Camera: Canon 5D | Lens: EF16-35mm f/2.8L | Setting: f/14, 1/125, ISO 100

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 . . .

What is it that we can say about a device invented to satisfy the hole in humanity's heart that only the sheer joy of leaping great heights and distances can fill? And what is the internet if it isn't a place to spill some ink for the obscure lowly and unholy and therefore long forgotten and undercommercialized past times? So here you go. Three minutes of some of the most wicked pogo stick action you're likely to see anywhere . . .

Camera: Canon 5D | Lens: EF24-105mm | Setting: f/7.1, 30sec, ISO 1000

From us to you, good reader, a New Year wish. The place to be on this recent New Year's Eve, for us and an assortment of friends anyway, was a far off slice of beach on the Sea of Cortés down in ol' Mexico. And we couldn't stop thinking of you. It's a place that's good for kids, clean and empty, and as relaxing or as adventurous as . . .

Delivering plastic toys to the well-behaved, well-mannered children of planet Earth is a commendable act. So is stuffing coal into the stockings of the naughtiest ones. Yay Santa!

You'd think that in our day, in which we hear such pieces of advice for going green like ride a bike to the store or do multiple errands in one drive, that Santa's method of riding a Scandinavian sleigh tugged by Arctic reindeer would be near the top of the green-o-meter. It requires no fossil fuel to burn and no lead-acid batteries. According to this whimsical, entertaining and fun infographic from Ethical Ocean, I couldn't be more wrong . . .

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 . . .

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.

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 . . .

courtesy of Donna Stewart

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.

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.

Just when you thought I was going totally stupid for posting about station wagons, I ratchet it up a notch and bring you the minivan; okay, I mean a rap about a minivan. You'll enjoy this video.

Instructions inside pit toilet at Spider Rock Campground, Canyon de Chelly. I earned 300 points during my stay. I'm hoping to earn more points next time so I can get a slinky.

The inside of this pit toilet had more, too.  One sign probes your soul with the proverb,

"How you treat the toilet is how we know what you think of yourself in general."

And another note taped to the wall reads like a poem, and I'm especially thankful for the title:

Untitled
Please Be Courtesy with Tables .... one table to each Campsite

You don't get to experience gems like this by staying at home.

Thanks for the laughs, Spider Rock Campground: website

By quapan, Creative Commons license

You might think that the major difficulties in undertaking a weekend adventure travel trip with the family have to do with:

1. fitting all of your important stuff with their useless stuff
2. keeping peaceful sanity among the 3 to 7 blood-related souls who are going to share 25 square feet of space for the next 72 smelly hours

Put that in your reality TV pipe and smoke it.

Then again, sheez, if it sounds so horrendous, why do it at all? There's an explanation somewhere. I assume I'll find it one day.

All kinds of weird shit happens on a hike in the middle of Phoenix. Decorated Christmas trees, trail ethics, and a random family carrying a baby to the top of the mountain.

When a group of dads are left to their own devices for a weekend without the family, they buy some ping pong balls, a stack of Solo cups, and guess what? All hell breaks loose.  Watch them grasp for their youth in this campsite game of little merit.

It'll be amazing, really, if in 30 years from now 30-something aged bloggers like myself are posting things like, "Dear Mom and Dad - thanks for showing me all the wonders of the indoors when I was a kid." If this VW campervan is what indoors means.

Correlation:

If 2 + 2 = 4
Then "pics and stuff that's cool" + "grew up camping in this" = yet another reason to do cool trips with your kids.

And why not do it in a bit of style and comfort?

That's that.  The caption to this photo when I found it said, "Grew up camping in this."  Nothing more, nothing less. I think that was her way of saying thanks to ol' mom and dad.

Via http://bennettmalibu.tumblr.com/post/1563224372/grew-up-camping-in-this

You have to see this for yourself. I don't know if this tumblr account is the essence of tumblr or the whole point of an altered state of mind. Or exactly why passing out advice for family camping is a really really really bad idea . . .

What I do know is what comes from the about page: "re-living the best days of my youth, one photo at a time."

http://fuckyeahtents.tumblr.com/: Only awesome old photos of families camping, and an obvious adoration of "fuckyeahtheuniverse." Rightly so. Rightly so.