For reasons I can’t quite fathom, lots of people think that vacations require traveling great distances, often on a plane, and often overseas. Yes, there’s a whole world to explore, but if you live in Colorado then there are a ton of great adventure, activity, relaxation and other venues ready to enjoy within just a few hours drive. My family and I have definitely spent lots of time at Colorado destinations like Glenwood Springs, Manitou…Read More
October weather in Colorado has a tendency to be all over the place. I mean, all over the place. And this month is no different: last Sunday, Oct 14, I was up in Breckenridge, stuck in my hotel due to a snowstorm. Between 8-10 inches and sub-freezing conditions made for a tough day throughout the state. Seven days later we were at Anderson Farms in Erie, Colorado (north of Denver and east of Boulder) sweltering in…Read More
It’s been quite a journey getting down the road of childhood and parenting to the point where my son was ready to go to college and was accepted both. He did great and was accepted into Pitzer College, part of the Claremont Colleges, in Claremont, California. Pitzer has a 13% acceptance rate, so it really is a testament to his efforts over the last few years that he made it. I’ll write about Pitzer and…Read More
Toyota reached out and asked if we were baseball fans. Of course we are, it’s the Great American Pastime! “Great,” they said, “how’d you like to drive a shiny new Toyota vehicle to join us at Rockies vs Mets at Coors Field?” Well, you don’t have to ask us twice for a gig like that so before you could say “major league baseball” we were ready to, well, go places with Toyota. To start out,…Read More
My son graduated from school in Kalispell, Montana so we headed up for the event and festivities. I rented a house on one side of Main Street and his Mom rented a house about 5 blocks away, on the other side of Main Street. Kalispell is a small town outside Glacier National Park, with a modest popular of 22,000 people or so. Which means, yeah, it’s pretty darn small. Kind of the rugged mountain version…Read More
I grew up in Southern California, so the idea of indoor pools was completely alien. When the weather’s always perfect, why wouldn’t you want to hang out at the beach or poolside in someone’s backyard? The rest of the nation doesn’t have the luxury of such weather, however, and as I traveled more – and lived in Indiana and Colorado – I learned about this white stuff popularly known as snow, about days colder than…Read More
This has got to be one of the best ideas for a summer camp for kids I’ve ever heard about: A boot camp for aspiring film critics. Imagine, instead of those tired old-school summer camp activities like canoeing, making lanyards and being bitten by bugs, your children will get to watch movies, debate what makes a movie great and even interview celebrities and industry experts, then write about it and make their own review videos!…Read More
I suspect I’m not alone in looking forward to school starting in September more than the summer break that’s about to start the beginning of June. While there’s a lot to be said for leisure and relaxation, I also believe that children do best if they have structure and rhythm. Staying up until midnight or later and sleeping in until noon? That’s fun for a few days but over the course of weeks or months,…Read More
I like museums. I write about ’em all the time, and we in Denver are blessed with our fair share of really good museums and galleries, including the beautiful Denver Art Museum. The outside is striking and is probably the most unusual architectural feature in the greater downtown Denver area, as you can see: Known as The Hamilton Building, it was designed as a joint venture by Studio Daniel Libeskind and Denver firm Davis Partnership Architects….Read More
Indiana Jones inspired a generation of archeologists, but the fact is, most archeology is fairly dry and dull work. Brushing off dirt in the middle of a desert for hours at a time, just to find that amazing pottery shard is from 75 years ago, not 1700 years ago can be a bit disheartening. But imagine that it’s the middle of the 1940’s and you’re a Bedouin shepherd. A sheep from the flock strays off…Read More
When I grew up, we went bowling maybe once every few years and I was, of course, horrible at the game. If there was a prize for gutter balls, I suspect I would have been in the running at any alley we attended. Then along came the Nintendo Wii with its terrific bowling simulator and that turned out to be super popular with my kids, particularly the practice bowling areas where you could watch the…Read More
It’s an annual tradition in my family, heading out to Anderson Farms in Erie in October to enjoy a pumpkin patch and, of course, a huge corn maze. What’s a corn maze, you ask? Well, imagine you have a big field of corn that’s past its prime for the season. Acres upon acres of dried brown stalks that are 6-8 feet high. Now plow through it with a small bulldozer and you can make a walkable…Read More
It was an event memorialized with a Facebook event my friend Phil Hord created years ago, just so we’d all have it on our calendars. A total eclipse of the sun that raced across the United States at an approximate diagonal from Oregon to South Carolina, passing directly through the center of Wyoming, just a few hours north of our home in Boulder, Colorado. But “just a few hours north” meant that literally hundreds of…Read More
I don’t know where all these cool sports and activity camps were when I was a kid but the range and breadth of options children have nowadays to learn a new skill are amazing. From space camp to math camp, computer programming to acting, golf to tennis, if your child has an interest – and you have some money – there are plenty of choices out there. Not to mention the traditional sleep-away camps that…Read More
While on a road trip in early July, my 13you daughter and I decided it would be fun to spend a few days as tourists in Kansas City post-Independence Day, and of the various things we did, by far the most fun and engaging was our visit to the National Museum of Toys and Miniatures, located smack dab in the middle of the University of Missouri, Kansas City campus in downtown Kansas City. It’s not…Read More