The Vogel family hardly looks like a clan of serious cyclists. In their pictures, John, Nancy and their twin 8-year-old ankle-biters Davy and Daryl are often wearing cotton, sometimes denim, and no sweat-wicking jerseys in sight ever bear so much as the oft pervasive sponsor logo. Is that what a cyclist should look like anyway?

No, not necessarily. A cyclist is someone riding a bike, end of story. If anything, the Vogel folk just look like a standard, chipper suburbanite family headed down the driveway and around the block for a Saturday afternoon of some wind in the hair.

Except they didn't go for a short spin. Instead, they threw down over 9 thousand miles on a ride across the U.S. and Mexico.

If there's a story that hits the bulls eye so sharply as Dr. Seuss's Oh, The Places You'll Go, we have yet to know what it is. The good doctor gave us a wonderful tale that outlines precisely what to expect from life and it has tickled the hearts of many over the last 21 years since it's first printing. There's a reason why this book's sales spike every May, sending every graduate off into the world with a diploma and a copy of the pithy story that every last one of us identifies with. This time, a fella named Teddy Saunders wanted to do something special with the story. . .

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 . . .

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."

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.

Here's to the man behind those zany books we loved as kids, and especially that one we all likely received upon graduating from high school, Oh the Places You'll Go!

Theodor Seuss Geisel was born March 2, 1904 and died September 24, 1991.  Other writers and cartoonists have come along, but few have left the same lasting mark as Dr. Seuss. If there's one piece of advice that's take me a long way, it's this gem, "With your head full of brains and your shoes full of feet, / you’re too smart to go down a not-so-good street."

Thanks for having the courage to do what you did, Doctor. We still love your stories today.

http://www.seussville.com/

Campfire tales for river lovers, canyon lovers, and adventure lovers

Handmade recylced journal from www.bookjournals.com
Since becoming a father, I've watched my journal writing deteriorate.  I used to fill two or three large format writing journals each year.  On July 9th, I wrote this:

"I'm coming up on August 17th.  That marks one year with this same journal, and it's only half filled.  Really?  Is this what I think of my life these days?  Is this what being a ThirtySomething boils down to?"

You'd think it'd be different.  In a writing journal, the owner gets to call the shots.  Gripe about the world or that grumpy s.o.b. in the BMW who dangerously tailgated this morning on the freeway and flicked his cigarette butts out the window. Go ahead, USE THE F-WORD IN BIG CAPITAL LETTERS all over the place if it helps; it's your book, your private space.

And it's far better to do that than to work out your life by hijacking airplanes or treating your wife with indignation. For this reason, you'd think it'd be a no-brainer to sit down with a pen and blank book and just tell it like you see it, work out the grime of your own little world, write down the moments with your daughter and wife that sustain you . . .

This year, I've set a goal to write in my journal once a day, no matter how short the entry.

Anne Frank wrote in a journal. She wrote while she and her family lived in hiding in the Netherlands during World War II.  You should already know the bulk of the story.  If it hadn't been for her writing (and the foresight of Miep Gies, who helped hide the Frank family and saved Anne's diary pages from destruction.  Miep died this week at 100 years old, by the way) we may not know nearly as much about the horror Jewish familes endured during Nazi occupation.

Do you know what Anne inscribed at the beginning of her journal when she was just 13 years old?

"I hope that I shall be able to confide in you completely, as I have never been able to do before, and I hope that you will be a great support and comfort to me."

I don't dare compare my modern, protected middle-class American life to her's. I only want to illuminate the one little thing she and I share - maybe you too?: a blank book we each own and write within.

I'm often disappointed when trying to find a decent store that sells nice, yet unassuming journals.  Many are leather-bound with perfect lined and gold-edged paper.  That doesn't work well for me.  Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe, Arizona once had a selection fo handmade Guatemalan blank books, two of which I snatched up.  A basic black sketch book works great for me, too.

Then I found "ex libris anonymous" (www.bookjournals.com) a few years ago.  Jacob Deatherage recycles vintage books by cutting the binding off, salvaging a few sections from within, and reassembling them with 75 pages of 24/60#, acid free blank paper and the original cover.  Each book is unique, and his selection is always changing; from cookbooks and children's books to old text books. If you're lucky, you score some pages that have drawings or notes from a previous life, maybe library stamps.

Writing in a recycled book feels so befitting, like it's the right thing to do.

I've selected one of Deatherage's books to begin my small daily writing pursuit.  It once lived as a textbook for Mexico - how appropriate - complete with a map.  Check it out:

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Nissan Sport Magazine Summer 2009 Issue
Yeah, right, like it would ever occur to my white, middle-class mind that a map, for God's sake, could be wrong. Oh, but it was. Nissan Sport Magazine published the story in their Summer 2009 issue.

A story about road tripping for three weeks with an 11-month-old little girl and a wife, Mark beats the odds and makes it home alive and without a scratch.  Although it's taken nearly a year to catch up on sleep.