Summer 1995, I went to Lackland Air Force Base, Texas for 4 weeks of “Field Training,” which is like Basic Training, but for kids who are in ROTC. I was on a 4-year Air Force ROTC scholarship, and now I had to pay my pittance: we’d get hazed instructed by […]
My 13-year-old named our makeshift Spring Break trip to Saluda, NC Friday afternoon with the above moniker, as the Governor of Georgia signed an order on Thursday saying our entire state had to “shelter in place” starting at 6pm Friday evening. At 3:15pm, we drove for 3 hours without stopping, […]
Back when we were allowed to go places, we flew to our nation’s capital for my 9th Dad 2.0 Summit, where I was slated to listen, and my bride was slated to speak. We lucked into a corner suite upgrade at our host hotel, the Madarin Oriental, which meant every […]
It happened when we were standing in line to see Pee-wee Herman. My mother-in-law’s Christmas present was VIP tickets to Pee-wee’s Big Adventure on its 35th anniversary plus a photo opportunity with Paul Reubens at Atlanta’s Tabernacle. The push notifications started: Fulton County schools, cancelled; the NCAA basketball tournament (that […]
Months ago, we realized Columbus Day weekend meant the children had a few days out of school and that it coincided with my mother-in-law’s 70th birthday, and she wanted her daughters and their families to get together somewhere for a weekend of fun, but we also realized we’d miss seeing […]
We left San Francisco and headed south to one of our county’s newest National Parks, Pinnacles. Pinnacles is small in terms of acreage but offers some great hiking trails and rock climbing. It’s also home to endangered condors and bats, among other wildlife, and the trails offer views over the […]
I like that if my children are tasked with a “What I Did Last Summer” essay in school, they can report “Daddy took us to prison!” Upon landing in San Francisco on July 2, we checked into the J.W. Marriott at Union Square, walked into Chinatown, and ate spicy awesome […]
Before we left Egypt, we spent another day in Cairo, so our guide took us to the Cairo Museum (the old one–the new one is still being built as of the time of this post, though it’s like 5 years behind schedule) to see King Tut’s treasures, Ramses II and […]
Out of every country, national park, city, and state I’ve visited, the most awe-inspiring day of travel I’ve ever spent was the one we spent at Luxor, when our Egyptologist guide took us to the Valley of the Kings, followed by the Valley of the Queens. Being smart people who […]
Our driver picked us up early Sunday morning in his ’89 Peugeot for the just over 2-hour drive to Viñales. The road west was 4-lanes, and it would have looked like an American interstate, but it was lined with men, women, and children standing on either side of the road […]