'Luke, how did you get up there?'

McDonald's in Acton, Calif.

You might remember on Christmas Day I told you the story of how we always used to joke about the horse that was atop a McDonald's in Acton, Calif.

When you were 4 years old, if we drove by the McDonald's, you'd say, 'Luke, how did you get up there? Not again!' as pretending to be Sheriff Jack, one of our Old West cowboys (I always was Sheriff Jack's sidekick, "The Deputy"). Luke was Sheriff Jack's trusty horse (You even had a horse that you named Luke in your set of cowboy figures.).

Playing the Deputy, I'd suggest all kinds of crazy ways of getting Luke down, like "We could get a crane and lift him down" or "We could fly one of them newfangled air balloons over the McDonald's and lift him down" or "We could divert the river and flood the whole town so that Luke could swim down from the roof."

Anyway, here's a picture of that famous Old West-themed McDonald's with Luke the horse atop it!

Recall your Lone Ranger Lego set?

Do you remember the Lone Ranger Lego Comanche camp that we put together this past summer? It contained a teepee, two Indians, and of course, the Lone Ranger.

The Lego set came out with the Disney movie "The Lone Ranger," which was panned by the critics. But you always enjoyed the Lone Ranger, putting him your stories of Sheriff Jack and the Deputy. So I thought you'd enjoy the Lego set.

And you did! You put together the people while I constructed the teepee. We played a little with the guys in the set. I think you really liked the canoe!

Getting together on Wednesday nights

One year ago today we got to spend the evening together. It was a Wednesday night, and I picked you up after preschool. I was living in the house off of Avenue K in Lancaster at the time.

We had a great time playing with all of the new toys we'd picked up since Christmas; I remember us having adventures with the "Star Trek" action figures and the Sheriff Jack cowboy set we got at the Hart Ranch gift shop. We also built play lasers out of the old wooden and plastic tool kits I'd bought for you long ago.

While being with you always brightens my day, that night us getting together was particularly nice. Jane had just spent the previous week with me, and I dropped her off at the airport that morning so she could head home. It was a bittersweet morning, but at least I had you to look forward to later in the day. Thanks for being such a wonderful son!

Recall visiting the William S. Hart home?

Feeding the mule deer fawn

One year ago today we drove over to Santa Clarita and visited the museum ranch and home of silent film cowboy star William S. Hart. He was one of the first great stars of the western motion picture, and you were really into cowboys at the time. It seemed like a perfect fit to tour his home!

The ranch included a little mini zoo where you could feed the animals. You got to feed chickens, rabbits, a mule deer fawn, and a big Brown Swiss cow. The pigs were sleeping, though!

After the zoo, we hiked up a hilltop to Hart's home. I was very impresed with you - though it was a long tour, you were really well-behaved and very interested in everything there.

On the way down, we stopped at the gift store, where we purchased the toy cowboys and Indians set that included Sheriff Jack, the Deputy, Calamitous Jane, Luke the horse, and Baby Kieran.

Here's a whole bunch of pictures from the visit.

Recall our hike to Mormon Rocks?

One year ago today, we hiked Mormon Rocks in the San Bernardino National Forest. It was on the way to the I-15, that huge freeway that takes you from Las Vegas and down the mountains into Los Angeles (and part of the route we always took to San Diego). You might remember there was a McDonalds, near the freeway intersection with the road, that we often stopped at.

The Mormon Rocks looks a lot like Vasquez Rocks because they were made the same way. About two million years ago, everything west of those rock formations was an ocean with rivers bringing water and sediment (sand and rock) down from the mountains. As the sediment fell to the river and ocean floor, it hardened into rock. Since then, the collision of two tectonic plates has raised the land out of the water and tilted them into the weird angles we see today.

During the hike, you took along your toy rifle that we picked up at Disneyland a few weeks before and played cowboy. You were Sheriff Jack as usual, and we were out looking for Black Bart!

Here's a whole bunch of photos from our hike!

Remember visiting 'the cowboy museum'?

A year ago today we visited the Autry National Center of the American West in Los Angeles. You always called it "the cowboy museum"!

The autumn of 2011 and through the early winter of 2012, you were very interested in the Old West. I bought you some cowboy play figures that you named "Sheriff Jack", "The Deputy", "Calamitous Jane", "Baby Kieran", "Baby Kieran's Mom" and so on.

In the photo at above right, you pretended to be Sheriff Jack riding his horse "Luke" while at the Autry National Center.

I was The Deputy. No name, just "The Deputy." I'm honored to have served with you, Sheriff Jack!

Here are a whole bunch of other photos from our trip.

Drawings found in my backpack

Was cleaning out my backpack - the one I used to carry all of our stuff in when we went on weekend trips after we gave up the stroller - and found some neat things of ours tucked in an interior pocket, both from our time at Disneyland last winter.

First were two puppet bats that we could color when we visited Woody's ranch house. They were both ones I colored - a Captain Kirk and a Mr. Spock bat! The wings are the colors of their uniforms and have their rank braids on the tips.

Second was a color picture you'd drawn there of the three stars in our cowboy adventures - Sheriff Jack, Lone Ranger and Bad Bart. They're stick figures, but I notice you colored Bad Bart in a black clothing. The picture is dated Feb. 5, 2012 (I always dated your pictures!); that would have been the Sunday before Jane came out to visit the first time (You met her later that week at Barnes and Noble and we spent a couple of days in Santa Clarita).

I need to get a new printer/scanner as my old one doesn't allow me to scan pictures into my laptop (my laptop's operating system is too advanced!), but rest assured, I have the items in a tote for you to look at one day!

Some places we built some memories of

Yesterday, I saw a lot of places, probably for the last if not for a long time, where we once spent time together. The Twin Cities where you now live offer its own great sights and events, yet it was with some melancholy that these places of our past our not vanquished to memory alone.

There were the famous "Kirk Rocks," as you liked to call them, where Captain Kirk fought the famous Gorn. It's really Vasquez Rocks County Park, and we went there quite a few times (the picture at left is from April 2011), hiking the same trails Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock did, often playing our own "Star Trek" and later cowboy adventures.

Speaking of cowboys, do you remember the McDonalds in Acton that had a horse atop it? Everytime we drove past it while making up cowboy stories, we'd joke about how it was Sheriff Jack's horse, Luke, and say "Get down from there, Luke!"

And as far as McDonalds go, we stopped many times at the one in Santa Clarita next to the new Kohl's along Hwy. 14. Whenever heading into Los Angeles, it was a certain pit stop for a snack or bathroom break.

Maybe one day we'll be able to go back to all of those places again. I hope we don't have to wait so long that you will have a son of your own who we take on the trip - though I can't wait to meet my grandchild!