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Last I heard, Jackson, Wyoming is enjoying a lovely 10-degree low and taking on an inch or two of fluff during some awfully pleasant snow flurries. They say the skiing's not that great this year, either. So prepare yourself. Corners of the American Sonoran Desert are invoking cliché lyrics to Jimmy Buffet songs at 74 degrees during the day and chilling the bones at night around 45. Those are facts, so pack the bikes and come on down. 38 Photos . . .
Place a wager for best description of a desert rain on chapter twelve of Barbara Kingsolver's book The Bean Trees and there's a good chance you'd win. She crescendos over the course of some 800 words just to build up to her description of the subtle and therefore easily dismissed scent that rises in the air before a desert summer rain. It's a remarkable and realistic chapter. So why would I bother writing about it? Camera: Canon 5D | Lens: EF24-105mm | Setting: f/4, 1/8, ISO 1600 As a nine-year old girl with big, brown, criminally beautiful eyes tells me you're not supposed to call people weird. They're "artsy." So, I have a bunch of artsy friends who like to make a tradition out of gathering deep in the desert totally off the grid on the weekend after Thanksgiving. It starts with all participants knowing just three things:
Somewhere along the road to progress, civilized automotive manufacturers decided the "gas light" was a good thing to add to the dashboard. In most cases when that little red orb illuminates, you're supposed to feel some gratitude but you don't, do you? It's really like getting your final warning. Under the best of situations running out of gas is a downright drag, so a little hey-bro-put-somthing-in-the-tank ought to be a nice reminder; instead it's more of a bummer, the jig is up. Well. As far as running out of gas is concerned, this was not the best of situations . . .
There is little chance that anyone's pancakes on planet Earth can beat those of Chris "BajaTaco" Marzonie. He has the temperature dialed in just right on his camp stove that toasts each pancake with a joyous, nameless heavenly color. The sweet-scented steam rises with a gentle whisper. But is that all? No, there's more. It gets much better. He custom tailors each one to the indulgences of the stomach to which it's destined . . .
Caroline Gleich rides down Muddy Creek in southern Utah —not sitting in a kayak, a tube or a canoe, but on a standup paddle board. Why not? Whatever puts a grin on your grill. *** The Sunday Morning Chillax is here to give you happy, relaxing thoughts about mountains, fresh air, good views, stoke and fun as you take in the week's most relaxing morning. Enjoy. Relax. Share the stoke.
It's just not likely that I have the words available to me that would convince you to click play. So just click play. *** The Sunday Morning Chillax is just a weekly series, always a video, always on Sunday morning. Even though my wife's friends don't like it all that much, it's just here to give you happy thoughts about mountains, fresh air, good views, stoke and fun as you take in the week's most relaxing morning. Enjoy. Relax. Come back every week for more.
My family went to Yosemite National Park for the first time during the summer of 1985 when I was 9 years old. The entire gripping tale, down to every last detail, can be endured read above. Luckily I dated this puppy. I don't know why I wrote it on February 28 the following year, but it must have been a school project. Revisit the second sentence: ". . . we saw a mountain that looked like it had a nose."
The internet being what it is, it's now more and more difficult to find a wilderness timelapse video that delights and charms as much Journey through Canyons by Victor Novikov. He didn't just shoot beautifully varied and diverse scenes, but each one is also just short enough that it leaves you wanting more. Bravo. And then there's the music . . .
In a less discerning phase of my life known as "my late 20's to my early 30's," I was simultaneously a Jeep owner and a contributing editor for JPFreek Adventure Magazine. The magazine held the ground, and still does, as an adventure lifestyle publication that covers the not-so-odd mixture (and apparent subculture) of an active life and the fun of owning a Jeep. During those hazy days, my editor launched a column called "Jeep Jobs" and assigned it to me a few times. We'd locate professions, fields, departments, geeks and gophers who used Jeeps in their day jobs, interview them, and share the joy with the readers. We found some rock stars out there. This one was one cool mom with a cool Jeep.
It's not too frequent that I take a fellas-only trip, and that's either a bummer or something my doctor would applaud. For instance, three days of living on hotdogs, cheeze puffs, and mediocre-at-best canned light beer (vented wide mouth!) doesn't do a body good. I'm not letting out any deep secrets about trips with the boys. That's the menu - likely all across the land, give or take an ingredient. Everyone knows it's an unusual dude who cooks in favor of nutritional value, balance, and class when there are no lovely blondes, brunettes, or red heads nearby to impress.
The two little girls hiking in front of me are far from bumming. They're beaming. For the moment, I'm just here to silently supervise and swat the flies and watch for snakes. My own flesh-and-blood daughter has discovered a short piece of a cottonwood branch and declares that this new hiking stick makes her the leader. She's 3 years old, jamming down a footpath trail next to a desert river with a stick in her hand. She's unstoppable. Of course she's the leader. Even her 8-year-old cousin yields to the demands, looks at me and . . . 29 photos
Ah, Utah. Utah, Utah, Utah. You look so lovely today. Now check out Darren and Donna's 1964 Canned Ham trailer they scored on eBay. Like most of us first time parents with a backpacking habit (or insert your own form of outdoor adventure), they had a miserable time tent camping with their fresh-born little one who just couldn't manage to go to sleep at night in a tent. But they didn't give up too easily.
What makes this video so perfect for AdventureParents.com isn't that it's a superb adventure story enlivened by non-stereotypical rock climbing action and the thrill of getting to it. Yes, this short captivates your attention in the first minute, don't worry. But watch for the thread that runs in and out of it on growing up, having a family of your own, all that mental clarity you had when you were young, and what those things mean to your approach to adventure of any sort nowadays. The thing is, you see, you can take three serious rock climbers (Mark Synnott, Alex Honnold, and James Pearson) of varying ages and backgrounds to the opposite side of the planet, pack them into a small convoy of crusty Land Rovers and point them into the south eastern part of the Sahara Desert, a region called Ennedi in the country of Chad, for an 800-kilometer drive across roadless desert where they'll attempt to make incredible first ascents up some wicked rock towers, and guess what? Right, it'll be a seriously amazing, sick adventure composed with interesting cinematography and storytelling. But that's expected, right? Take the armchair and enjoy.
At camp we don't let a 3-year-old halfling picky eater dictate what we'll cook for ourselves. We're wine drinkers, as you may know, and we like spicy food. Neither of which are for our daughter. And since this website is called Adventure Parents, we like to dabble in the guilty (or not-so-guilty) pleasures that make us happy. This quick appetizer - side question: who out there likes camping appetizers beyond a bag of tortilla chips and jarred salsa? - does the trick, and it's pretty easy to prepare.
What I love most about this video is that it's a video. Keith Ladzinski brings us all the joy we can handle from the easy side of the keyboard without having to haul our keisters to ground zero to watch. He filmed Steph Davis doing something to four Moab-area towers that no woman has done before. She climbed each one - wait, hang on, I know "what's the big deal there?" you ask - and then base jumped off.
There's a reason why I came up with 3 Adventure Facts about Utah last week. That's where we went for six days, just for fun. Here is a sample of photos for you.
We're all kids deep down inside, which means we find comical uses for anything that helps produce speed. Hill, soft stuff, board. Let's go. Here's a peek into the joy of sandboarding.
On my way home from the Mojave National Preserve, not one, not two, but three strangers eyed my truck, slid their sunglasses down their noses, grinned in a funny way, and said, "Well, it looks like you had some fun." Each one, word for word. Must I say it? Yes. Road trips are all about weird encounters. Take the scenes in My Cousin Vinny - a New Jersey-Italian pair thrust into the American South with "mud in da tie-yuz." |
