Chris Farley was a prophet. 🚐💦😝 Check out a few sights captured around our campsite last weekend.
Author: The Nack Daddy
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.
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Best. Night. Ever?
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.
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Nack Friday (aka Sweatin’ With The Oldie)
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! 💪🇺🇸
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Finnster, Now & Then
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.
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Turning 10 at 10,000 ft.
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!
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High above Leadville
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.
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Foamy Hailstorm: Denver Edition
Our trip to Colorado got off to a rousing start as the boys joined their Nerf-loving cousins Patrick & Charlie for a battle royale at the nearby “Dart Warz” (i.e. a suburban warehouse full of sugared-up pre-teens & flying projectiles; what could be better? 😉). Here’s a brief taste of the action:
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Valentine’s Greetings
Mom-O treated the guys to some really charming cards when they came down to breakfast on Wednesday, and not wanting to be outdone, I whipped up a little drawing of their buds Leo, Ollie, and Bert the Buffalo. Meanwhile they received some great cards from Auntie Laura, Grandpa Liggett, and Grandma & Grandpa Nack (the last of I happened to catch on video). Just for yuks & posterity, here’s what we drew. 🙂
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Science Fair!
The lads got their learnin’ on over the last couple of weeks, conducting experiments with conductivity (Finn) and plate tectonics (Hen). Here’s a brief peek at Willow Glen Elementary’s science fair, held last night:
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Firing away with Matthias
Being a big German dude with pellet guns, a 4×4, and a cool accent, my teammate Matthias has quickly become something of a folk hero to the boys. (“You’re still #1, Dad,” Finn informs me, “but Matthias is definitely #2.” :-))
He recently upgraded the pellet gun he uses to defend his chickens from bobcat attack, so he quite generously passed his older one to Finn & invited the guys over for some backyard target practice. We also enjoyed joining Matthias & his wife Samantha for some clay trap shooting. Though the boys didn’t shoot that day, we ran into their pal Damian at the range, and they’re up for trying it out on our next visit. (Meanwhile born-scavenger Hen took to filling his pockets—and later my car—with dozens of spent shotgun shells. 🙄)
Check out the young marksmen in action:
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Our Mission to the Mission
Finn’s been studying the Spanish missions in class, learning enough to school us old folks on many interesting details about Junipero Serra, Gaspar de Portolà, and more. Having the day off of school & work, Margot suggested that we take the guys down to explore the Carmel Mission today—so off we went.
You can see some highlights in the video below & through a handful of photos (several of which are 360º panoramas I captured inside the Mission; click them to go into interactive mode).
“You’ll shoot your eye out!” Happily that hasn’t happened yet, and both bandito Hen & Nintendo-lover Finn are happily ensconced in a pile of Legos, wonderful books from Grandma & Grandpa Nack, a Lego-style drone (!) from the Lingle cousins, and more. Here’s a little gallery of the chaps celebrating with Grandpa Liggett. We feel, and are, blessed indeed. 🙂
All the way back in 2011, we enjoyed taking the lads on a Christmasy train ride through town (see little gallery & vid). Given that Hen’s passion for trains has only increased, this year we brought along Grandpa Liggett for an evening ride that featured letter-writing to the big guy, visits from Mrs. Claus & then Santa, and finally some requisite “cooling off” at Marianne’s Ice Cream. Check out the gallery and the short video below.
[Retro bonus trains: See also Christmas Lights Train 2013 (the tiny one in the park), the Chicago CTA Lights Train in 2012, and Oakland Zoo Lights all the way back in 2010.]
