114 Articles
It’s been far too long since I’ve thrown up a trip report, particularly in this surreal COVID era. We were sent home, to work from home, at the beginning of March I believe. I found myself recognizing and experiencing the Spring with a satisfaction that I can’t remember feeling. I
This campsite out in the american springs area was surprisingly nice. We also found an impressive shelter that someone had built.
I’m inventing a new type of fun designation: “Type P”. “P” stands for “parent”. Those of you who might read this blog are probably familiar by now with Type I versus Type II fun; TGR has a nice explanation. Type I is your immediate fun—it brings a smile to your
It is rare for me to advocate “old school” over modern tech, but I’ve found a great method that I would like to share: waxing your polyester/cotton garments with good-old wax. I have taken to waxing my favorite Fjallraven Vidda Pro pants (this post will probably also turn into a
We got our permit and wandered the National Forest again last weekend to find ourselves a Christmas tree from the woods. I have already written about the tradition in another post, so I won’t repeat all of the background info (be sure to visit that post for the Chevy Chase
We made it back to Utah again this season! And we convinced another boy family to join us! (heh heh heh) Not sure that they really knew what they were signing up for… But all’s well that end’s well, and this was a spectacularly successful trip. Between the four of
The title pretty much covers the whole point of this post. Once upon a time, I lived in Crested Butte, for two years. I taught high-school science and math at a now non-existent private school, Crested Butte Academy. The first year my salary was $12,000. The second year my salary
I took the three boys by myself back up to far northern New Mexico, again a stone’s throw from the Continental Divide. This was our third time this summer to the same general vicinity, just south of the NM/CO border, north, south or—in this case—west of the Cruces Basin Wilderness.
He headed back up to far northern NM for some more camping with friends. We ended up finding a spot a quarter mile from where the Continental Divide trail passes through. One of my memories to preserve: Emerson was very proud to have learned how to operate his lighter by
We put our cat to sleep today. Baba developed some sort of abdominal cancer, or something that cats get called FIPS, or something else. It hardly matters what, now. I took him to the vet an hour ago and had them kill my cat. I feel guilty about putting him
In late June we found some friends to join us for camping in Northern NM. We started out with an afternoon at the Great Sand Dunes—the conditions were perfect. Lots of wide shallow water for safe play with minimal parenting, no mosquitoes, and nice hot sun. I love the sand
Once again, it has taken a long time for me to finally post this trip report. This is a post about a trip we took during the first week of May… Highlights included lots of beautiful campsites, copious fantastic thunderstorms, the boy’s first real slot canyoneering, super remote roadtripping, and
Every time we prepare for a camping trip, I (Karen) find myself amazed and annoyed that I still have not conquered some relatively easy tasks that would make trip-prep a heck of a lot less exhausting. Matt. of course, already has his system and has had it down for years.
The whole family visited the Spruce Hole Yurt this past March (2019), achieving a milestone that I have been looking forward to since we first had kids. Getting there as a family is doable. Spruce Hole yurt is located north of Chama, NM just over the border into Colorado. It’s
When I was a kid, I was infatuated with topo maps. My generation was on the cusp of the mapping technology: before I went to college, the only source for maps for adventure planning were paper copies from the USGS (US geological survey). I fondly recall ordering from the USGS
Once upon a time I was a fully dedicated climber, road-tripping weeks and even months out of the year to destinations around the country for the purpose of touching rocks with friends. These days it is still important to me, though it has been rightfully placed a bit down the
When it’s cold and snowy and the days are short, it can be challenging to get the boys adequate outdoor physical activity. They can drive us crazy, literally bouncing against the physical confines of the house and figuratively bouncing against Karen and my psyches… If you’re in a place where
A friend of mine bought the firestarter necklace that I recommended as a holiday gift idea, but told me that he’s having trouble starting a fire with it. So I made the video below, wherein I mash vaseline into cotton balls to make homemade fire starters, then light one with the
During our October trip back to the family farm to visit the grandparents, my mom bought this rocket kit for the boys. It was a timely gift, as the boys have been enjoying youtube videos of SpaceX Falcon launches. Building and launching model rockets with the boys brought back fond
A few years ago, I had a bunch of random things to wrap for Christmas. Stuff that would not fit easily into boxes or wrap nicely. I went online and found this incredible hack for making your own gift bags out of wrapping paper. Maybe everyone already knows about this,
It’s a tradition now – mark your calendar! The weekend after New Year’s, we all bring our dead, dry trees up to a spot in the National Forest, just off the road, halfway up to the Pajarito ski area. The location might vary just a bit (closer or farther up
I love buying gifts for my boys. There are so many options for inexpensive items that they love. And there are also tons of secretly practical options—the kids think they’re receiving exciting toys, but secretly they serve a down-to-earth purpose. If you haven’t noticed, I’m big on practical, useful gear.
Where we live, one can buy a permit to wander the national forest and cut down your own Christmas tree. Anybody remember Chevy Chase’s Christmas Vacation? Yeah, that’s totally us. I think about that Christmas tree scene in the movie every year (I put the youtube clip at the end
When your five and seven year-olds tell you they want to get up in the dark and hike a mountain in the snow, well you just have to support that sort of ambition. Jasper wanted to get up at 2:30AM (not that he understands what part of the night that
Bodie and I put together an Altoid survival kit for each of us about a year ago (when he turned six). It turned out to be a wonderful father-son activity, and Bodie stayed excited about it for many months. It was really fun, for him and for me. Even now,
POOP! I’m going to talk about POOP! It’s going to get real. Because I’m feeling like the honey badger tonight (“honey badger doesn’t give a ****!”). Yes, people have written plenty about shitting in the woods before. Few, however, will have been quite as detailed and as graphic as I
We just returned from a three-night camping trip for labor-day weekend, exploring new areas in southern CO and northern NM. It was filled with the usual: the giggles of super happy little boys messing around in the tent at bedtime; Emerson laying in the dirt playing with his cars (everywhere);
This post is about building your own custom first aid kit, or else improving the one you have. With three boys, we use the first aid kit far more frequently than back in the day. Before kids, I was much more cavalier about injuring myself. As a parent, I want
The family camped out at a spot in American Springs last night, hopeful of observing the Perseid meteor shower. Some friends joined us for the campfire portion, which made it a super fun evening. We didn’t end up seeing many shooting stars before retiring to the warmth of the tent,
On our recent Utah roadtrip, we took the boys up a portion of three separate slot canyons: Fry (Frylette), Leprechaun, and Little Wild Horse. (I’m just getting around to putting up some details about the activities from that trip). The boys were ecstatic about the actual canyon bits, and grumbly