My son Finn hasn’t been mini-er than me since he was about ten, and now he stands more than a foot over me. Not relevant, really, because in some ways he really is my mini me. For this post I’m calling him my maxi me, though. You’ll see why. We just spent five days together […]
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The Surprise of Right Angles
I’m typing this in Finn’s vacation condo on South Padre Island. If you need to catch up here: My son Finn rented a couple of condos back to back for his big break from school, both on the island near where I’m spending the winter in Brownsville, Texas. The first one had only one bedroom, […]
Contentment Feels Like Bliss
In the middle of a bunch of craziness, I had one of those unusual moments of awareness. It was in the morning, and I was sitting beside my son on the sofa in the trailer. We were both worn out after having gotten in from the airport at 3 a.m. We were both wearing the […]
Come Along for a Fall Foliage Hike
I’m going walking around Sessions Lake, a reservoir in central Michigan. Want to come? It’s four miles long and winds through the woods and along the shore. And look! Finn’s going to join us. While we’re walking, let’s talk about Finn’s work in physics, in a very basic way. Particle physics is the study of […]
Traditions in Madison
We’ve enjoyed the pleasures of friends here in Madison in so many ways over the last three years. But, I almost boiled this post down by calling it, “Like Kramer Sliding through Jerry’s Door.” That iconic TV scene keeps popping up for me. Hospitality Both Ways Tracy shared an office in grad school with Guy; […]
Coming Down from Alaska
I’m a real sap when it comes to that Kris Kristofferson song, “Sunday Morning Coming Down.” The chorus goes: On the Sunday morning sidewalk Wishing, Lord, that I was stoned. ‘Cause there’s something in a Sunday Makes a body feel alone. There ain’t nothing short of dying Half as lonesome as the sound On the […]
Catching Up through Iowa
Even Banjo is impressed with how the Airstream looks now that we’ve washed it! Since Alaska, I’d despaired it would never come clean, but our favorite campground (because our friend Dave runs it) came through for us. We were able to wash it with clean water (no toting buckets of river water one by one […]
Alberta into Montana: Seamless Prairies and Big Sky
Western Alberta is astoundingly beautiful. Gently rolling grassland—as far as you can see—for hours of driving. I’m sure we saw lots of cattle and horses, but the land is so vast that they seemed like only a handful scattered around. In some places, the grass was so tall when we drove through that they’d look […]
Sharing the North Together
Melanie and Doug and Tracy and I have been playing musical camping locations the whole time we’ve been on our trips to and in Alaska. The music in this game has been a mix of data—where we want to go, where we’ve already been, the weather, road conditions—each factor dominating our decisions differently. When the […]
Musk Ox and More in Fairbanks
We were in Fairbanks for almost a week, but, because it had been more than a month since we’d been in a city, we had so many errands to run that we hardly had enough time to sightsee. We did squeeze in some fun, though. Musk Ox & Reindeer Research Station The Large Animal Research […]
