It has been a difficult first six months of 2026 as I have been living and finishing up work in El Paso while Morgan and the kiddos have been in Birmingham living with her parents since she got a job as a manager in March. The good news though is as of July 4th we are back reunited and will be living in Birmingham for the foreseeable future. I guess if there is a perk to being away from the family, it is that I managed to watch a bunch of movies and read a bunch of books that

Marfa, Texas was fun though RIP to the El Cosmico Hotel and its Airstream Digs 2025 marks the fourth year that I've made a Things I've Learned compilation. I was originally inspired by Jason Kottke and Thomas Whitwell who each find a bunch of cool facts each year on the internet. On Whitwell's list this year for instance is the fact that "most characters in the film Idiocracy wear Crocs because the film’s wardrobe director thought they were too horrible-looking to ever bec

Monty's first (though he's assured us, not his last) Monster Truck show. Morgan (eight months pregnant here!) is not so sure. Hello all! It is the July to December 2025 edition of my media diet. I ended the year on a banger with two of the best books from the whole year that I read back to back (though you’ll have to scroll to the end to see my best-ofs). Besides that, no real trends. I’d love to read more but two kids under three is really cutting into my pleasure reading

Scene from Coronado Peak Trail Having a three-day weekend we got ambitious and decided to cross-off the remaining three southern Arizona parks we had not visited. The reason we had not visited them is they are remote-- all at least one to two hours from the interstate. By using Tombstone, and then Tucson, as waypoints, we were able to not only manage to hit the three parks, but also have a good time doing so-- mainly from staying at Loew's Resort for two nights and making ext

Petrified Forest With Morgan's maternity leave coming to an end at the beginning of September, we decided to take a proper road trip and cover much of the north of New Mexico we had not been to, as well as parts of southern Colorado and east Arizona. In all, over seven days we managed to hit 10 different National Park sites, cover 1500 miles, and fit a four-month-old, a three-year-old, a dog, and us two adults into 5 different hotels. 24 hours in the car in one week with o

This park is approximately two hours north of Silver City, New Mexico, which is approximately two hours west of Las Cruces i.e. four hours away from anything and any other sites. So while this one stamp took an entire weekend, we made a good trip of it with staying at the authentically rustic Bear Creek Lodge, dinner at the 1860s era Buckhorn Lodge and Opera House. As for the Cliffs themselves, we did the short one-mile hike where Monty did walk for a good 50 feet before insi