so many times. They would leave for a few hours or a day and return. It was Sunday, Aug. 28, 2005, in New Orleans. Henry Brooks, 12, had just started seventh grade. This time, they left and did not return. The family packed for a week or 2 and left their New Orleans East home on Shubert Street, hard by the Lakefront Airport and Lake Pontchartrain, just a few blocks from a levee, and headed northwest to stay with relatives. They departed at noon, got there at midnight, the roads so clogged that a normal 2 1/2-hour trip became 12. When they woke on Aug. 29 in a trailer near Opelousas, La., they could feel the wind from Katrina.

AKRON, Ohio - I made my mother's lifelong dream come true on an overcast Tuesday morning. "Oh. My. Goodness," my mom said, her eyes shining as she peered down on the houses, roads, and farm fields below us. "This is so exciting. " Other people yearn for big things like sparkly jewelry, grand houses, massive fortunes. But my mother - Jean Metzger Graham - has always had another fascination. Blimps. Yes, blimps. Mom has lived her entire life in Northeast Philadelphia, and is the sort of person who rarely asks for anything for herself.

Rumors of NASA's death have been exaggerated. After the Obama administration proceeded with the scuttling of the ancient space-shuttle fleet, a host of doom-and-gloomers, including some of the most storied names in U.S. astronaut history, raised sand. They suggested that without manned flight, there really was no U.S. space program. But that was B.C. - before Curiosity, the probe sent to Mars, which for more than a week now has been beaming photographs of the Red Planet's landscape back to Earth.

Just when it seems you've reached the end of Long Beach Island's last outpost, Holgate, a small road leads to a beach cottage straight out of central casting. Its weathered gray-brown siding, pale blue shutters, and window boxes face the road, and then the actual entrance appears. A huge bell with resounding gong - definitely not the traditional doorbell - announces visitors. If David Bohan is not down by the bay tending to his oyster bins, he responds to that summons with a broad grin.

"Will you go to the Olympics with me?" These eight words changed my life forever. This is a story that I always meant to write, and it has taken me 20 years to put it to paper. My now husband said these words to me in the summer of 1989, after a night out at the Sea Isle City bars. The next day, would he remember saying these words, for we were really just acquaintances staying in the same Shore house for the summer weekends? Would he remember my response that went something like, "Maybe, if I still know you"?

WASHINGTON - Mitt Romney, looking for a boost after being battered recently by President Obama, heads abroad this week in a bid to portray himself as a wise statesman. The Republican presidential candidate leaves Tuesday on a six-day swing to the United Kingdom, Israel, and Poland. Each stop is carefully choreographed to help him gain stature in the eyes of the American public, not to mention the world. He hopes to create momentum that will continue through August, when he is expected to announce his vice presidential choice and reintroduce himself to America at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla. The trip is loaded with political risks as well.

My wife, Sally, and I had taken many volunteer adventure trips since our retirement in 2004, but we knew that 12 weeks in South Africa was going to be special, working with disadvantaged kids; touring an exotic country; and taking a real safari. We braced ourselves for the long trip, and we were weary but happy to finally arrive by overnight train in Port Elizabeth, our home for the next month. We soon met Mama Gladys, inspiration, founder, and mother to 30-plus kids at the Door of Hope Orphanage.

Well into One Nation Under Dog, HBO's revealing but difficult documentary about our deep bonds with canine companions, we reach a point that is nearly too awful to watch. With plenty of warning to viewers, the film shows what happens at an animal shelter's last stop — a fate met by a couple of million dogs each year in the United States. A half-dozen dogs are set into a large metal box. They seem eerily resigned to this moment; no snapping, no squirming, no escape attempts.