The day started with a trip to Clark’s candy aisle at 7 o’clock in the morning. “Pick out anything you’d like,” I said to my girls, ages 6 and 9. Siri and Quincy looked at me like I was crazy. Or at best like some...
The goal of the trip wasn’t to gather mushrooms. We were headed to a hut to enjoy the last days of summer before school began. We were 12 people strong, 6 adults, 6 kids, loaded to the gills with chocolate, marshmallows, and graham crackers, tequila,...
When you go to the Pacific Northwest for a vacation, it’s best to keep your expectations low. Of course, the food will be great. The coffee. The beer. The views of fractured volcanoes looming in the distance. It’s the weather that can be the great...
When your 74-year old father-in-law calls to say he wants to spend some time with your kids this summer, you’re thinking the beach. Or maybe a visit back East. Possibly, Disneyland. What you’re not thinking is that he wants to shoulder a backpack and hike...
We’d been looking for a way to get on a rafting trip for a while. A raft, with its ample space for food and gear, seemed like the perfect way to get into the wilderness with kids. Enough space to carry everything we’d need. And...
Anyone who has lived in the mountains will caution you against making plans. The weather can change at any moment. So what if it’s May, and it hasn’t really snowed in close to 3 months? It’s high time for a good snow storm! Still, even though...
Growing up, there are certain markers that define your childhood. The first time you ride a two-wheel bike. The first time you catch a baseball. The first time you read a chapter book on your own. Yet, when you grow up in a ski town, the...
We live in an era where it is increasingly hard to connect. Sure, we’ve got our tweets and our texts. Our Facebook and FaceTimes. Yet, real, genuine connection is harder to find. I’m talking about the kind of connection you feel when you tell a...
When I was 21 and a student at Colorado College, I caught a last-minute ride in a friend’s pickup to a place called Telluride. Toby was headed there for a bluegrass festival. “Get in. You have to see this place.” [caption id="attachment_49362" align="alignright" width="300"] The Light...
It’s a been a strange world this winter living without snow. Most directly, no new snow has limited activities such as skiing and Nordic skiing. As Jesse McTigue cleverly illustrated in last week’s Snow Sunday, there can be a kind of depression that sets in...
