Hobbies
When I'm not building
Most of these involve being outside and slightly uncomfortable. The pictures come from the same family archive as everything else on this site, because the hobbies were never separate from the family. The kids were on the rides, in the canyons, and on the other end of the rope.
Cycling
A hundred miles through the desert around Palm Springs in February 2006, six weeks after I bought my first road bike, with Donovan alongside. Five years later, the Solvang Century with Tim. A week or two before that one we rode to the Queen Mary as a training ride, starting from Green River and following the Santa Ana River to Long Beach. The training ride was over a hundred miles too.
Backpacking
Havasu Falls in 2006, where the supplies come in by helicopter and the water is the colour of a swimming pool. Yosemite in 2008, four days, just Tim and me. And a canyon in Sedona in 2021 with the dogs wading ahead of us.
Climbing
Real rock, real ropes, February 2007. I led, the kids followed, and Sabrina got higher than anyone expected.
Camping and dirt roads
A tent under the oaks in December. A camp kitchen laid out on the ground. And for a while, a Jeep on trails that needed one, including an Adopt-a-Trail weekend in 2009.
Dogs
2011 was the year of the dogs. Ruby, the big black pit bull, came home in June and became Suzanne's dog. We also worked with the local humane society fostering dogs, many of them, including Nugget and her litter of puppies. All of them found loving homes. By November I was walking five at once through dry brush, which is a skill.
Water and wind
Kayaks at Newport Dunes with Nala. We had Nala for nineteen years, and I believe this was very likely her favorite thing. She'd get on the boat, I'd throw the frisbee, and she'd launch herself into the water after it. Constantly swimming. I miss her.
And a stunt kite at the park in Yucaipa. That was tricky. The wind came in bursts, so you could get the kite up, play for a second, and then it would go lifeless in the air and float back down.
Two years on the road
From the summer of 2021 to the fall of 2022, Suzanne and I travelled: the Petrified Forest, Sedona at sunset, a painted bus on the Utah salt flats, White Sands, cactus in bloom, Texas lakes, a steam engine in West Virginia, Mabry Mill on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Somewhere in there the camera stopped being for the family and started being for its own sake. That's where the photography galleries come from.
