I stopped and looked around for another way. He, on the other hand, rolled by me on the passenger side, draped a wrist at 12:00 on the wheel, and entered the sludge at a creep. Life as we knew it unfolded in slow motion. The front tires touched the water and went down. They didn't stop, but they sank with such a dreamy, cartoonish pace that those of us watching had enough time to process, react, and theorize. So, we laughed . . .
If you've been to this space before, you might already know about our little love affair with funky and cool campervans. But this Volkswagen LT 40 inspires a whole new level of bliss and wonder for classic, or not-so-classic, Griswolding. Uh oh, and she's for sale. Alas, she's all the way across the pond in Scotland. It's a 1988 unit that underwent a two year rebuild by a dad who intended to take his family of five through Africa, but as Jed from Campervan Culture tells us, the plans changed. The project was completed in 2010, including a shiny new 2.4 TD motor. It's almost a shame to put so much energy (and cold, hard-earned cash!) into a such a significant project only to have to part with her before a grand voyage. The van in its current state has hardly been driven around the block with a mere 3400 kilometers (2100 miles) on that new engine.
Watch this video and hang on till 0:38 and enjoy the sweet sound of her purr . . .
This is one neat story about how the Ledellaytner brothers stole their dad's 40-year old Norton Commando that had been sitting around in thousands of parts for years, transported it to a restorer in Vermont where it underwent a four-month transformation and shine-up, and got it back in time for Christmas. All to surprise their dad. And oh is he surprised. But how does one go about making it all happen without Dad suspecting? It's all unveiled in this video the brothers put together. I'm warning you now, go get a box of tissues before clicking the play button.
* * * The Sunday Morning Chillax? Here's the idea. Typically it's a regular Sunday, except today is Christmas. Usually the idea is that you're up early and enjoying a cup of coffee in the quiet morning while your kids sleep in. No need to read, this is always a video; something to give you happy thoughts about mountains, fresh air, stoke, fun, or being outside. Enjoy. Relax. But today is Christmas, so this one is about a gift.
A year ago, the Disney movie Tangled landed in theaters and stole the hearts of little girls and their weepy, misty-eyed dads. The old folk tale of Rapunzel and her locks shouldn't be too foreign to you. The most famous version, before Disney's, was likely the one that's found in Grimms' Fairy Tales, the compilation of German folk tales assembled by the Brothers Grimm in the 19th Century. As you can expect it's not quite the same as the movie, but the nuts-n-bolts are the same . . .
This year, I've avoided to the core penning out a gift guide for you. Everyone's doing that now. But what I will do is show you one thing that's surely going to make a fella like yours truly feel kind of special. I say that because these beauties from Nau (pronounced "now") are proof of love at first sight. A friend linked to these on Facebook today and effectively flushed this chump.
Why?: the usual. They look good, are priced for us lowly working class, and up the muchly-over-hyped green factor . . .
To hear my wife tell it, I present no shortage of difficulty when it comes to Christmas trees. She's probably right. Before our second Christmas I barnstormed with fury that we forget a tree and get a cactus instead, because that was something we could plant in the yard after making a spectacle of it. Well, that unfestive suggestion grew no wings and did not fly. We still found ourselves at a tree lot, looking for something perfectly triangular and uniform and just tall enough and something more or less out of a storybook and everything else that just doesn't come naturally to things that are, well, natural.
We bought one. Probably for 60 bucks. The whole experience left me dissatisfied . . .
Remember the moment you learned that you were definitely going to be a real parent in under nine months? You saw the stick turn pink, or got word from the doc, or, like my wife said to me on the way to bed one night before letting the waterworks of happiness loose, "Well . . . you're going to be a dad." For the next 24 hours or more, it's a collision of far too many emotions to list, and plans and fears and bright ideas and joy. Or not. Depends what you went through. Eventually, though, things calm down and whether by design or nature or pressure you might start to make some decisions about the kind of parent you want to be, and the kind of contribution to humanity you want to make by raising some children.
Aamion and Daize Goodwin are on a round-the-world trip with their two little ones, Given and True, and have certainly made a conscious decision about the kind of parents they want to be.
It may be that the only thrill that's more intense than being a boy who's riding a bike is being the dad who takes him out for a morning of some tasty singletrack. Watch this.
* * * The Sunday Morning Chillax? Here's the idea. It's Sunday. You're up early. You're enjoying a cup of coffee in the quiet morning while your kids sleep in. No need to read, this is always a video; something to give you happy thoughts about mountains, fresh air, stoke, fun, or being outside. Enjoy. Relax. Not guaranteed to be weekly . . . hey, you get what you pay for.
What says "midlife crisis" like a new found interest in motorcycles, sports cars, or bombshell girlfriends? When my brother turned 40, all of a sudden he was into punishing his body. He was pulling off ultralight day-long sprints on trails that normal folks spend two or three days backpacking. He completed a rim-to-rim-to-rim hike of the Grand Canyon in one weekend. He clung to the door of his Tacoma, dragging his legs down the pavement for a half block, as a thief stole it right out of his driveway. Turning 40 ain't easy.
The salt-n-pepper dudes in this film hit midlife at full throttle but from a different angle . . .
Yesterday, I took my 4-year old daughter to the gear shop to buy some new warm gloves and hat. Kids being kids, we can only find one left glove out of a total of three pairs she owns. We have some adventures planned this fall and winter so we had resupply this department.
When we arrived, we found a whole 16' row packed full of gloves and hats just for kids. She couldn't contain herself.
You can share a lot within a little bit of space. Take the cockpit of a tandem kayak you're sharing with your sweetie. Or child. Small space, sweet experience. Then there's the medium on Twitter in which you're restricted to expressing a pithy thought within 140 characters.
Ross Garrett works for The Surfer's Journal, administers his own Twitter account, and, as you'll see, has a 3-year old son. The brief tale he tells of taking a paddle . . .
Now, how is this connected? It's a grand undertaking to find a cogent and authentic way to associate the anarchy of punk rock with family-friendly outdoor adventure. But I'm going to give it a shot, right here, right now. I've made worse decisions in my life.
I'm sure there are several lovely ladies out there who see the affection between a dude and his truck and think, "Can that stupid thing shave its legs and look half as good as I do in a skirt? Didn't think so. Neither can the truck."
Conversely, I know more than two or three dudes who want nothing more in life than a pretty lady under his arm, a complete set of 2.4 kids in the backyard, and a Toyota Hilux in the driveway. It's the trifecta of perfection . . .
Around the middle of the summer, my wife left for a weekend in Austin, Texas so I took my daughter on a two-day adventure road trip. It was our first trip together as a duo. And it's surprising how the dynamics and vibes are so different when it's just the two of us on an adventure. Here's what happened.
My buds bombed my inbox a few times this summer. Several of them hit the backroads of the American west on solo trips, just Dad and the kids. Nearly every one told me some variation of this: "Just got home, bro! I'm beat, exhausted, dirty, smelly, didn't get enough sleep, didn't rest enough, it was more work than it was relaxation, totally kicked my ass, but I'm looking forward to doing that again!"
They so perfectly summed up parenthood, didn't they?
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."
There's a dad and daughter sitting on this patio across from me at the coffee shop. The girl might be 4 years old and has twin braids in her sand-brown hair. Blue shorts, yellow tank top, white velcro strap shoes with rainbows on the sides, and big chocolate-brown heart-melting eyes. She's a genuine cutie. She's eating Barnum's Animal Crackers and drinking iced water, too. Her dad looks young, and he's certainly not cut from a cookie cutter. He's wearing a pair of worn out Vans, faded denim shorts, a similarly faded flat cap and a chrome chain hangs . . .
In April, my wife, Brooke, and I hosted a discussion-presentation on family adventure travel at Overland Expo, and if there's anything that I learned from that, it's everyone has their own wildly varied concerns when it comes to adventure-travel and everyone is different. My absolute favorite came from a young mom with a baby just a few months old who, right away, wanted to dive into how the hell to fix her husband - it was cute and good humored, rest assured. But obviously there was a hint of truth to it . . .
I'm 35 years old and I've never owned an axe until June of this year. Here's why. Last September, my dad and I road tripped to Moab, Utah and once we were there, he decided he needed to get a new axe to dedicate to his Land Rover. For better or worse, we're kind of like this in our family: a set of tools goes in the garage, another set goes in the truck. It's a concept that will forever evade our eye-rolling wives.
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 . . .
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.
Some guys would trade their right arm for a track day in a Koenigsegg, or a garage large enough for one each: a beautiful Aston Martin Rapide, a classic Porche 911, a Mercedes McLaren Roadster, and maybe a Ferrari 599 just to round things out. Seein's how we're dabbling in the not-gonna-happen.
I remember the first day my dad removed the training wheels from my bike and launched me down the neighborhood road aimed right at the certain death he maintained was "just the cul-de-sac, son." I have to be honest and confess that I cried in terror. If only this little dude was my bud at the time. Watch and listen to how stoked this kid is to have learned to ride his bike.
