Modern American Rule #1: The road is no place for a person who's paying attention.

Let along one who's on a bike. With a little baby in a trailer. But we did it anyway and enjoyed an evening of wine, women and song (more like beer, family, and jazz, but whatever) by bicycling down to the Chandler Jazz Festival way back when Chloe was just a little 8 month thing.

In June of 2010, an abandoned campfire turned into this flaming monster in Northern Arizona: the Schultz Fire. All told, it needlessly consumed over 15,000 acres of premium forest land (it can even be seen from space), and resulted in the evacuation of nearly 1,000 homes. A stunning time lapse photography video tells a better story that I could.

Chloe plays at the park
Fall has arrived in the desert.  Trying to take advantage of some days in the sun that are the perfect 78 degrees, we've been escaping to our neighborhood park for morning play time.  Having a two-year old toddling in the park is always fun and sometimes even funny...except when it's time to say 'bye-'bye to the slides once more.

When the couple from Alaska sat down to chat with me and Brooke about thier plans to spend two years on the road with their children (and likely in a Global Expedition Vehicle), they smiled and implored in the simplest terms, "If we ever end up at an RV park, we'll consider that a major failure for our trip."

Chloe wants to tell you, dear reader, Happy Easter. Here's to egg hunting.  We went to a local farm this morning and scored some candy and face paint.

Oh yeah . . .