/Uses

This is my personal take on a /uses page. It also functions as my Default apps for 2024 post (though I'm making it a more permanent addition).

Since online reviews are so gamed and broken these days, I wanted to post my stuff so you can ask questions of an actual user of these items. I also post product reviews on my Public Notes website. Please note that these are not necessarily my recommendations, just what I own and use.

So if you have questions about any of these items, please feel free to contact me.

I'm still adding items! Last (partially) updated on July 13, 2025

Devices + Hardware

Software

Some of my favorites apps are:

Online Services

  • Hey - paid email service, love their workflow philosophy
  • Wordpress - self-hosted, has run this site since its first release (for now, see below)
  • Kirby 5 - I'm rebuilding this site in Kirby and transitioning a number of other projects to it, too
  • Micro.Blog - interesting blog/social service, I'm using it for rsjon.es and other sites
  • ConvertKit - the email newsletter service I use for several sites
  • ForwardEmail.net - email forwarding/smtp for all my domains
  • ButtonDown - Email newsletter I'm testing for #OnePostcard
  • Dreamhost - have had this hosting account for 2+ decades now. Good enough for me
  • Super - I use this to convert Notion pages into the #GoQuesting website
  • Porkbun - domain registration, slowly migrating from now-defunct Google Domains
  • Masto.Host - Use this to host the OnePhoto.Club mastodon instance
  • Obsidian Sync + Publish (I'm a Catalyst supporter too)
  • tinylytics - simple web stats that don't require cookies or other tracking
  • omg.lol - a weird mix of services and a fun community

Photography

Most of my photos come from my iPhone, but here's some better camera gear I sometimes lug around.

  • Nikon Z5 - my amateur entry into both mirrorless and "fancy" cameras
  • Nikkor Z 24-200mm f/4-6.3 kit lens
  • Nikkor Z 24-50mm f/4-6.3 kit lens
  • Nikon z50 - an addition for Jen, but I'll use it too
  • Nikkor DX 16-50mm f/3.5-6.3 kit lens
  • LowePro Photo Active TLZ 50 AW case - I use this with the 24-200 lens
  • LowePro Photo Active TLZ 45 AW case - use this with the 24-50 lens, or z50
  • Peak Design Slide Lite and Leash camera straps
  • Olympus TG-4 Tough camera - I've long used "tough" cameras for outdoor adventures, but this one is primarily for snorkeling trips.

EDC items

I don't carry much, but here are my items.

I don't carry these around much, but they're commonly mentioned in EDC kits, so here you go:

Electronics accessories

Adventuremobile

  • 2015 Subaru Outback 2.5i Limited - still what I consider the best all-around "roadtrip vehicle" - great gas mileage, can get us to 90% of the places we want to go, easy to drive/park/turnaround, easy to reach rooftop bins or toss a kayak up top, safe, reliable, and AWD.
  • Thule Atlantis 1600XT rooftop bin
  • Thule BowDown kayak rack
  • Thule BigStack kayak rack
  • Exped MegaMat Duo 10 sleeping pad - perfectly fits the Subaru
  • Napier Sportz Cove 61000 SUV tent - we use this to sleep with the rear gate open
  • Window screens - keeps bugs out and lights dimmed while sleeping in the vehicle
  • 200W power inverter - primarily charge larger items like laptops

Travel items

Clothing for travel and the outdoors

Camping, hiking, and backpacking gear

Look, after almost three decades of camping and backpacking, I have a lot of gear. Much of it is too inconsequential or too old to mention. So I've omitted a lot. You should also know that I tend to buy on the extremes: either premium offerings from name brand outfitters, or cheap stuff from Walmart or the Dollar Store. Also, I haven't done much backpacking in the last 6-8 years, so I'm behind on newer gear since that era. But you do not need the latest ultralight gear to have a good time! People have been enjoying the backcountry for a century without fancy gear.

This list tries to focus on things I use regularly, or that you might actually buy, or buy something similar to, these days.

Sleep

General

Food

Kayaking

eBiking

Personal care

  • Henson AL13 Razor - so much better than buying disposable, I trim up some neck hair and use it on the odd occasion when I have to legit shave. No strong preference on razor blades (yet, at least), as I don't use them very regularly
  • Philips Norelco Multigroom Series 5000 beard trimmer - I use this to cut my own hair and trim my stubble. I can't tell you how much money, time, and annoyance I've saved in cutting my own hair since my 20s.
  • Green Bell G-1205 Nail Clipper - didn't realize how much better "decent" clippers are than the cheap ones I've always owned

Home & household

Did we need big social media platforms to find "our people" online?

tldr: Nope, it's actually harder to do on big social platforms. Here's why.

Here's a short reply I had to a message from a good friend on the role social media—specifically twitter—played in us meeting and becoming friends. He was gracious enough to let me respond.

"I mean, look at us--It took a big network like Twitter for our paths to cross, and ditto for a tons of baseball friends, national park friends, etc"

- one of the friends I met via Twitter's #parkchat

Oh, I don't at all believe that we needed a big network like twitter to meet! I believe the opposite is true, actually.

Sure, we happened to find each other there, but twitter didn't enable it in some unique or special way. I mean, the web was already a very social place before twitter, and for the same reasons Twitter took off, there's every reason to believe that the rest of the social internet would have continued to absolutely blow up too.

Even if twitter (or other large centralized social media) never existed, our meeting was just as likely to have happened somewhere in 100 other online communities--perhaps on the extremely active comments section of some road trip blog to a web forum on national parks or an online club organized on whatever replaced Yahoo Groups, or a photo-sharing site like flickr, or a mailing list of travel questers, or on any of the myriad other social networks that existed or would have existed, if not for twitter. Don't forget the hundreds of competing sites that the big platforms acquired simply as a way to kill off any possible competitors. I've made friends on basically all of those types of communities.

On net, I think centralized social media platforms like twitter actually collapsed opportunities to connect with people with similar interests online, not enhanced them. (I think they had a lot of other negative effects we're just now realizing too, but won't comment on that here)     

We first connected via parkchat, right? Well, that was like 25 people tweeting at each other 10 years ago...in an absolute sea of tweets. Very little signal compared to the firehose of noise. You essentially accidentally stumbled into a conversation there. A big network is also a big haystack in which to sift through looking for your needle. After all, what infinitesimal percentage of tweets are about national parks? We were damn lucky for our rowboats to bump into each other in such a vast ocean.

Let's say you moved to metro LA and needed to make some new friends. Would you just stand on the street corner (the "big network" of 13 million residents) and wait to find someone in a Giants hat walk past that you could talk to? Nah, you'd go to the NY Giants fan club (the small network of 1300 members) instead, because of course it would be more likely to make new friends there.

Similarly, outside of twitter, there were plenty of other online communities of national park folks out there that we could have met on. And there probably would have been even more of them if no big networks emerged. Smaller ones, certainly, but like the fan club example, it's easier for boats to bump into each other in a lake than in the ocean. I stumbled upon the National Park Travelers Club—essentially a 10x larger and more dedicated version of parkchat—before twitter even existed. I met several park friends there (some that I later brought to parkchat!), and they were doing several times a year "tweetups" before twitter existed. Anyway, it wasn't super hard to find groups like this, you either just googled it, ran across a blog mention (twitter mostly replaced personal blogging), or ran across it organically somewhere else...just as we did with parkchat. And if people hadn't defaulted to big platforms like twitter, each of those communities would have had a much more vibrant community that they ran themselves...just like every social club has for hundreds of years now!

But, hey, I liked twitter and enjoyed parkchat for a long time and made some quality friends from it—no doubt about it! But just because we got 50 parkchat friends from twitter doesn't mean it was actually the best platform on which to make park friends. I also invested a lot of time into twitter--which is itself an opportunity cost. Had I not spent many years interacting constantly with a smallish group of (I dunno maybe 250 max?) parkchat folks and instead invested that same effort into interacting with the 2500 park questers in the NPTC, what might that have looked like? Might I have 10x more park friends right now? What might it look like now if I had invested 1/6 of the time on twitter and spent the rest in five other communities of parkchat-like folks? It's almost certainly higher ROI for creating friendships in those other topic-specific communities because you're not wasting time sifting through unrelated stuff, like ads or posts on every other possible topic.

Our instagram feeds these days are a good example of that. Users are currently served 1 ad after every 4th post in the timeline. So you're spending 20% (1/5) of the time you scroll looking at ads and not the posts of your friends or might-become-friends. That's a helluva lot of overhead. You wouldn't watch TV if there was a minute long commercial break for every 4 minutes of your show. But we accept it on social media. Not because it's a rational decision necessarily (I'm sure you don't think scrolling IG is the best way to find new luggage), but because we first became invested in the ad-free versions and then (because of inertia, network effects, switching costs, collective action problem, etc) just accepted the ensuing platform rot as a necessary cost. (Side note: 75% of my IG ads right now are for a "buy once, use forever" style razor...that I already bought a year ago. These ad platforms have gotten much worse for businesses too; and as consumers, we've helped trap them into an increasingly bad business model.)

We've all been down this road before, of course. The early internet's twitter and instagram were AOL and Prodigy. It seemed downright amazing that we could make friends online and so we readily accepted the ads and walled garden as a worthwhile cost for that. But luckily some nerds thought "wait a minute, couldn't we make this soooo much better??" and developed protocols like html, http, url, and web browsers. And suddenly we had the Cambrian explosion of the World Wide Web. And then we all quickly abandoned the old narrative that AOL was important and worthwhile and realized how incredibly dumb and limiting it was to think that the service was peak internet that we should just accept as-is—that we should only be able to email people who were also paying for AOL and not everyone on the whole planet. I think we're at that same point in time with social media and hope we can get over the hump like we did back then.

Anyway, thanks for letting me push back a little; feel free to tell me where I got something wrong. I know I'm pretty ornery on this topic these days. You know that I really do love connecting with people online—it truly is amazing—and I'm probably the only person you know that has an actual form on my website for "people I know online" to add themselves to my road trip itineraries. But we all deserve some better solutions and have all the tools we need to make something better. So that's what I'm trying to do.

Cautiously planning our first trip

As more and more people get vaccinated and covid infection rates decrease, a glimmer of hope has started to emerge. We’ve cautiously started trip planning again.

It feels both extremely familiar, but also oddly foreign. 

It’s been 16 months since I’ve taken any sort of trip to a new-to-me place, unless you count a quick weekend camping trip to a small unremarkable lake in Arizona, a state I already know quite well.

And beyond a long weekend? Well, it’s been a staggeringly long 20 months.

TWENTY fucking months!

It was June 2019 when we returned to Alaska to finish my national parks quest. That was the last real trip I’ve had.

That is downright crazy. No wonder I've been a wreck.

And luckily, that should change in the coming months. We’ve started plotting out weekend excursions, and have several big trips in the queue—though those continue to rest on the whims of the pandemic, of course.

Our first trip is shaping up to be a visit to Upstate New York in May, aimed primarily at finishing some national park units for Jen and visiting some friends. I’ll mark off a former park unit and a border crossing (or two), and maybe a state park as well. After dropping off Jen to fly home, I’ll spend an extra 2-3 days traveling, which will allow me to "re-complete" my national parks quest with a stop at the recently-established Eisenhower Memorial.

Screen Shot 2021-03-11 at 10.50.37 AM.png

After that trip, we're hoping for another "big" trip in June, July, and August—followed, we hope, by our belated honeymoon in December.

We're still not sure if my dad's health will allow all of this travel, but it's at least great to feel like these trips have a legitimate shot at happening. Travel is the primary way we unwind from stress, so the overlay of dad's health + pandemic + no travel + not seeing friends has been an utter disaster for our personal resiliency. I can't imagine how others in worse situations have dealt with all this.

But now, finally, there seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel. I can't wait until we can get back to not worrying about whether we can take a trip or not.

A public lands gratitude practice

Our national parks and public lands have played an oversized role in my life happiness. Many (perhaps even most?) of my best memories stem from trips to these treasured places.

One of the best ways to remember these cherished moments is to relive them regularly—so I've begun posting photos from those trips in one long thread on twitter.

I invite you to do the same using the hashtag #lovepubliclands, and to add a link to your thread in the comments below.

https://twitter.com/rscottjones/status/1323639538409906176

5 surprising things to carry hiking in the desert

If you’re relatively new to desert hiking, you may be a bit surprised at these five items you’ll routinely see on the trail.

Umbrella

I bet you'd see more umbrellas hiking in sunny weather on desert trails than when it's raining. That's because umbrellas are a great way to provide some portable shade during your hike. They notably make lunch breaks far more enjoyable. Don't worry about getting an expensive ultralight one—chances are high that various pokey desert plants will add a rip or two after a few trips out. Cheap ones work just as well.

Comb

There's not much need to comb your hair during a desert hike—especially if you're wearing a hat. So why would I recommend carrying one in your first aid kit? Two words: cholla cactus. The comb is king when it comes to removing the fierce cholla that inexplicably snagged your leg. Just be careful not to fling it onto anyone else. The pliers in a multi-tool can work well, too.

Foam gardening kneeling pad

Unlike forests, where you're bound to find an occasional fallen log or tree stump, the desert offers few comfortable places to sit down. A high density foam gardening pad solves that. Leave your Crazy Creek or blow-up sit pad at home—they won't last long in this sharp environment. Foam gardening pads are cheap and small enough to carry in your pack. Once you enjoy a comfortable rest on one while you watch your hiking partner wiggle and squirm trying in vain to get comfortable on that awkward rock, you'll never leave it at home.

Long-sleeved shirt and pants

This won't be a surprise for any veteran desert hiker, but it might be for out-of-towners expecting to get some sun on their hike. Save the tanning for the pool instead. Smart desert hikers wear light, loose-fitting long sleeve shirts and long pants. Not only do these keep you protected from the sun's intense rays (and save you from reapplying sunscreen throughout the day), but it also saves your arms and legs from unnecessary cuts and scrapes from spinet and excessively "friendly" desert plants. Trust me here, you'll appreciate it.

Gloves

If any scrambling might be involved in your hike, be sure to bring some gloves. The harsh rocks in the desert can easily cut up your hands. Oh, and they can get rather hot, too. Yes, your hands will get sweaty—but the glove-free alternative is worse.

What other surprising items do you bring on desert hikes?

Let me know in the comments.

How to get your phone ready for your trip

The big trip you’ve waited for all year is nearly here. You finished the big work project just in time so you can relax and unplug while you’re gone. You’ve dialed in the itinerary so you don’t miss out on anything important. You’ve even cajoled your friend into feeding your cat.

Now it’s time to get your phone ready. A few minutes of prep time can make your trip much better. Here’s what to do.

One screen for your trip

If you're anything like me, you have a myriad of various apps on your phone, occupying many folders and screens. You probably have them perfectly organized for your daily life in the city. But that means that the airline app is buried, and so is that star gazing app you hope to make good use of.

I like moving all of the apps I expect to use on my trip to one single screen—far away from the others I won’t be needing. Not only does this make it so much easier to access what you want when you need it, but it also helps reduce the temptation to get distracted on something other than your trip. Doing this also makes it easier to delete any trip-specific apps once you get home, since they’re all right there for you to see.

Silence notifications

I find it to be good practice to temporarily turn off notifications for some specific apps while I'm on vacation. I like setting a strong boundary between work time and vacation time, so for me, this means turning off work-related email and social media notifications and letting my autoresponders function as intended. That way, my phone doesn't highjack my attention or create undo stress when I should be enjoying the moment.

More recently, I’ve also turned off many other notifications as well—simply because I don’t need the distraction. I don’t need to see how many people liked that last photo on instagram, or be alerted that someone has connected with me on linkedin, or that one of my contacts just posted a new article on Medium. Sure, this can take a few minutes to do (and later undo, at least if you find you actually need all of them), but it can really help keep you focused on the task at hand—enjoying your current adventure.

Prep for off-line status

It's always a good idea to think ahead and plot out what items you might need to access before you unexpectedly lose coverage. Here are some of the items I make sure I have available:
  • Off-line maps, whether that's Google Maps for navigating the city, or park maps on Maplets, or topos on Avenza Maps.
  • Any cloud-sync'd notes containing your trip itinerary or important travel notes for your trip.
  • Any cloud-sync'd emails containing reservation or confirmation numbers. I like copying these to a google doc that's shared with my travel companions as our master itinerary. We each make sure to toggle the doc to "available offline" mode so we can access it whenever we might need it. You might also want to print this doc.

Add keyboard shortcuts

Going to post to social media while you're traveling? Or just can't remember how to spell that crazy foreign name? One of my favorite tips is using a lesser-known feature: text substitution. Basically, this involves typing a "shortcut" that expands into a larger word or phrase. It's incredibly handy to use all the time, frankly, but especially when traveling.

You will absolutely love this tip. It’s a game changer. Here are some of the ways I use text substitution:

  • Entering personal data when making reservations. Typing "eml" expands to my email address, "phn" types in my phone number, and so forth.
  • Conjuring up emoticons is as easy as typing a shortcut. For me, "kk" instantly conjures up the "thumbs up" emoji.
  • I often use a specific hashtag for each of my trips. It can be fun, help others follow along, and makes it incredibly easy to recap your vacation later. Since I'm posting this specific hashtag regularly, I just create a text shortcut for it. I usually use "qq" and voila, it magically becomes #ontheroadinthemiddleoffuckingnowhere.
  • I find myself misspelling places or words—I'm looking at you, Hawaii—so I create a shortcut for it to autocorrect the word for me. This is also a way to get around your non-travel-related spelling errors, or when your phone thinks you actually meant "ducking."
Here's how to set it up on iOS and on Android.

Download your entertainment

This one's pretty obvious: if you're planning on watching some downloaded Netflix on the plane, or listening to an audiobook or podcast during your drive, or jamming to some music once you get to the campsite, or reading that ebook in your tent—well, you better download before you leave wifi.

Make space for your memories

I can't tell you how many times my friends have missed the perfect photo because they were busy deleting old photos to make space. Just spend a bit of your downtime making sure your phone has the space you need for quick snapshots and your camera memory cards are clear of yet-to-be-downloaded shots and ready to go. There's nothing worse than fretting over whether you can delete old photos while missing the shots you'd love to take.

Backup just in case

Things happen, and sometimes that thing happens to be you losing your slippery phone forever as it sinks into the murkiest of ponds. Backup your stuff to the cloud or to your computer before you hit the road.

Check on coverage and data plans

Last but not least—and particularly important if you're leaving the country—is double-checking what your cell phone plan has you covered and where you'll run into problems.

Anything else?

Am I missing something? Tell me in the comments!

I am going to die on December 27, 2060

It's going to be a Monday, about six weeks after I celebrate my 82nd birthday. And it's the day I'm planning to die on.

Why did I choose that date? Well, not for any big, significant reason, really. Basic life expectancy calculations place my death somewhere between ages 84 and 87. So I figured that, since most lives are marked by a downhill spiral in the last few years before death, I should choose an age a few years before that instead. I ended up picking the round number of 30,000 days of life, which lands on December 27, 2060. So that's my Death Date.

Why I chose a Death Date

It seems a bit morbid to select the date you're going to die, right? Perhaps.

I don't expect to actually die on that day, of course. But if you want to achieve a goal, you need a deadline—even if it’s an artificial one.

My Death Date is my artificial deadline.

Counting down from that date makes the inevitable prospect of death a bit more tangible. It's easy to think about death as this amorphous thing that only happens in the distant future. But seeing it approach in raw numbers helps ensure proper perspective. And knowing that date will be here sooner than I’d like provides motivation and focus to achieve what I want to before I die.

26 time management hacks I wish I'd known at 20

Rethinking the nonprofit sector rules

In this thought-provoking TED talk, Dan Pallotta explains how the way we think about charity is dead wrong. [ted id=1688]

Newsroom: What a news show should be about.

With my love of roadtrips, it's no wonder this is one of my favorite movies

It's Time.

I cannot wait for tonight’s game—this has been a very long offseason.

Expectations for the season

Dennis Erickson needs to win at least 8 games to save his job. He’s been building this team for too long.

The defense will be generally solid, especially against the run. We have enough talent on the offensive side of the ball to really challenge opposing teams. Team speed will be on display all season long.

With high expectations, new uniforms, and some experience, this team may return to the swagger of 2007.

Prediction for the season:

We will win 8 games this season. I was solidly in the 9-win camp until the rash of offseason injuries and departures. I think that the injury bug could easily steal at least one win from the team this year, so now I’m down to 8. If Brock plays well and doesn’t make too many critical mistakes, and if our pass rush makes up for the injuries in the secondary and at linebacker, I think we can easily win nine games, maybe even ten. The early stretch is going to be key. If the Devils can come out of the first four games at 3-1, we’ll be well on our way to a good to great season.

Other concerns:

  • Net turnovers. That includes our turnover margin, as well as stupid penalties and dumb mistakes that stall offensive drives and give opposing offenses a second chance. ASU has not excelled in this area since Erickson's arrival.
  • The kicking and punting game - new punter, new snapper, new holder, new kicker. Hey, what could go wrong here?
  • Depth, particularly on defense: starters Lawrence Guy, Omar Bolden, James Brooks, and Brandon Magee all gone, with additional injuries to backups such as Devon Spann. On offense, we're missing experienced backups in Threet and Sakacsy, and significant contributors TJ Simpson and Deantre Lewis. Does this team have enough depth to overcome the string of bad luck we've had? If Brock goes down, it's hard to think we'll be able to compete for a South Division title.

It's Time. Go Devils!

My 33 before 33 list

On the heels of completing my 101 things in 1001 days challenge, I’ve decided to launch a new goal list for the upcoming year. Given the amount of change I’ll likely see in 2011, I decided to focus on a shorter time period and instead launch a 33 before 33 list. Like my 101 in 1001 list, I’ll be adding a few bonus items along the way that I’m allowing as substitutions. I had originally intended to launch this on my birthday, so it will be extra challenging given the 2-month delay. In addition to this list, I’m also keeping a shorter, private list of important things I want to accomplish this upcoming year.

Here is my list: [Completed 14/33]

  1. Hike in a wilderness area I’ve never visited
  2. Read Citizen Spy — completed Dec 30
  3. Thank a personal mentor
  4. Visit Delma — completed 083111
  5. Visit an Arizona state park I’ve never been to — completed 102211 (Dead Horse Ranch SP)
  6. Go on a kayaking or mountain biking trip completed 062011
  7. Write a family letter
  8. Hike 3 trails I’ve never been on — completed (Gateway Loop 012211, River Trail 052411, Chimney Rock)
  9. Organize my iTunes library
  10. Purge file cabinets
  11. Use a free plane ticket — completed (purchased 102911)
  12. Go rock climbing or ice skating or skiing or snowboarding completed (rock climbing)
  13. Read a book on my iPad
  14. Post my remaining wedding and post-wedding roadtrip photos
  15. Write something meaningful
  16. Take a step towards continuing my education
  17. Get rid of my wart
  18. Conduct an oral history session with my dad
  19. Make 2 new friends — completed
  20. Revamp rscottjones.com
  21. Try 3 new foods that I wouldn’t otherwise eat — completed (sushi 010411, beet burgers, oysters)
  22. Pay off two debts — completed 021811
  23. Purge and reorganize my camping gear
  24. Integrate one new life simplifying habit or action into my life
  25. Go camping — completed Aug 2011
  26. Integrate vacation summaries into rscottjones.com
  27. Complete an annual personal review
  28. Automate my expenses
  29. Get in touch with three friends or family I haven’t talked to in awhile
  30. Shave Sipapu — completed 060611
  31. Scan 50 old photos I want to keep
  32. Go backpacking — completed 052011-052511
  33. Redevelop or repurpose godevils.org

Bonus items:

  • Create/update a digital archive of important files and add to safe deposit box
  • Accomplish a strenuous event completed 052011-052511
  • Reach the 15,000 photos online milestone
  • Retrieve summer roadtrip photos
  • Paint something

Peanut butter: proving evolution is fake since 1897

It all seems so obvious now—the answer has been on aisle 7 of the grocery store all along!

Of course, evolution doesn’t explain the origin of life and, given the events of last year, the video producers chose a rather unfortunate example. But hey, thanks for the chuckle.

Steve Jobs talks about life

Steve Jobs is one of those few CEOs that’s hard to hate.

Just breathe....

It’s not quite what I expected, but I’ve enjoyed the new Pearl Jam album Backspacer. In particular, I’ve found myself gravitating to the song Just Breathe. Without Vedder’s distinctive voice, you probably wouldn’t guess it was a Pearl Jam song - even if it does have an Into the Wild feel to it. It’s just one of those songs that unexpectedly speaks to me.

Unofficial video, with lyrics below.

Yes I understand that every life must end, aw huh,.. As we sit alone, I know someday we must go, aw huh,.. I’m a lucky man to count on both hands The ones I love,..

Some folks just have one, Others they got none, aw huh,..

Stay with me,.. Let’s just breathe.

Practiced are my sins, Never gonna let me win, aw huh,.. Under everything, just another human being, aw huh,.. Yeh, I don’t wanna hurt, there’s so much in this world To make me bleed.

Stay with me,.. You’re all I see.

Did I say that I need you? Did I say that I want you? Oh, if I didn’t now I’m a fool you see,.. No one knows this more than me. As I come clean.

I wonder everyday as I look upon your face, aw huh,.. Everything you gave And nothing you would take, aw huh,.. Nothing you would take,.. Everything you gave.

Did I say that I need you? Oh, Did I say that I want you? Oh, if I didn’t now I’m a fool you see,.. No one know this more than me. As I come clean.

Nothing you would take,.. everything you gave. Hold me till I die,.. Meet you on the other side.

This just in: John Madden has terrible taste

[caption id=“attachment_747” align=“aligncenter” width=“500” caption=“John Madden’s table and shrine at Chuy’s in Van Horn, TX”][/caption]

We’ve stopped in Van Horn, Texas on a few occasions before. Each time, we managed to hear or read about the local Chuy’s restaurant, which is rather infamous. Apparently, the restaurant attracted the attention of John Madden years ago, who has said it’s his favorite place to eat. And Chuy’s has naturally exploited the hell outta it. For his part, Madden seems to have played along, at least initially.

How he ever decided to stop and eat there, we’ll never know.

Chuy’s is the name of a chain restaurant that Kim and I used to eat at nearly weekly for 2 years. We had received a set of 24 one-free-meal-a-month coupons for each of three windshields replaced in a 6-month time span. [Thanks Empire Glass!] And with all those free coupons, we made the most of it as we could. I never did really enjoy the food there. Well, ok, I guess I did like the chili - I’ve actually returned as a paying customer in the last few months to order it.

So as we were in need of dinner about the time we’d be in Van Horn, we figured we should give it a try. Besides, I was craving some of that chili. Of course, the Chuy’s isn’t the one we’re thinking of; it’s just an independent, family-owned Mexican restaurant. That’s ok, so we enter.

The menu’s pretty plain but was sure to make mention of Madden. The  food wasn’t any better, and the service was lacking. The restaurant has an area reserved for John Madden, but we were seated on the other wing of the place so we couldn’t even ogle the shrine. Besides the photo of the sign and the roadtrip memory (“Hey, remember that time we ate at that ridiculously indescript Mexican restaurant that John Madden loved?"), the stop was definitely a disappointment.

So I’m here to confirm the obvious: John Madden has terrible taste.

Thoughts on New Years Eve in the French Quarter of NOLA

I was fortunate to have an opportunity to bring in the new year from New Orleans. To qualify the following random thoughts, I’m not a partier, not much of a dancer, not a drinker, and I was here with my wife as part of a much-larger national park roadtrip.

As a nondrinker, many of the festivities of a New Year’s Eve celebration are lost on me. I only partially understand the dominant drinking culture, and usually choose not to participate, so overpaying to get so wasted that I can’t remember the night I was celebrating just doesn’t do it for me. The most annoying and disgusting part of the evening were the byproducts of this drinking. First, New Orleans needs far more bathrooms; it was hard to find a doorwall or planter that wasn’t leaking pee onto the sidewalk or street. I won’t even comment on how this comes to be, and how girlfriends are often charged with covering for this kind of behavior. We’ll skip the vomit and spilled drinks - and even the horseshit from the mounted police forces - and focus just on the litter problem. After just an hour or so of the party, there’s a heap of trash pushed to each edge of the street. It’s a huge pile, and it’s covering the streets. Everything is filthy, trashy, and a clear hazard. You occasionally wonder if you’re wandering through a third-world country.

Nonetheless, the atmosphere of Bourbon Street was definitely festive, and it was fun watching both girls and guys scream for beads from the balconies that made it memorable. In general, it was pretty crowded but not as crowded as I expected. Most of the girls had definitely dressed up for the night: some wore short tight skirts, some ballgowns and dresses, but every one of them featured as much cleavage as possible. Some couldn’t flash for beads given their outfit, but others stepped for them to substitute. One young woman wore no top, for instance, allowing an unzipped leather jacket to casually and only occasionally cover her nipples and chest. Given the Sugar Bowl, many beads were being tossed to guys chanting a fight song. For as much effort goes to getting the beads, you’d think that they contain mini-diamonds or something.

There was some live music, but the main stage shut down before 12:30a, and it seemed like only a few venues had any additional live music. The best part of the evening was the fireworks display, which was centered over a barge floating in the Mississippi River. It lasted longer than I assumed it would, so I was pleasantly surprised.

All in all, it was definitely one of those “you have to do this at least once in your life” moments. I’m glad that I did, and I definitely had fun.

More thoughts on Big Thicket, Cane River Creole, Poverty Point, and Vicksburg

Today we visited Poverty Point National Monument (or rather, State Historic Site) and Vicksburg National Military Park. For all the details, check out my post on scottandkimmie.com. Beyond the recap, I wanted to toss out a couple more thoughts about our trip so far.

First, we’ve seen two units - Big Thicket National Preserve and Cane River Creole National Historic Park - that really whiffed on interpretation opportunities. I’ve never seen a less useful trail guide - the numbered signs seemed completely unrelated to the booklet descriptions - in Big Thicket. Isn’t wasn’t like the trail guide didn’t have any useful information; the book just didn’t mesh with what you were looking at on trail.

While I admittedly missed the tour of the main house at Cane River, the rest of the buildings lacked any sort of context of its inhabitants. There were so many times when we thought, “I’d love to know more about this,” but there was precious little to read or listen to. I know it’s a new unit, but it’s sorely lacking.

Second, cell phone tours are for real. Both Cane River and Vicksburg utilize the new technology, which entails you dialing a dedicated phone number for a park and then entering a stop number to listen to a prerecorded blurb. I’d still prefer to see more written information, but it’s a good start - as long as you have cell coverage, of course.

Along those same lines, I’d love to see parks like Vicksburg provide a more detailed CD and MP3 driving tour for free or even for rent. The park offered a CD for $12 and a CD-ROM for $30. There’s not enough interpretation along the way (the cell phone tours were decent, but the interp signs were among the worst I’ve seen). Check out Lyndon B Johnson National Historic Park for how to do this.

Poverty Point is one of those National Park Service units that shouldn’t be one. If the state wants it, that’s fine; but it shouldn’t be called a National Monument or be on the NPS official unit list if there’s absolutely no mention of the park service or its national monument status. Also, nice job on recreating in model form near the visitor center, but I would have loved to see the site from the observation tower you apparently had at some point in the past. Note: if you’re going to tear down something like that, please update your brochures so I don’t know what I’m missing.

Finally, in a slightly unrelated note, I’d like to pass along the lesson I’ve come to on several recent trips but always seem to fail to live. Don’t skimp too much on hotels. Sometimes, just a few dollars can make all the difference in how much you enjoy your trip. Instead of trying to save the cash, spend it. Just make sure you always overestimate hotel costs when you’re doing your trip budgeting.

People in Yosemite: A TimeLapse Study

Below is a fabulous timelapse video of Yosemite National Park, with a special focus on people. I’m a sucker for timelapse videos, but this one is beautifully shot and intriguing.

As you know, I’m a big fan of the National Park System and wholeheartedly agree that it’s in serious contention as America’s Best Idea. And while I understand many of the problems that park resources face, particularly in the face of overwhelming visitation, I also know how fundamental and formative a park experience can be - particularly for youth.

And with that thought in mind, here’s the video:

 Kudos to YosemiteSteve for putting together such a great video. Be sure to check out his Yosemite Nature Notes series.