I’ve previously mentioned last week’s 10-year anniversary celebration of Agua Fria National Monument (and the National Landscape Conservation System), so I thought I should post an update on how it went. I spoke with the BLM yesterday and the event wildly surpassed our estimates. We had projected about 500 attendees, but were surprised when more … Read more
It’s not quite what I expected, but I’ve enjoyed the new Pearl Jam album Backspacer. In particular, I’ve found myself gravitating to the song Just Breathe. Without Vedder’s distinctive voice, you probably wouldn’t guess it was a Pearl Jam song – even if it does have an Into the Wild feel to it. It’s just … Read more
I value loyalty. I hadn’t ever thought of myself as being an especially loyal guy until a friend raised it as one of my personal qualities a couple of years ago. I reflexively disagreed, but upon further reflection and discussion realized that it was probably an accurate statement. Hey, sometimes it takes you a few … Read more
Hard to argue with this. From Monty Python’s Life of Brian.
For the ninth or tenth straight year, Kim and I bought an America the Beautiful Pass (or its predecessors, the National Parks Passport and Golden Eagle Passport). For $80 a year, it’ll get you and your family into every National Park unit and the other federal land management agency lands for free. Given the fabulous … Read more
We’ve stopped in Van Horn, Texas on a few occasions before. Each time, we managed to hear or read about the local Chuy’s restaurant, which is rather infamous. Apparently, the restaurant attracted the attention of John Madden years ago, who has said it’s his favorite place to eat. And Chuy’s has naturally exploited the hell … Read more
I was fortunate to have an opportunity to bring in the new year from New Orleans. To qualify the following random thoughts, I’m not a partier, not much of a dancer, not a drinker, and I was here with my wife as part of a much-larger national park roadtrip. As a nondrinker, many of the … Read more
One of the things I’ve enjoyed most about my national park quest is that it pushes me to visit places I wouldn’t otherwise visit. It encourages me to step outside of what I know and am interested in to at least dabble in something new. I may not come away with a deep appreciation of … Read more
Today we visited Poverty Point National Monument (or rather, State Historic Site) and Vicksburg National Military Park. For all the details, check out my post on scottandkimmie.com. Beyond the recap, I wanted to toss out a couple more thoughts about our trip so far. First, we’ve seen two units – Big Thicket National Preserve and … Read more
It’s Christmas afternoon and you probably have a bunch of new stuff. Cool stuff indeed, and maybe even some not quite as cool stuff, too. Either way, a lot more stuff has entered your life in the last 24 hours. Here’s a simply way you can help ensure that all this stuff doesn’t add to … Read more