Where’s Nico?

On the album “New Morning”, Bob Dylan put out a song that is strange by even his standards – it’s called “If Dogs Run Free”, and it’s kind of some odd 50’s sounding jazz piano tune with a lady doing scat in the background. If you haven’t heard it, why not check it out here? But this didn’t end up just being a song – it ended up being a children’s book too!

So speaking of free-range dogs, where is our crazy little dog Nico running free at the moment?

Mount Hood National Forest!

Last we checked in, we were at Willamette National Forest, which is just a few hours from here. But before we headed to Mount Hood, we did a short stop at Suttle Lake in Deschutes National Forest, which butts up on the eastern side of Willamette, where we got in a couple of fun lake days.

Our campsite was right along the lake’s edge, which was beautiful.

There’s a nice trail around the lake that’s just three miles or so that we did a few times, which gave us several great views of the area.

And of course the stay also gave us some time to play on the water!

And as an added bonus, it gave us a chance to try out Nico’s floatie suit

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After our brief stay in Deschutes, we headed out to Mount Hood. We spent a couple weeks in Mount Hood last year too, which we really enjoyed, and we were excited to get back. There are a number of beautiful hikes in the area, often with the striking view of the snow-capped Mount Hood in the background.

One nice find was a natural love seat of a rock that was in the Salmon River – it was too tempting to pass on.

I rarely take a picture, but as you can probably imagine, Nico makes a lot of friends as he’s out hiking. Folks passing by often like to talk with him or even give him some pats. We encountered this little Nico groupie on a hike down to Trillium Lake.

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Something is rotten at Rotten Tomatoes…

A lot of times, Kristen and I end our day by putting a movie on as we lay in bed. We like all kinds of movies, and have a soft spot for truly kitchey fare. To that end, we’re fairly inclined to check out a movie if it has Nicholas Cage in it.

We recently watched three such classics. This all started because we discovered that the Nic Cage/John Travolta film “Face/Off” actually has a 93 percent Tomatometer score on Rotten Tomatoes!

Now, I love kitch, but c’mon… If you haven’t seen “Face/Off”, I’ll try to summarize it for you. It starts when bad guy Cage shoots federal agent Travolta and inadvertently kills Travolta’s son. Travolta becomes obsessed with getting Cage, and through some convoluted plot logic, they take the faces off Travolta and Cage and switch them, so for the next third of the movie, you’re now supposed to root for the Cage-as-Travolta character and against the Travolta-as-Cage. That’s until, through more convoluted plot logic, the faces get swapped back. Travolta, who is once again Travolta, drives home after the surgery (apparently his wife and daughter never come to visit him in the hospital after the procedure), drives home and brings with him the now-dead Nic Cage’s son who was around the same age as his dead son, introduces them to the family, and the movie ends and everyone is happy because they now have someone to replace their dead son. That is honestly as clean and succinct as I can describe the story. It’s gloriously stupid. Oh, and Travolta does this super creepy move where he swipes his hand down over the face of all those he loves.

After this, we saw that Nic Cage’s Con Air had a much humbler 58% Tomatometer and National Treasure has a 46%! Now, these are unquestionably stupid movies – trust us, because we watched both once again from start to finish. But they’re pretty arguably less stupid than Face/Off – and that’s despite one of the stories involving stealing the Declaration of Independence to crack and old Knights of Templar scheme, and the other involves a murderer-with-a-heart-of-gold undermining an attempt by John Malkovic and Ving Rhames to take over a flight full of hardened criminals with no discernable plan to actually escape (not to mention a side plot where serial killer Steve Buscemi decides not to kill a young girl who he plays tea time with).

After watching all three Nic Cage movies, we ranked them as follows from best to worst: Con Air, National Treasure, and Face/Off.

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ANA (Ask Nico Anything!)

Nico, should the Royals be buyers or sellers at the trade deadline this year?

Dis kwestin make Nico kinda sad. Nico tunes in for every Royals game, often wile wear Nico’s Royal jerzy.

And when dey let dogs at Kauffman Stadium, Nico like to go see game with mama and papa.

But dis may not be Royals year, Nico theenk. Nico luvs him sum Seth Lugo, but to quote Rex Huddler, if the rite offer comes, den “Seth Lugo, you gotta go…”.

This “Bacon For Dogs” business venture that you keep talking about is one of the dumbest ideas I’ve ever heard of

Dees duz not soun lik a kwestin. You jus troll Nico. Guy who start Fedex told his idea was dum too and he did it anyway, jus like the guy who came up with New Coke.

Maybe dis not best exampil.

Chihuahuas often bond to a single owner. Nico, who is your favorite – your mom or your dad?

Nico not tuch dis wid ten fut poll – he love his mama and papa eekwall. But Nico does like spesifik theens abow mama and spesifik theens abow papa. Mama giv rilly gud tummy rub and is mor likeli to let Nico be free off leash wen hikeng. Papa mor likeli to giv Nico treats during dinnur and, well, papa kinda heavy, so his lap more cushy to sit on.

– Ken, 7/27/2025