Thanks to a chatty Ace Hardware employee who talked me up after seeing my ND jacket, we learned about Russian Gulch and its striking waterfall just outside of Mendocino. As we began our trip south, we did a quick detour to take in the beautiful redwoods.
And for the piece de resistance, our budding naturalist Hen, aka Dr. Alias Fakename (“Elias Fah-ke-nah-may”) filmed “The Wild Maria” traipsing around her natural habitat, Sasquatch-style. Check out his report (sound on!).
Following our railbike outing, Hen & I met back up with the crew for Giant Burgers at Jenny’s (“next to Denny’s,” the locals helpfully noted—as apparently all directions are relative to Denny’s).
Margot & Finn were looking for a little downtime, so they peaced out to the campsite with Seamus. Maria had dropped by the local Sea Glass Museum, so armed with new knowledge & a little guide book, she took Hen & me out to Sea Glass Beach to hunt for treasure:
If you squint, you can just see the two of them hunting amongst the crags in this interactive drone panorama:
I swear, I almost had to crowbar the two of them off the beach as the sun set. 😌 It was worth it, though, as they collected quite the haul:
Some locals had recommend a funky local seafood joint called The Sea Pal Cove, where fishing boats pull right up to the pier to drop off their hauls. While Hen & Maria got us a table, I drove back to reclaim the rest of the crew & bring them to the fishy scene.
After a good night’s sleep, we again hit the beach. Talk about live & learn: Seamus grinding his face into a log full of barnacles left him smelling deeply gross for our four-hour ride home. 🙄
And Maria learned just how quickly the sea can turn on you & soak your feet 😅, necessitating some fireside steaming:
After having a terrific Thanksgiving at home with our visiting pal Maria, we packed up the Westy—complete with the spacious new “techno-yurt” Margot bought for my birthday & which finally arrived at the last possible minute.
First we zipped across the Golden Gate Bridge under picture-perfect skies:
Afterwards we made our way north to Hopland & Ukiah, where we visited an antique store & then an army surplus store, both recommended by our friend Marcos who grew up in the area. From glass insulators to fake teeth to all manner of MAGA madness, the selection & clientele were eclectic & memorable, to say the least.
From there we made the long and very winding path out to the coast, arriving in Fort Bragg to set up camp just outside of town, then score some pizza and supplies. The new tent went up like a champ & kept Finn and Maria cozy all night, with an assist from space heater Seamus.
The campsite was located just a short walk from the beach—which proved delightful to visit the next morning.
Check out our gallery from the first day’s adventure, and stay tuned for lots more from the weekend.
Henry, man… “character” doesn’t begin to describe him, as I’m sure you know. Being a man of somewhat obsessive interests, he’s lately dived head-first into the arcane but charming world of old glass insulators for telephone wires—something, oddly enough, that I used to collect while walking around Galena as a kid. He will gladly tell you the entire history of the Hemingray company while proudly showing off his collection.
Having noticed a promising-looking abandoned pole near the freeway, on Sunday he persuaded me to drive him up to Pleasanton & scramble around some abandoned tracks. Through the miracle of my 10-foot-long selfie stick, we were even able to wiggle a few loose & collect them! (This is the weirdest game of Pokemon ever. 🙃) I mean, just look at the sheer joy on our man’s face:
With Margot off in Seattle to visit Alethea for the weekend, the we four remaining dudes (Seamus included) headed up north of Sacramento for some quick camping & exploration. As you can see in our gallery, we were nestled in a neat spot along the banks of the American River.
It was fun getting my drone aloft for the first time in a while, and you can drag this panorama around to see more:
Following camping, we all headed back towards Sacramento to check out a big Lego show full of cool creations & vintage bricks for sale. With an eye towards our friend Maria’s upcoming visit, we even found a little Lego representation of her dog Tippy—seen here proudly astride her stegosaurus steed. 🦖😌
Well, thanks to some last-minute improv by Finn (fashioning a tinfoil hat to make himself into a “conspiracy theorist”) and a quick trip to the Army surplus store (to bolster Henry’s military duds), both boys got into the swing of trick-or-treating this year, bringing home thousands of calories in loot. 🙃 Here’s a quick peek at their getups. [And check out our Halloween category for fun stuff from past years.]
As the chaps are scrambling around to devise some last-minute Halloween costumes, I thought it’d be fun to whip up a little Throwback Thursday gallery showing some of their fun getups from years gone by. Enjoy!
Believe it or not, there’s still a handful of stories, galleries, and videos from our summer adventure that we have yet to share here—so let’s use Throwback Thursday as an excuse to start finishing the tale.
As we’ve done for severalyearsnow, we headed out on the Arkansas River for a day of whitewater rafting.
This year we went all-in for an extended trip, meaning we could stop midway through, grab lunch, and enjoy sights like a giant banana-man leaping into the rapids. (Not to be outdone, Finn leapt, too!)
Here’s hoping that one day soon I’ll finish paring down the hours of footage captured via the dorky-looking cameras I insisted on affixing to Henry’s & my helmets. In the meantime, check out a gallery from our wet hot American summer.
“Life’s as big as you make it,” we always say, and I credit Finn with shaking off his hermit-y ways & pushing us to get out and about this past weekend. Off we went to camp in the middle of nowhere (“Well, it’s not the middle of nowhere,” observed Hen, “but you can see it from here”) on Saturday night.
The next day we horked down the world’s most satisfying breakfast at local diner Huckleberry’s, then drove to Castle Air Museum—a former Air Force base that’s now home to an immense B-36 bomber & dozens of other historic aircraft.
Seamus chilled in the shade of an immense deactivated H-bomb while everyone else endured my nonstop stream of aviation ephemera. 😛 (“Every rivet has a story, all of which I will tell you right now…”)
Check out a little (er, actually rather immense) gallery from the day—mostly courtesy of photog Henry.
We were all saddened by the passing of my Uncle Tedy, the colorful Chicago policeman/pianist/patriarch/raconteur about whom the boys have heard so much over the years. If only he & Henry could’ve spent a morning together, talking over stories from a long and eventful life; they’d have gotten along famously.
Happily, Hen & I were able to visit Chicago to attend services for Uncle Tedy on Friday & Saturday, and of course to visit our big, extended fam. As I noted beforehand, “I’m drawing Henry an org chart for our Irish Catholic family; might be a long night”—and it was! That’s a great problem to have, and it was a treat to see so many folks over the course of the weekend.
Henry in particular enjoyed old photos, and given that he’s long wanted a mustache of his own, he remarked, “Wow, I would love to have Uncle Tedy’s! He looks like Burt Reynolds. He’s the Bandit minus the cowboy hat!”
Here’s Tedy with his old partner, the late actor Dennis Farina:
Hen certainly appreciated the Nadile family’s generosity in taking everyone out to eat at Morton’s after the funeral. Sad as the occasion was, I know Uncle Tedy would’ve been delighted to bring together so much family.
On Sunday we got to have lunch with Chris & Karren Hertzig (visiting from Rhode Island) as well as Aunt Jane, Sarah, and Young John. Afterwards we drove to Lighthouse Beach on Lake Michigan, where we met up with Liz & Patrick, then dropped by the nearby Baha’i Temple and scored some great Chicago hot dogs (a priority of Hen’s).
For many, many years we’ve heard about Leadville’s burro races (part of their annual Boom Days celebration), but the timing has never worked out for us to attend. Fortunately this year our trip overlapped with a similar quadruped-fest in nearby South Park. Not only does it feature burros, it has a whole day called Llamarama!
We joke that Seamy identifies as a llama, and he was more than a little intrigued by these big, curly guys.
It turns out that llamas & alpacas are both members of the camelid family, so it was cool to bookend our trip with camels. Check out Shepherd Finn escorting a llama through the grueling obstacle course. 🙃
As you can see in our gallery, we all had fun meeting the creatures, as well as exploring the town—especially its Wild West-era buildings and trains. Here’s hoping we can meet these guys again someday!
Literally every time we’ve visited Leadville, we’ve driven past a gorgeous mountain lake surrounded by mountains, and probably half of those times we’ve asked ourselves, “Hey, why don’t we ever stop off here for a hike?”
A few days after the boys returned to us in Leadville, we turned right back to head down the mountain to spend an eventful weekend with pals in & around Denver.
Following a great Friday evening dinner with Margot’s old friend Troy and his wife (with whom Henry bonded over vintage model trains—because, of course he would!), we got up on Saturday and headed over to the Forney Transportation Museum. As you can see, Hen was craaaazy excited to see the Big Boy engine & vintage vehicles 🤪:
Here’s a gallery we captured during our visit. Notably, Hen did most of the shooting himself (!), rocking my big camera and later helping me pick pics.
Afterwards we met up with the Lingles to celebrate Auntie Laura’s birthday over some Native American cuisine, then dropped by my buddy Justin’s beautiful new home & met his lovely girlfriend Maria. We all had a blast—especially Seamus, somewhat literally 😉:
On Sunday we made plans to meet up with our old friends Ethan & Diane and their son Charlie in Golden, a cute town that sits between Denver & Leadville. Back in 2016 we’d visited the Colorado Train Museum in Golden (see gallery from that day), which the boys naturally loved.
Dropping by again this year let us re-enact some of of our previous antics in front of the giant snowplow train. Compare 2016…
…to 2021:
It was especially fun that Finn chose to join Henry & me at the museum while Margot and Seamus explored Golden. Many episodes of brotherly fake-beatdowns followed, as did the boys pushing the enormous turntable around by hand! Check out our gallery from the day, plus a quick vid of our ride around the grounds:
And last but not least, here’s a small gallery showing our shots from dinner, lunch, Justin’s house, and our time in Golden.
Following Henry’s birthday, the lads headed off to Denver with Auntie Laura & Grandpa for a few days of fun with their cousins (go-karts & kayaks & trampolines, oh my!). This left Margot, Seamus, and me to hold down the fort—oddly & rather refreshingly alone! We took advantage of the time to bike around Leadville’s Mineral Belt Trail…
After we came home tired & happy, it was time to celebrate officially. Here’s a handful of shots, plus the total highlight of the day—Henry getting his great-great grandfather Liggett’s railroad watch! Check it out:
Following the Fourth, it was time for the four cousins to go off for some adventures together. We all journeyed down to Copper Mountain, then turned the lads loose:
We have just a small gallery from the day, given that the guys were off on their own (running through an obstacle course, duking it out on water-spraying bumper boats, cruising skyward in a gondola, and more), but here’s a video showing the super fun alpine coaster we all rode:
“Life is as big as you make it,” we always tell the boys, and Henry—in his idiosyncratic, insistent way—is often a great catalyst for getting off one’s duff and into the world.
Last year he wrangled me into poking around some abandoned train tracks, picking up “treasure” just as I did around Galena as a kid. This year he got me & Seamy to join him down there on what proved to be a spectacular evening. Check out a gallery of pics the two of us took. (Seamus contributed more as a model than as a photog. 😌)
A couple of days later, Hen persuaded me to drive down towards Buena Vista in hopes of exploring some old Rio Grande RR bridges. Amidst some trial and error involving little back roads, we were able to scramble down to the water, Legos in hand:
Here’s one trippy little video we concocted on & around the bridges…
…and another we made while zipping through the old train tunnels outside of Buena Vista:
And just like that—a mere 168 hours after leaving home—we arrived in Leadville!
Things were just as we left them, and it was great to spread out and connect with the fam. Chilling on the porch never disappoints:
Over the weekend the boys headed down to Turquoise Lake for some paddleboarding with the cousins and Uncle James, and on Sunday the Fourth of July parade was just as cute and charming as ever. James cooked up some amazing BBQ, and we enjoyed meeting his sister and her husband.
After a solid week on the road, our destination was at last just around the bend (where “bend” equals giant mountain range—but still!). Take ‘er away, narrator Hen:
We woke up, packed up, and hit the road. When we got back to Crested Butte, we got some breakfast and walked around. Finn kept stealing my hat, and he almost threw it in a river!
Next, we went hiking around Peanut Lake, where there were the most beautiful wildflowers. When we were going back to the car we ran into the Wiggins again, who told us to meet them at a bridge and a river in an hour.
While we waited, we ate some killer burgers and picked one up for Hazel. While there we saw a guy blasting country music on a pink Vespa scooter with a unicorn head stuck on the front. (A human man was actually driving this!!) We then drove to the bridge with a burger for Hazel.
We had fun skipping rocks and chatting about various topics. Next, we left CB and started up Cottonwood Pass. It was really beautiful. The end of the pass leads straight through Buena Vista and on to LEADVILLE!!
