Hiking Red Cliffs Trail in the desert

You at Red Cliffs Trail parking lot
Oct. 7, 2010

Two years today we hiked and explored towering volcanic deposits left in the Mojave Desert more than 12 million years ago. They were the red cliffs at Red Rock Canyon State Park, California, along Highway 14.

This probably was the first hike where you really got interested in rocks and actually started trying to remember their names when I pointd them out! The three main kinds of rocks there are basalt (black), volcanic ash (white), and sandstone (red). You thought it was really cool that the black rocks came out of volcanoes!

You even picked up some of the rocks and brought them home! I have them in a box and will give them to you when you're older.

This wasn't our first visit to the state park, but it was to that area of the park Some of the red cliffs stood more than 20 stories over our heads!

Here are a bunch of pictures of our hike.

A copy of my third email to you

Sent this email to you Saturday, Oct. 6, 2012, and am posting it here in case you don't receive it:

Hi Kieran,

How are you? Hope you are doing well. I did not receive your response to my email sent Sept. 25. Perhaps you could resend it? That’s why I’m so long in getting back to you; I was hoping to first see what you wrote, and then I could respond to it.

How is kindergarten going? What are the names of your friends and what kinds of things do you like to do together? My best friend in kindergarten was Ronald Wolfe. We were next door neighbors, so we got to ride the school bus together. Our kindergarten classroom had these large cardboard blocks the size of shoeboxes, so Ronald and I spent a lot of time building cool things with them: forts, bridges, mini-cities and so on. It was a lot of fun.

Halloween is almost here! What do you plan to dress up as for trick or treats? Last year when I lived in Encinitas, we went to a lot of different Halloween celebrations together during the month of October, and if I recall correctly, you dressed up as something different each time! Let’s see, you were a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle and then a Jedi knight when we went to Legoland and then a clone trooper when we went to Sea World. Do you remember meeting Jack Skellington and Sally at Disneyland? That was all a great time, and I have pictures of each of our trips as well as other Halloweens we spent together. You can see the pictures here.

Have you read any good books lately? I just read a really good book called “The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything” by Linda Williams. It’s about this old lady who takes a walk in the dark woods and this pair of shoes starts following her! But she wasn’t afraid of them. After all, she’s not afraid of anything (I would be scared of a pair of shows following me, wouldn’t you?!). Then a pair of pants starts to follow her. But she wasn’t afraid of it. Then a shirt and all kinds of other clothes start to follow her. But she wasn’t afraid of any of them. And then a jack o’ lantern starts to follow her! Do you think she was afraid of it? You will have to read the book and find out!

Your cousins Bryan and Rebekah have not decided want they want to dress up for Halloween this year. They are very excited about Grandma baking some Halloween cookies, though! She has cookie cutters to make pumpkins, black cats and autumn leaves. She just bought lots of orange frosting and cool black and green and purple sprinkles to put on them. Hopefully we will be able to get together soon so I can bring you some of her cookies!

I’ve missed you every day that we’ve been apart and can’t wait for us to get together again. So tell me a little about your life these past few months. What is your bedroom and house like where you live? What are your new favorite toys to play with? What TV shows do you now like to watch? What kinds of things are you learning in school? What exciting places have you been to since moving to Minnesota? What would you like to do again when we get together?

Well, I best let you get back to playing. Have fun and be sure to write back!

Love,

Daddy

Dynamite magazine, among my fave reads

I can't wait until you're older and can read! Hearing what you think about the books you've read and seeing what new things you learn from the various books and magazines your enjoy will be very exciting for me.

When I was a little boy just a little older than you, one of my favorite things to read was Dynamite magazine. It came out each month, and we ordered it through our school. The magazines had articles about some popular actor or singer and lots of comics and fun games in it (and sometimes even posters!).

I've been able to find online the covers to some of my favorite Dynamite magazines. Unfortunately, I don't have the actual magazines anymore, but just seeing the covers brings back some great memories!

What kinds of books do you like to read now?

Today is Grandpa Bignell's birthday

Today is your Grandpa Bignell's birthday. He is 67 years old. That's treally old, isn't it! When I told him that, he agreed!

Although you may not remember him, you lived for a few months with Grandma and Grandpa Bignell. I have a couple of great photos of you and he laughing together when you were a baby, but they're packed away, so I couldn't post them here.

Grandpa Bignell was born in Durand, Wis., and grew up in the country near Arkansaw, Wis. He worked for a while at a meat packing plant in South St. Paul, Minn., where his father and an older brother also worked. But he spent most his life running and building his farm, outside of Knapp, Wis., which is where I grew up.

Here's a photo of Grandma and Grandpa Bignell in the late 1970s when I was a little boy. That's me on the right and your Uncle Chris behind me.

My high school school spirit award

One award you'll always see hanging on my office wall, Kieran, is one I received my senior year of high school for "leadership in school spirit"!

From my sophomore (10th grade) through my senior year (12th grade), I announced wrestling meets, basketball games, and track meets at my high school in Menomonie, Wis. In addition, during my senior year my friends and I launched a "sticker" campaign in which the morning of the boys basketball game, we'd hand out stickers, with some slogan on it about beating whatever team we were playing that night, to everyone in school. Sometimes we'd also hang up posters with the slogan.

The stickers and posters helped get fellow students excited about the games, and more people started to attend, which I think got the basketball players more excited, and they started winning more games!

The reason I'm so proud of this award is because it shows what people can accomplish when they work together - and it just takes a few people to get everyone else excited about working together!

Playing Johnny Quest at the air museum

It was a year ago today that we toured the airplane museum at March Air Force Base near San Bernardino, Calif. The day was terribly hot - in the 90s if I recall - but we still had an incredible amount of fun.

You particularly liked the old World War II Army jeep that was there - we sat in it (you in the drivers seat, of course!) and played Johnny Quest together! You were Race Bannon, and I was Dr. Benton Quest!

You also liked one of the airplanes, an old World War II bomber, and made up a story about how it was the plane you flew during the war! You've always been quite imaginative, no doubt from all the creative playing we did together and the books we read while you were a toddler and a preschooler.

While there were lots of planes to look at, we were both a little disappointed that we couldn't go into more of them - I think we got spoiled in San Diego because the planes they had on the aircraft carrier and the Marine base museum allowed us to!

Here are pictures of our big adventure!

Recall going to Brick or Treat?

A year ago today we went to Brick or Treat at Legoland, the theme park's Halloween celebration in Carlsbad, Calif. You went dressed up as a Jedi knight! Tons of other parents pointed out your costume to their kids they were so impressed!

The first highlight of the evening as doing the Brick or Treat, in which all of the kids walk through scary Legoland scenes and get free candy and other goodies at various stations. After that, we went off to play at the huge castle playground.

The night ended with us watching the Halloween fireworks! You always wanted to go the Disneyland fireworks shows, but they were really late and a long drive from where we lived in Encinitas, but Legoland was only four miles from my place!

Here are a whole bunch of pictures from Brick or Treat!