Posts from 2019

Christmas in Florida

We are hangin' in Florida this holiday season for about a month. That means fishing, golfing, hiking, and maybe even some kayaking. My side of the family i...

Dolly Parton’s America Permalink

Jad Abumrad: In this intensely divided moment, one of the few things everyone still seems to agree on is Dolly Parton—but why? That simple question leads ...

Backpacking the Three Sisters

One reason I stopped coaching football this year was to open up some fall Oregon outdoor adventures that I've had to skip for the past 12 years or so. Th...

Fly Fishing and Floating the Deschutes

My good friend Ken offered me the trip of a lifetime: a week of floating and fly fishing the Deschutes River in north central Oregon. Many fish caught, adve...

Lake O’Hara and the Canadian Rockies

Julie and I took a small detour on our way back to Oregon from Keuka Lake. An old friend from high school invited us to join him at a very special place:...

The Story of Us: Intro Permalink

Tim Urban: So part of what I’ve spent three years working on is a new language we can use to think and talk about our societies and the people inside of them...

Summer Gaming

It is high time I shared at least some sort of update on my summer goings-on, so how about gaming? We’ve had a range of short- and long-term visitors that en...

KC Air Show

We've had an amazing weekend here in Kansas City for the relaunch of the KC air show. Julie's brother Mike Saxton is one of the principals responsible for t...

Keuka Projects

It is almost July 4 weekend and I feel like I'm not even where I normally am by June 1 in terms of opening and key projects. We just got the raft anchored a...

Alaska Photos

We had an amazing time cruising with Alaskan Dream Cruises in early June 2019. We were on the Misty Fjord, a small 10-passenger boat that was perfect for...

Alaska

We are cruising in Alaska to celebrate the graduation from college for both of the young men in this photo. This shot was taken by a glacier very close to t...

Start of a big week

Julie and I have arrived at our rental home in Garrison, NY to prepare for graduation this weekend for Matthew at West Point. There will be 16 family member...

Good Travel Food

We've almost made it to our destination (Keuka Lake NY) and I thought I'd share some of the tasty food we've had along the way. First up was at Chauhan Ale ...

I ❤️ Labyrinth

Allen and I both had the same idea coming away from GMT West - seeing Labyrinth played made us both long to get it back on the table. This game opened the d...

Kayaking on the Sacramento

I skipped the Sunday festivities at GMT weekend so that Julie and I could hightail it up to Redding to see some old friends that have lived there for about ...

GMT Weekend in the West - Spring 2019

Julie and I worked out our return from our long hiking and backpacking trip to pass through central California so that I could (again) attend the GMT Games ...

Hanging in Southern Arizona

After climbing out of that big canyon, we cruised south in AZ, stopping for a night to have dinner with a young man (former classmate and teammate of Matthe...

Grand Canyon Backpacking - Days 4 and 5

Our concluding days in the canyon were some of the most relaxing we've ever had. It was a short, mostly flat 7 mile hike from Cottonwood camp to Bright Ang...

Grand Canyon Backpacking - Day 3

Day 3 was our planned "big day": a day hike from Cottonwood Camp up to the north rim, then to the vacated Lodge, then back down to camp. By day hike I mean ...

Grand Canyon Backpacking - Days 1 & 2

Our five day Grand Canyon backpacking adventure began on the South Kaibab trail. We caught the 8am hiker express shuttle at the Backcountry Office where we ...

Grand Canyon Rim Trail and Grandview Trail

We made it to our final hiking and camping destination - Grand Canyon. We spent day one setting up camp and being tourists around the south rim trail. I've...

We Love Sedona

I have a confession: one side goal of all this travel to the SW USA is to scout out a possible future residence that would have winters more amendable to ou...

Canyon de Chelly

We took a break from camping and spent two hotel nights in Chinle, AZ to get a deep dive tour of the Canyon de Chelly. The canyon and park is within the Nav...

Pueblo Pintado, Salmon Ruins, Aztec Ruins

Leaving Chaco Canyon there were three additional sites for us to check out. The first was Pueblo Pintado, an outlier site that is part of the Chaco National...

Chaco Culture National Historical Park

I won't give enough words for the awesomeness that is Chaco in this post. A few highlights and photos will have to suffice. Chaco is a unique national park....

Sand Canyon Hiking (near Cortez CO)

Day two in the Cortez CO area took us to Sand Canyon southwest of town, a beautiful hike that also contains a large amount of Puebloan ruins. We improvise...

Camping with Chris and Julie

We made a lot of changes to our camping rig this year. On these extended trips we do a mix of car camping (setting up camp adjacent to or a short walk from ...

Hovenweep National Monument

After two nights of hotel stays (we've learned that two nights is much better than one after finishing a backpacking trip), we made our way east to Colorado...

Backpacking Fish and Owl Canyons

Our first true backpacking trip on this long journey was at Fish and Owl Canyons in Cedar Mesa. We chose this because (1) new to us and (2) it is known to h...

Moon House Ruins

One of our few fixed, pre-planned trips on this month long adventure was a visit to Moon House. This ruin is notable enough to require permitting to limit t...

Slickhorn Canyon Ruins

Our next day of day hiking in the Cedar Mesa we planned a "quick" trip into Slickhorn Canyon to see one of the "perfect kivas", then move onto Moon House Ru...

The Day the Dinosaurs Died

Douglas Preston: “Any Cretaceous mammal burrow is incredibly rare,” he said. “But this one is impossible—it’s dug right through the KT boundary.” Perhaps, he...

Fallen Roof Ruin in Road Canyon

After exploring the Citadel ruin at the top of Road Canyon, we ventured down into the canyon then up the south face to visit Fallen Roof ruin. The name shou...

The Citadel Cliff Ruins

We set out for some day hiking to explore more native cliff dwelling ruins. A year ago we backpacked Grand Gulch to Bullet Canyon and we're mesmerized by th...

Camping in the Valley of the Gods

We lucked into one of the most spectacular camping sites we've ever had. Needing a home base for some Cedar Mesa day hike we searched in the Campendium app ...

Arches National Park

I've been remote for the past 5-6 days without signal. Time for more updates. I've got about five more to go. Our focus this trip isn't the big national par...

Mountain Biking Near Moab

Today was our first mountain biking adventure in Moab and, frankly, the first mountain biking we've done in 20+ years. We chose an intermediate adventure w...

Grandstaff Trail, Moab

Good warmup hike today near Moab on the Grandstaff Canyon trail. Back to camp for a nap then late day hike planned for Arches or Dead Horse State Park.

Return to Shoshone Falls

I stopped at Shoshone Falls, near Twin Falls ID, on my solo return from NY last September. This time Julie joined me. Flow was much higher but the skies wer...

February and March Mega Gaming Update!

This will be a linear wander through my gaming from early February through early March. Julie was in Florida for the duration so I was anxious to fill my fr...

Julie and Harper

St Patrick's day in downtown Melbourne. Getting our green on.

Gaming Go Box

Our "Go Box" of Games for the Road Trip

Thursday Things

More baked goodness Welcome to spring 2019! In this update I’m going to skip my gaming activity and put that into a separate post. In two days Jul...

Saturday White Bread

Time to make some Saturday white bread for a game night and dinner tonight. 13 bean soup also in the works.

High Frontier 3rd Edition

I’m at our annual RipCityCon gaming retreat on the Oregon coast. First big game of the week is Phil Eklund’s High Frontier. We are playing with colonisation...

Thursday Things

What I’m Reading I’ve been making bread with my learnings from Flour Water Salt Yeast: The Fundamentals of Artisan Bread and Pizza. This boo...

Thursday Things

Julie playing Russian Railroads at Guardian Games

Changing Shoreline At Salishan

We are out at the Oregon Coast doing some work to get our house sold (finally... we hope). There are been some king tides this winter and it is having a dev...

Thursday Things

What I’m Contemplating An Explorer Confronts His Last Canyon – Julie and I are deep into planning for our next southwest USA adventure, and ano...

Hiking Palo Duro Canyon Lighthouse Trail

We did a 6 mile roundtrip hike in Palo Duro canyon, about 20 miles southeast of Amarillo. I first (and last) visited this canyon when I was in college, abou...