The average human lifespan is 76.9 years, or about 4,000 weeks. That means we have 4,000 Saturday nights, 4,000 lazy Sunday afternoons, 4,000 TGIFs. In the grand scheme of things, 4,000 weeks isn’t very long, and time seems to pass faster as we get older. By this calculation, we have only about 1,000 weeks left…

One of our favorite musicals is Jesus Christ Superstar, the 1971 rock opera by Andrew Lloyd Weber and Tim Rice. The lyrics to “Pilate’s Dream” include the line, “I dreamed I met a Galilean, a most amazing man. He had that look you very rarely find — the haunting, hunted kind.” This weekend found us…

Jon’s appointment at noon on Friday to receive both the COVID booster and the flu vaccine had us wondering whether we should cancel our weekend camping plans. After all, we had no idea how he would respond to the “dynamic duo,” and if he was going to be miserable, we thought it would be best…

Last Sunday, as we enjoyed a late-summer weekend at Loyd Park, we grew increasingly hesitant to just pack up and leave, especially considering we would be returning to the same site in four days. Why not stay through the week and commute back home for work each day? That turned out to be a bad…

The death of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II, although somewhat expected considering her advanced age, still came as something of a shock this week. After all, we had seen her welcome her new prime minister just a couple of days before, looking frail but stalwart. True to the commitment she made as a young woman, she…

This Labor Day, we once again had the opportunity to reflect on the dignity of our work and the many benefits we enjoy as a result of our employment. It was also a time to recognize that there are still too many financially vulnerable families who are living precariously, paycheck to paycheck. Sometimes, they are…

We’ve previously posted about the types of people we meet while camping. As we said then, some are folks we wouldn’t associate with under any other circumstances, but “love of the outdoors and the desire for adventure can create strange bedfellows.” To be sure, we’ve met more than our fair share of colorful characters, but…

We admit, we’re not feeling very patriotic this Independence Day weekend. Our sense of identity as Americans seems under assault. Our nation is more irreparably divided than ever before in our lifetime. Every single issue gets polarized and politicized. Nuance and complexity are nowhere to be found. Compromise is anathema. Instead, we have a pervasive,…

This was a weekend of revelations, brought about by the Supreme Court’s decision in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health case, an unexpected visit from a horse and a man with a feather in his hat, and a new set of curtains expertly made by our friends Dan and Stephanie Matney. A few words about…

As temperatures soared well above 100 degrees, we did something this weekend we had never done before: We traveled back home to escape the afternoon heat. Cloud 9’s air-conditioner couldn’t compete with the afternoon sun directly overhead, so we turned everything off, packed up the pack, and went to Hampshire for an afternoon nap, cocktails,…