My plan was always to save the Grand Canyon for an epic trip – when I had time to plan it, time to fully process and prepare to hike down in it, or take a helicopter ride above it, or all of the above. But once we realized that it was more or less in […]
Saguaro National Park.
Saguaro National Park. It’s a tiny little spit of land – or actually two spits – one hugging each side of Tucson like strangers in the airport that insist on sitting right next to you, despite the luggage barrier you tried to create. We’d not planned on going to it, as aforementioned, but when one […]
Making Travel Lemonade on the Fly.
We’ve had a solid run of unsurprising air travel. On time flights. Made connections. Baggage arriving with us. Nobody in the family has used an air sickness bag. Yet. But we pushed our luck a little too far scheduling a trip to the high desert in peak winter. In our defense, we thought it was […]
Colorado Days Three and Four – Snow, Elevation, and Trains.
The third day of our Colorado trip was the day Noah had been waiting for: Rocky Mountain National Park. The kid is in the middle of a serious love affair with National Parks, so it didn’t matter how cool horseback riding was (or whether he’d admit it or not) – what he wanted was national […]
Colorado Days One and Two: Anaphylaxis, Hiking and Horses.
In Mid-October, The week after I turned forty, the children and I flew to Colorado. It was rather a last minute trip, taken because I was desperate to get out of town, there was a great deal on flights and that I was able to combine with several other tricks to make the trip incredibly […]
Montana and Yellowstone: When the Consolation Prize is Better.
“Do you know why I wanted to come to Montana?” “Nope. Why?” “I read about it in a novel and it sounded amazing.” “That is the EXACT reason I went to Maine last year!” I was thrilled that Ali and I are equally inspired by literature in our desire to see the world. Fernweh, Chris […]
The First Day of School and the Unclaimed Tooth.
Monday was our first day of school. Except that it wasn’t actually our first day of school because Friday was our first day of school. But we started school with a field trip day, as one does, therefore making Monday the first day we sat down with textbooks. So we’ll go with Monday. As with […]
The Calamity of Educational Gaps.
Sometimes people ask me how I know what all my kids need to learn in their homeschool education. “How do you make sure there’s not a gap in their learning, or be assured that you didn’t forget anything?” Since I was homeschooled, and know very little about the pre-college group education scene myself, I suppose I could […]
On Running To and From Dismal.
A couple of weeks ago, I had the strong urge to leave town. It had been a rough summer, and it was the week before the first anniversary of my Dad’s death, and all the blech and sadness and ick was making me quite dismal. I haven’t felt like writing, photographing, staging roadkill, or even […]
Summer Reading For Rebels.
Guilty Confession: I don’t hate the library, per se, but I might believe that the library hates me. Our branch is always crowded and loud and I struggle mightily to find the books we’re looking for. I used to try and do the right, the expected, the moral thing, and take my children to the library […]