6/1/25 – 6/30/25
- Prelude, May 2025
- Cedar Hill Farm
- Alaska
- Bouncing Around Texas
- M&G Road Trip, TX – PA
1. Prelude, May 2025
May was crazy. As we were attempting to sell our house, we moved everything we owned from the 2-bedroom apartment we were renting into a storage unit, three large foot lockers, 3 small foot lockers, four suitcases, and a truck. I graduated with my master’s degree in public history. I got to take part in the tradition of jumping in the San Marcos River in my graduation gown![1] Garrison mastered both of his STAAR tests for the fourth grade, “A – B Honor Roll” for the entire year I might add. Summer killed it at her job and received Quarter 1&2 2025 Dobbs House MVP for her stellar service to the family and outstanding achievements as #1 team player. The old dog Dax wins “Best Boy” for being so chill with all the moving his whole life. The young dog Nugget received “Needs Improvement” only because he’s still an anxious pup and needs to chill.
2. Cedar Hill Farm
We moved to my in-laws Paul and Lisa farm, named Cedar Hill Farm, out near New Ulm in beautiful Colorado County as we got ready for the big trip. I began to implement my secret plan to understand and participate as a better community member. I learned a lot about the 5Ws of community and have developed my own theories about the concept working through grad school and well, just being a community member whether I liked it or not, whether I was good at it or not, or whether I even realized it or not. Summer received the Starlink she had ordered and began to navigate the complexities of working from the road. I employed my son as a research assistant. He has been such an incredible teammate and research assistant. My dude is a blast, and we are lucky to get to be his parents. His work on the flora and fauna on the farm will be invaluable, I am sure.
Paul and Lisa were great. Lisa’s sour dough bread is insane. The farm looked amazing, and I was grateful to Paul for showing me how to use some of the equipment and I had a blast doing some farm work. The work was invigorating. We popped over to Houston and got to see G’s cousin Blakley perform in another great theatre production. I am posing a short write up of a San Felipe, TX trip I did in a different post on my blog.
3. Alaska
We went on a cruise to Alaska. It was beautiful and inspiring, I can’t recommend it enough. I am posting a couple of things separate from this newsletter from that trip on my blog. It started in Seattle and maneuvered through the archipelagoes that are abundant on that part of Earth. We were excited to take part in a bunch of excursions. In Skagway we hiked a bit of the Chilkoot Trail through an old growth forest and rafted down the Taiya River. Another day we disembarked from the cruise ship onto a smaller craft in Holkham Bay and boated up the Endicott Arm to experience its glacier. It was awesome to see the reality of climatological change as you go deeper into the fjord arm closer to the glacier. In the bay proper, the trees are tall, the world green and wet. As you delve deeper, the walls of the fjord are increasingly scraped clean of vegetation. When you get close to the glacier, the stone of the walls are bare, the air cool, and the sound vibrating as you hold your breath to hear the creaking from the blue and white wall of ice. It was life changing and I want to be a better human because of the experience.
In Ketchikan we visited the Tongass National Forest HQ, which contains a magical museum. In Juneau we encountered a charming town, and the most incredible sightseeing adventure of my life. We saw, helped identify, and heard a group of seven humpback whales feeding in a group. Our guide explained the balance of the ecosystem that allows the humpbacks to feed and continued to come back to that part of the world time and time again.
4. Bouncing Around Texas
Plans that had been laid out to get our family truck outfitted met logistical issues, so we wound up popping around Texas more than anticipated and left later than planned but it all worked out. We visited our friends Billy and Amy and their two great pups. Our dogs, Dax and Nugget made some new dog friends. We got a nice visit with my mom in Malakoff and even got to see some of my side of the family before we hit the road. Back to San Marcos to get the truck outfitted with parts that had finally arrived. Back to Cedar Hill Farm for a night and final load up and out in the morning!
5. M&G Road Trip, TX – PA
Summer had a business trip and unfortunately missed the fun part of the road trip from Texas to Pennsylvania. G, the dogs, and I loaded up and headed out. The goal was to spend two or three nights on the road, we did it in two. G and I coordinated to note what he wanted to see so I wasn’t just forcing him into museum after museum. He wanted game stores, comic bookstores, and sandwich stops included in our journey. He has been leaving google reviews for the places we stop. The trip itself was fun, the stretch of land through Arkansas and Tennessee I’d seen blast by my window a few times, but the views through Kentucky, West Virginia, and the Panhandle of Maryland were as new to me as they were to Garrison. I sure love the way Appalachia looks, especially flying down the highway at 75. We pulled into our spot in Somerset County Pennsylvania, in between the little town of Meyersdale and the smaller town of Berlin. The stretches of cultivated fields interspersed with heavily treed small Appalachian Mountains, called the Allegheny’s, capped by massive wind farms was the breath of fresh air we were all looking for and didn’t even know it.
[1] I also got to knock out that big one off my bucket list. My goal of graduating from TX State goes back to when I first moved down there after I got out of the Army. I tried to go using my G.I. Bill benefits but flunked out as I had no idea what I was doing and had yet to learn to embrace my past as a high school dropout.
dobbshead 