Where’s Nico?

Hey everyone!!! Nico, Kristen and I are back on the road again, and excited to check back in with you!

So, last we spoke back in April, we had just gotten back to KC after a fun, Willie Nelson-curated trip across the southwest. In June, it was time for us to get back on the road, and we were faced with a dilemma: how to do you pick a musical artist to follow up Willie Nelson for a road trip playlist?

Well, that’s just not possible. So we decided to just go with “artists” because no single artist could carry that challenge. For the 2026 fall tour, we’re just going to go with songs from the entire decade of the 1980’s.

Okay, maybe Wham isn’t the best follow up to Willie Nelson – we won”t be waking you up before you get go-going. But let’s kick it off with a great Don Henley classic song (mainly written by former Where’s Nico-adjacent Tom Petty guitarist, Mike Campbell), “Boys of Summer”, from the album “Building the Perfect Beast”. I can only presume from the album title that Don Henley was referring to our perfect beast, Nico.

Enough stalling… Let’s get this started with the main question: where’s Nico?

Tillicum Beach!

Nico is not a big fan of heat, and without a doubt, as we were finding ourselves in late May in Kansas City, there was no shortage of heat.

On top of that, a lot of “heat” was coming down on Kansas City: FIFA had wisely realized that our fair city would be an amazing host for the 2026 World Cup. While that was very exciting for our our beloved KC, it also seemed like a really good time to skedaddle out of there to avoid the crowds, so we loaded our gear and headed up to the Badlands in South Dakota for a fun stop on our way back out to the Pacific Northwest.

Kirsten and I had visited the Badlands together back in 2022, but Nico just simply didn’t exist at that point.

So this year, we decided to go a bit farther north on our route out to the coast to give him a chance to check it out. It was worth the stop – the Badlands are an amazing part of the country. Just north of the entrance to Badlands, there is some really cool boondocking, and we found an amazing spot to set up shop.

The weather went a bit south on us in South Dakota after a few days, so we decided to head straight out to Oregon. We’ve caught the “La De Da” parade in Yachats, Oregon on July 4th in both 2024 and 2025, and hated to miss it this time, so we drove straight on to one of our favorite campgrounds, Tillicum Beach.

The La De Da parade is a really joyous celebration of a parade. They had a “Basset Hound Army” the first year we caught it. This year, it was a large group of border collies. Despite Nico’s opinions aboout other dogs, it was all super fun.

(this was a group of trail guides who dressed as invasive plant species…)

Tillicum Beach is on the Oregon coast, just a bit north of Cape Perpetua and a bit south of Newport. It’s been a beautiful few weeks here, checking out some great tide pools, old growth forests, and open beaches. I guess rather than babbling on here, I’ll let the pictures do the talking.

(Nico gets a little zoomie on the beach….)

(grey whale bones along the beach – we also saw some live grey whales offshore as they surfaced)

We’re super proud of our hometown, Kansas City, and we’re thrilled they’re getting their moment in the spotlight during this World Cup, but all things considered, if it’s a choice between World Cup tourism traffic or catching a cool tide pool, we’d rather be looking at this:

(but we are watching the World Cup online pretty much every night, unless of course the Kansas City Royals are busy doing this….)

We’ll be enjoying Oregon for a bit more time this fall – both hitting some old favroites and maybe checking out a state park we’ve never seen before. In the meantime, I hope you’re having as much fun this summer as we are!

ANA (Ask Nico Anything)

So Nico, is there anything you’re particularly excited about on this upcoming trip?

Wel, Nico glah u ashk. Een fac, der ees sumtin Nico excite abow for dis trip: papa make up beeg batsh uv beefs jerk befour we go. So tastey….

As a resident of one of the host cities for this year’s World Cup, do you have any special soccer tips for us, Nico?

Nico noes lots abowt sockur. Nico has fore legs so he bilt for game wear you kiks a lot of stuffs. De mane ting is to kiks de ball reely hard and lots uv times. Dat pretty much it, I tinks.

Nico, I keep reading about AI. Do you ever use AI to write your responses in the ANA section?

Dees gud ideah. It a lot of works for Nico to rites dis stuffs. Let’s see…

Hello human reader. Nico is very glad you have decided to read his blog, and in particular the ANA section that is 100% written by an actual live chihuahua. Did you know that chihuahua ancestry goes all the way back to the Toltecs in 9th century Mexico? Chihuahuas prefer a diet of small kibble and lean proteins, such as chicken, turkey or salmon. You should not feed your chihuahua bacon as this…

[Nico unplugs laptop and smashes it]

AI is stoopid. Nico do dis heemselfs.

– Ken, 7/7/2026