Where’s Nico?

“Goin’ Home” was from a Willie album from 1971 called “Yesterday’s Wine”. Amazingly, Willie has put out 104 studio albums so far in his career, not counting the 14 live albums, 51 compilation albums and even a few soundtracks. It certainly gave me plenty of songs to choose from as we set out on this trip!

But enough about Willie!

Sorry Willie! No offense intended! I hope we’re cool…

Oh good! Now that that’s settled… From the title of this post, you may have guessed where Nico is already…

HOME!

That’s right – Nico is back home in our fair city! We had a fun trip, and we’re already excited to get back out on the road this summer, but we headed back to Kansas City to recover for a bit and to catch some Royals baseball.

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Before we headed home, we did have some more adventures at Gila National Forest. For one, we caught this kind of cool video of a very curious little bobcat who found the trail cam we set up just outside of camp:

In addition to the bobcat, Gila offers a lot of really nice hikes. It truly is one of the hidden gems in the national park and forest systems! I just want to share a few pics from our trip:

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After we left Gila, we spent a couple of days in Santa Fe National Forest. The weather was super windy, and we were a bit too early to hit some of our favorite spots in Santa Fe, like the hot spring in Jemez. But we still had fun in our brief stay:

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From Santa Fe National Forest, we did an overnight near Dodge City, KS, and then got back to KC in time to catch the first Bark at the Park at Kauffman Stadium. Once again, Nico made the Jumbotron, as a celebrity of his stature is wont to do.

Since getting home, we’ve also been getting in daily walks at Loose Park – a beautiful downtown park in KC that is admittedly not a substitute for a good mountain hike, but fun all the same.

We’ve also had a chance to catch up with several old friends, and look forward to seeing more friends while we’re home.

Other than that, Kristen and I are plugging away at projects with the house and with the trailer, getting ready for our next adventure this summer. I probably won’t post til we’re on the road again, but in the meantime, had a wonderful spring!

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Before I go, here’s a couple stats from our latest trip:

Total miles driven: 7,804

Total places we stayed at: 13

Number of states visited: 9

Number of days on the road: 76

Number of trails hiked: 45

Total miles hiked: 167.3

Total amount of elevation gain in those hikes, in feet: 19,072

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ANA (Ask Nico Anything!)

Nico, do you prefer life in Kansas City or life on the road?

Dis eaze qwestin for Nico. Kancit ees fun plase. Nico like to see frens an go to Royal game. But at hees hart, Nico ees mownteen dog an beech dog. Plus wen we on de rodez, mama and papa spen all dayz wid Nico. Wen we hoam, mama and papa sumtimez get buzy doing non-Nico tings, wich I don like.

Nico, what the heck is the deal with 6-7?

Nico duzen no if he too old to unnerstan or too yung to unnerstan. But Nico take sum comfert in not unnerstaning. Next qwestin.

Nico, what’s your favorite part of life on the road?

Dis eaze qwestin to. To bad abow dum 6-7 qwestin in de middel. Nico fav par of life on rode is dat he get to spen hole dayz wid mama and papa. Dey fun and we have goods time.

– Ken, 4/5/26