Author: rcragun
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California Trip – day 2 – San Diego
If you followed the previous post closely, you probably noticed that Debi’s conference was in Anaheim but we spent the first night in San Diego. That’s because I know someone in San Diego who runs a Humanist group and she arranged to have me speak to her group about my book. That’s what I did…
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California Trip – day 1 – San Diego
One of the luxuries of being on sabbatical is that I can pretty much take a trip whenever I want. Debi had a conference in Anaheim (at the Anaheim Convention Center about a block away from Disneyland) in early October and I had some frequent flyer miles. That meant Debi’s work would cover her airfare,…
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new school, new backpack
Toren started a new preschool in August that is very close to our house (I walk to pick him up most days). He has to bring home a binder every day, along with his lunch and water bottle. So, we got him a backpack. It’s awesome! It’s from REI and has a spot for a…
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how Toren plays Risk
I’m not sure what games of Risk look like in your household (You do play Risk, don’t you?!?), but ours involve some nontraditional pieces:
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crank mail
I think you’ve officially arrived when you begin receiving “crank mail” (i.e., incomprehensible ramblings from crazy people). Well, I just received my first piece of crank mail today. And, of course, for it to be authentic, it has to be paper mail and include something in addition to the letter (no idea what it is;…
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Road Trip – day 29 (the long drive east)
There isn’t much to report for the last day of our nearly month-long vacation. We left Dallas around 8:30 and drove almost straight through to our house (we stopped for food and gas). We could have broken this up as we had time, but there wasn’t anything we wanted to see more than we wanted…
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Road Trip – day 28 (Texas)
From where we spent the night (in West Texas), we drove to Dallas, crossing a big chunk of Texas on the way. I’ve flown into Texas and driven through parts of it (East, North, and far West Texas), but this was the first time I’d driven through oil country. It was… Interesting. It smelled like…
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Road Trip – day 27 (NM; VLA, and Carlsbad)
While in Moab, Debi’s brother-in-law and brother suggested that we add a stop on our itinerary, the Very Large Array, which is a radio observatory in New Mexico. It is the inspiration for the radio observatory featured in the movie Contact. It wasn’t too far out of our way and seemed suitably geeky for us,…
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Road Trip – day 26 (AZ and NM)
We didn’t have too far to go this day. We picked up some supplies in Flagstaff, then headed east toward Albuquerque. We stopped on the way at the Barringer Crater, which I visited in 2007. The Crater was formed by a meteorite and is pretty impressive. Toren seemed interested in the museum that is there,…
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Road Trip – day 25 (Powell and Grand Canyon)
We got up early this morning and began getting everything ready to go. Our timing for Lake Powell was off a bit and we ended right at the end of the week. This was the day everyone was leaving, and that means a lot of work. We were ready to help get everything cleaned up,…