Be the Adult

I've received a bunch of running medals in my day, but most of these are participation trophies and something to smile about when I stumble upon them while looking for something that's actually useful, like a corkscrew. A handful were truly earned ; a triumph of man versus himself, an overcoming of conditions so adverse that they literally changed my definition of bad weather. The first of these was Ragnar Appalachia in 2015. This event had 40 degree temps, two days of sideways rain, and the white shirt I was running in has a muddy waterline running diagonally across the chest from when I rounded a curve and ended up in a flash-flooded lake. The floor of the tent jiggled like a waterbed circa 1986 because the water table was, well, right under the tent. This event ran the full gamut of emotions- frustration, some practical survival, and downright elation when the sun came out at the very end of the event. People were ripping off soaked clothes, hats, and fleece and switc...

The time has come to put the For-Sale sign on our mighty 996. A member of the family for almost seven years, driven to countless baseball/softball games, Cars and Coffee, and quick trips on our fabulous back roads, as long as one member of the family was missing, it was the car of choice. Therein lies the problem; we have a family of five, and once the kids are older than 10 or so it gets to be a pretty tight squeeze in the back. For years, we reliably hauled the kids and their stuff to meet the grandparents, I almost always took it trail running and hiking, and there was a time or two where we went all-out 1970s and had 5 kids plus myself piled in after some random church event (it was only 2 miles away and everyone loved it). For most of our ownership, it made the journey just as fun as the destination. Over time, though, the kids started complaining about it being claustrophobic, it's too loud inside, and the radio sucks. We drive it less and less, and now it's mostly...