RoamSchool Family

05/27/2026

This week Big takes us inside LIGO — the machine that listens for ripples in spacetime caused by colliding black holes. A billion light years away.

05/27/2026

Mamas I need your tips — he was covered in sand and now so is everything we own — drop your #1 sand removal trick in the comments 👇

05/23/2026

My resolution this year is to stop rushing through everything.

Which is how we ended up standing in the middle of 190-million-year-old sandstone with no trail markers, no shade, and an eight-year-old who (I want to give him massive props) did not complain once across 7 miles of open desert.

The Wave isn’t easy to get to… logistically or physically. The permit lottery issues 64 passes a day. Hundreds of thousands of people apply. We were in the roughly 3% who got one, which meant we had months to sit before we actually went. To slow down into the anticipation of it. To learn everything we could about what we were seeing.

The colors aren’t a trick of light or a filter. They’re iron oxide bleeding through cross-bedded sandstone — ancient desert dunes that hardened into rock 190 million years ago, while dinosaurs were already walking the earth. Their tracks are fossilized in the layers. The swirls? Those are the shape of Jurassic wind, frozen mid-motion and preserved long enough for an eight-year-old to run his hand along them.

I’ve been in a hurry for a long time. This place slowed me down.

04/12/2026

Calling all millennial wave warriors: Blue lips. Chattering teeth. Kicking every wave. Throwing sand to try to stop the swell. Not giving up for hours and hours

Watched Little do the same thing today on the Oregon coast. Got leveled by a wave. Came up. Did it again. Never once looked back.

We’re gearing up for a seriously analog summer. Nature, real boredom, real play. Because it’s good for her. And honestly, it’s good for me too.

02/25/2026

A father mauled by a cat. A sister fired from her job. A divorce. Persistent illness. And they blame it all on a rock from Petrified Forest National Park.

Since 1934, over 1,200 people have mailed stolen petrified wood back to the park with handwritten confessions blaming it for ruining their lives. The NPS can't even return the rocks — it would contaminate the geological record. They just pile them on a private service road. The Conscience Pile.

Brief your kids before they get out of the car:

Ages 3-5: "Those rocks are 225 million years old. They belong here, not in your pocket. We look, we don't touch."

Ages 6-9: "People have stolen rocks from this park and mailed them back begging to "lift the curse." Leave the rocks."

Ages 10-12: "Over 1,200 people have taken rocks from this park and regretted it badly enough to mail them back with a letter of apology. The park can't even return them to where they belong because they're "contaminated." That rock stays here."

Ages 13+: "Taking anything from a national park is a federal offense. People have also done it and had genuinely terrible years afterward. Coincidence or not, it's not worth it. These parks exist because people chose to protect them. We do our part."

Don't let your kids pocket the rocks. Some might insist that your family's wellbeing is at stake. 🪨

02/23/2026

Out of the loop on purpose. Don't loop me in.🌲

We're out here staring up at 2,000-year-old redwoods from a hot tub. Anyone else opting out this week? 👇

02/20/2026

Think Timberline Lodge was just another hotel? Think again. Built by the WPA in 1936, this lodge used a mix of massive local timber and ingenious reclaimed materials to create a "Cascadian" masterpiece.

While the massive beams and stone walls were new, the builders used reclaimed materials like railroad tracks, telephone poles, and old wool blankets to add character and save on costs. It was a lowkey way of teaching unskilled workers high-level artisan trades like blacksmithing and weaving, while also staying in budget.

Today, it stands as a "monument to the worker."

Follow us for the real story behind your favorite wild places.

02/20/2026

National Park family or National Historic Site family?

Swipe through and tell us which public land is YOUR family's spirit animal. 👇

02/20/2026

02/19/2026

Yosemite's Firefall: when physics, timing, and luck create 3 minutes of magic ✨🔥

Every February, the setting sun hits Horsetail Fall at exactly the right angle. Sunlight scatters through the atmosphere — blue and green fade out, only red and orange punch through — and the waterfall looks like molten lava pouring down El Capitan.

But it only works when everything aligns:
☑️ Deep snowpack
☑️ Warm temps to melt it
☑️ Clear western sky
☑️ Perfect solar angle

📍 Yosemite National Park | Peak window: Feb 18–23