Where’s Nico?

Okay… I know I said I’d use Dylan song titles for the blogs during this stretch, but with the loss of two amazing and tragic musicians the other week, I decided to go with a Sly and the Family Stone/Beach Boys mash up title for the new blog post.

If you haven’t seen it, I really want to recommend that you stream a documentary called ‘Summer of Soul’. It’s a documentary that Questlove put together a few years ago from clips from the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival – or “Black Woodstock”. The documentary is amazing – you get to see Nina Simone and Stevie Wonder and so many other great artists in their prime – Stevie Wonder even kicks it off with an amazing drum solo! But one of the biggest highlights for me from that film was Sly and the Family Stone. They were a really incredible band, and Sly Stone was a genius at his peak in this documentary. One of my favorite songs of his is the classic rock hit “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)”. The title alone is absolute gold – even if I didn’t love the song for the music, I’d probably have loved it for the name. I always love a good case of misinterpreted lyrics – people who belt out “‘scuse me, while I kiss this guy!” at top volume while “Purple Haze” is blaring, and stuff like that. But to take the line “Thank you for letting me be myself again” and changing it to “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)” for your song title is genius in my book.

Brian Wilson sure came up with tons of great songs too, of course. I always loved “Warmth of the Sun” – such great, intricate harmonies! But lyrically, I will say that some of the Beach Boys stuff was a bit odd to me. One that always kind of made me laugh was “Help Me Rhonda”, which basically goes “Hey Rhonda – my girl left me for some other guy so what say you and I mess around a bit and you help me forget about her for a while”, which is, uh… not the best pick up line I’ve heard.

Don’t take that as me dissing Brian Wilson – like I said, he wrote some incredibly complex and beautiful music. And he’s hardly alone at coming up with kinda goofy lyrics. I always loved the song “Stand By Me” by Ben E. King. But look at these lyrics:

“If the sky that we look upon/Should tumble and fall/and the mountains should crumble to the sea/Oh I won’t be afraid/No I won’t be afraid/Just as long as you stand, stand by me”

What the??? If mountains crumble in front of me and the sky falls, I’m DEFINITELY going to be afraid – regardless of who happens to be standing next to me at the time.

60’s songs hardly cornered the market on odd lyrics. The other day we heard ‘Karma Chameleon’ by Culture Club. I have no idea what a karma chameleon is, but the chorus of that song literally goes ‘loving would be easy if your colors were like my dreams’. What on earth does that mean?

“Elmer, loving you would be easy if your colors were like my dreams” [awkward pause] “I see you decided to go for the third martini tonight, Lois….”

But you’re not here to listen to me rant about goofy 60’s music lyrics. You’re here to find out where Nico is, amirite? Or as Sly Stone would posit, “ware intheworl, isnicotwo dayhay?”

Tillicum Beach, Oregon!

So why go with “Hot Fun in the Summertime” and “Warmth of the Sun” for today’s title? Well, it’s probably not too hard to guess. We had a wonderful time in Apache/Sitgreaves National Forests in Arizona, and the elevation there kept the temperatures pretty manageable for the three of us. But as we’ve mentioned, the heat is kind of Nico’s kryptonite and as we looked to other areas in Arizona and Utah at lower elevations, the temps were pretty up there at this point, so we decided to make a big three day move up to beautiful Oregon.

The temperatures have worked out great for Nico up here in Oregon. We spent a little over a week in southern Oregon camping by Lake Selmac, before heading up yesterday to Tillicum Beach, which was one of our favorite stops last year. The highs in Tillicum this week are in the 60’s and lows in the 50’s. As I said, we just arrived here yesterday, but we’ve already gotten three walks in along the beach, which is just a few hundred yards from our campsite.

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I mentioned we spent a little over a week camping at Lake Selmac, in southern Oregon near the Illinois River. And yes – the Illinois River is in Oregon. Apparently, two gold miners from Illinois were in this area long ago and named the river in a bout of homesickness. The Illinois River (or “the Illy”, as the locals refer to it) has a beautiful green tint and is very clear. We had a lot of fun hiking along it and playing around in it.

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In the last few posts, I’ve mentioned that we’ve made a bunch of hummingbird friends along the way. We’ve actually gotten on a first name basis with some of them. I thought it may be fun to introduce you to them, even if I don’t have a picture of each one.

Elvis: Elvis was the first hummingbird we named, and it was because he had a funny way of swiveling his hips as he positioned himself to drink from the feeder.

Tiny Tim: Tiny Tim was, well, tiny. He appeared to be a younger hummingbird who was still growing. Also, he had a bit of a hunchback, which added to his charm.

Alfalfa: Alfalfa, as you may have guessed, had kind of a distinct cowlick of hair sticking up.

In some ways, the misplaced tuft of feathers almost looked like those wild eyebrows you sometimes see on old men.

Joe Pesci: Ah, the enforcer! This squat, stout little hummingbird protected one of the feeders with everything he had when other hummingbirds would approach. “What… do I amuse you???”

Swee’ Pea: Swee’ Pea was an adorable little guy we met at Apache National Forest. She was definitely one who was comfortable resting on our fingers as she drank from the feeder in our hands.

Big Bird: Big Bird was a really cool find for us. The vast majority of hummingbirds we met were broadtail or black chin hummingbirds. But Big Bird was a Rivoli’s hummingbird – which is the second largest breed of hummingbirds. He is the only one we spotted on this trip. Being the second largest hummingbird hardly makes him huge – I think Rivoli’s hummingbirds are still under an ounce in weight, but he was a lot bigger than all the guys around him. Despite that, he didn’t throw his weight around – he was very generous and deferential to the other hummingbirds.

Dottie: Dottie was another very sweet and outgoing friend we made. We named her Dottie because she had a little white dot on her beak.

We really enjoyed getting to know the hummingbirds – we’re clearly making the transition to old people very smoothly if we’re already at the point where we’re naming birds. At one point, we listened to a “Stuff You Should Know” podcast on hummingbirds to understand our new friends a little better. One factoid that caught our attention was that the mating ritual for hummingbirds lasts about four seconds. But hey, to paraphrase “Flight of the Conchords”, four seconds in heaven is better than three seconds in heaven.

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Kristen and I were talking, and we thought it may be fun to add a new section at the end of these blog posts – an AMA section. Now, if you’re over say 30 or so, you may wonder “Why is Ken putting stuff into the blog about the American Medical Association?”. Well, that’s not what AMA stands for these days. For those not in the know, AMA is an acronym for “Ask Me Anything”. Which is basically the same thing as FAQ or Q&A, but I guess the kiddos these days decided they wanted their own acronym, so they came up with AMA on the DL PDQ, FWIW.

Anyhoo, without further ado, here’s the inaugural Nico AMA (or I guess the ANA…):

Nico, what’s your favorite thing to eat?

Thank you for ask Nico. Nico luv bacon. Bacon so bacony.

Nico, do you enjoy living out on the road, or do you prefer to be back home in Kansas City?

Thees good kwestin. Nico like to be on road. Many think Nico is chihuahua, but Nico is also a mownton dog and also a beech dog. Kansas City is great city, but it does not have mownton or beech. But Nico does like to see his friends in Kansas City – he miss them when he on road. Nico also like that mama and papa spend all day with Nico while we on the road. That make Nico very hap.

Nico, do you have any dreams of things you’d like to achieve in life?

Wow – that beeg kwestin. Nico does have dream. He want to start his own bizniss called “Bacon For Dogs”. “Bacon For Dogs” give free bacon to all dogs. It would be happyess place on earth.

– Ken, 6/25/25