Greetings from 10,000ft.! As we’ve gotten to do in many past years, we checked in on America’s highest Fourth of July parade—this year complete with vintage fire trucks, marching lions, hailstorms of thrown candy, and more. Afterwards Henry went BERSERK over his new metal detector (more on that later!) and the whole fam journeyed to a nearby campground to picnic. Here’s a little gallery & some quick video highlights:
We’ve taken the boys on the Leadville & Colorado Southern scenic railroad a number of times since they were teeny. This year’s ride was more special than the rest. Grandpa Liggett treated each guy to a trip that included riding in the caboose and in the engine! Needless to say, Henry was beside himself with excitement, and Finn was pretty jazzed, too. The engine pushes the train up the mountains from behind, so the caboose is in the lead on the way up. The boys loved sitting high in the cupola and enjoyed the 360-degree scenic view from the top. The brakeman, Jason, let us ride on the outer deck of the caboose and take in the scenery from there.
When the train made a brief stop at the top, Henry hopped off solo (against the advice of the brakeman) in hopes of finding a stray railroad spike. Just as Henry found one and put his foot back on the step of the caboose, the horn blew and the train started rolling again! On the way back down to the depot all four of us sat in the huge diesel engine and chatted extensively with the railroad owner & engineer, Derek, who’s been manning the controls since he was a teenager (supervised by his own dad back in the day). All in all the day was a blast, and one we hope will provide some happy core memories for both guys.
Here’s a gallery from the adventure, and you can watch the highlights below:
Being a nostalgic guy, I can’t resist posting a vid of the first time the lads rode the train, all the way back in 2011:
That’s the day they got to explore a whole fleet of motorcars with Patrick & Charlie; see gallery & video here:
We’ve always known that on some level, Henry’s always been something of a 65-year-old man 😌. Therefore it’s no surprise that he loved spending the afternoon in the company of such guys, nerding out about all things currency at the Modesto Coin Show. Sticking out so clearly from most of the attendees, Hen was kind of charming & fascinating to them, and folks treated him so kindly, offering all kinds of little goodies. Below you can see the short “haul vid” he recorded after we got home, as well as a handful a photos I snapped during the show.
As they have during previous visits, on Saturday the boys got a huge kick out of visiting our friends Matthias & Samantha’s house & newly acquired farm. After witnessing the end of the Germany-Sweden World Cup match (and learning some, um, colorful German words shouted by Matthias & his dad :-p), they headed out for some four-wheeling and visiting the new herd. Henry immediately laid claim to some decrepit farm equipment in a corner of the pasture, and Bert the Buffalo enjoyed bonding with his fellow ruminants. Here’s a gallery from the day.
To say that Henry’s an avid consumer of YouTube content would be like saying that sometimes he’s been not entirely cheerful at the barber. 😛
Happily, he’s going from mere consumer to creator, starting his own channel for posting vids about trains, his burgeoning currency collection, and more. He’s so thrilled to have smashed the elusive five-subscriber mark, and when I mentioned that morning that my teammate Buck would be interested in some new content, Hen made a beeline to grab a phone and record the vid below. I guess Margot & I are now safe to forget about saving for retirement & plan to cash in on our young Spielberg’s eventual media empire. 😉
Well, another year of camping with our pals from Las Madres is officially in the books! Building on adventures from 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, and 2012 (what a time machine!), we headed down to Uvas Canyon (about 45 minutes south by car from San Jose) to enjoy some epic creek exploration, stick battling, talent showing (at which Finn served as MC), wild scootering, and of course s’more-roasting. When not marveling at the clouds of migrating butterflies, we happily showed off the Westy to our slightly jealous pals as they set up their tents, and Friday being Margot’s birthday, we dug into a gorgeous cake made by our pal & fellow madre Lorraine. Check out our gallery of the dudes & their pals in action.
From our first outing in 2015 through installments in 2016 and 2017, Google’s annual Take Your Kids To Work Day has provided unique adventures each time. This year both guys joined me and enjoyed a parrot show, performed some ostensibly scientific explorations with slime, tried their hand at drawing Google Doodles, grabbed stickers & Android figurines at the company store, and wrapped up with hot dogs at The Sports Page. Here’s a quick peek at our day:
Chris Farley was a prophet. 🚐💦😝 Check out a few sights captured around our campsite last weekend.
During our recent getaway to Big Sur, the guys & I did a bit of droning over & through the iconic Bixby Creek Bridge. Check out the fruits of our labors—featuring brief cameos from me, Hen, & the Westy:
“The greatest meeting of land and sea in the world”—so the Big Sur coastline has been called, and so it is. With Mom-O out of town for the weekend, the dudes & loaded up the Westy with plenty of delicious, unhealthy crap, then trundled down to Bixby Creek Bridge (under which we spent a glorious day back in 2014). We buzzed around with the drone, took some epic selfies, and then headed down to Ventana campground for the night. (No, Dad, we didn’t take any head trips with Timothy Leary at nearby Napenthe. 😜) Here’s a little gallery from our adventure.
With Mom-O off to NYC & Finn tucked firmly into a Harry Potter adventure, Henry proposed that he & I set off for a little bike adventure last night. To his absolute delight, we were treated to not one, not two, but THREE trains barreling past in quick succession. Watch this and tell me: Happy kid, or happiest kid? 🙂
During last week’s Westy excursion, Hen & I explored the famous (and now sadly half-burnt) Point Reyes shipwreck while Mom-O & Finn read in the van. Hen was eager to keep hopping over the little creek & scrambling around (as you can see in last week’s gallery) and watching windsurfers, while I happily tried my hand at capturing him & the boat from above. Check out the resulting short vid:
To make the most of our free Sunday with Grandma Nack, we fired up the new Westy and headed over the mountains to Santa Cruz, grabbed lunch in nearby Davenport, and then headed north to meet the giant elephant seals who congregate at Año Nuevo beach. Everyone was game for tromping through a couple of miles of sand & trails to get out there, and you can see a bit of our adventures in this little gallery.
The name of my gym, Cróga, means “Brave” in Irish, so it seemed appropriate that our Green Team dubbed itself “The Fighting Irish” for our month-long friendly competition with two other squads. For the grand finale on Friday, Margot & the lads came to cheer me in, with Finn providing some clutch water boy duties to his thirsty old man. Here’s a handful of pics from the festivities! ☘️💪
We were honored to walk the walk—literally—behind our lads today in the March For Our Lives, hoping to bring some sanity to the debate over gun violence and control. When some high schoolers asked for help carrying their sign in this student-led movement, Hen stepped right up, then stepped to the front of the 10,000-strong march. We love our soon-to-be-voters! 💪🇺🇸
To commemorate our big man’s tenth (!!) full orbit around the Sun, I compiled a little photo tour of him through the years:
Compare that to how grown up he looked this week reading the qualities of a good Scout at our recent pack meeting:
And just for completely random comparison, here he is cavorting with Grandpa Nack right after Hen was born (“Kinda steep!”):
A decade, man… a decade of this dude, and I’m at a loss for words. It feels like some blow-out retrospective is in order, but rather than wait on that to come together, I can at least share some fun festivities from Finn’s little party.
Despite often telling us that “Being the center of attention is not really my jam,” the Finnster does really enjoy hanging out with a few pals. Therefore on his birthday we rounded up some of the “M Force” (M as in Minecraft, naturally :-)) for some pizza, Nerf battles, and ‘crafting. Here’s a little gallery from the occasion.
The house in Leadville has seen its share of Micronaxx milestones—e.g. Finn turning four and getting a huge Lego truck; Hen turning two (cupcakes!) and three (fireman backpack!). This year the timing of the boys’ school vacation meant that we celebrated Finnster’s tenth (TENTH!!) birthday a bit early. After a fun day of skiing, we brought home some Pizza Hut “cuisine” (Finn’s request!) to enjoy with the mint chip ice cream he & Grandpa whipped up. Like me, Finn enjoys savoring the opening of presents, and as you can see in the photo gallery, we had to restrain Hen from blurting out info prematurely. :-p In any case, everyone had a ball!
Sometimes being at 10,200ft. already just isn’t quite enough, so I brought my drone with us to capture some shots of Leadville from above. 🚁
Below you can see Cozy Liggett Manor (second house from the left). Click and drag on the photo (you can do this, Mom! 😉) in order to look in all directions, or click here to view it larger on Google Maps.
Finn got in on the flying, and in the short movie below you can briefly see us waving at the camera.
Later the guys dropped me off downtown so that I could do a little flying on my own. Check out the town’s main drag after it got a fresh coating of snow:
And lastly, here’s another 360º image, this time showing the town bathed in some beautiful late-afternoon sunshine (see it larger):
Even twelve hours later, I kinda can’t believe it: we took the dudes dogsledding today!
Yesterday en route home from a great day of skiing (more on that soon), we happened to spy in the distance tiny teams of what looked to be dogs pulling sleds. Sure enough, Alpine Adventures (“Your destination for dog-powered fun!” ☺️) is happy to host little tours and even let you try driving a sled! We booked a lunchtime session and were delighted to take turns driving, riding in the sled, and riding in a little sleigh behind a snowmobile (as the dogs pull just two people at a time).
We learned a ton from our guide Joe, a transplant from Georgia who’s been working with dogs for a decade. Just in case you were curious, each dog can run up to 20 miles per day, consumes roughly 6,000 calories worth of meat & other food each day, and comfortably lives outside all winter in his or her own little straw-filled barrel—as you can see in the pictures. Check out this gallery from the day plus a couple of quick videos below.