Spence March has long been concerned over whether his kids are getting enough exercise. Four years ago, he enrolled them in a running program. And being a good dad and realizing that kids pay more attention if you practice what you preach, he enrolled with them. It was a good experience for all, but March wasn’t content to let it be a one-time event. Like most parents, March likes the…

In honor of Celebrate North Carolina State Parks weekend, which is this weekend, we cull our recommendations from this weekend’s State Park offerings. Coast 1. Ever see “Little Shop of Horrors” (either the 1960 Roger Korman original or the 1986 Frank Oz remake)? A man-eating plant! How outlandish, you likely thought. Not really, it turns out. OK, so sundews, bladderworts, butterworts, pitcher plants, and the Venus fly trap may not…

A couple weeks ago I mentioned a report from the Center on Everyday Lives of Families at UCLA that found, among other things, that middle class American families have spacious backyards that they rarely use. This got me reminiscing about those halcyon days of my youth on South Boston Court when we did everything from play the World Series and Super Bowl (which hadn’t been invented yet) to tight rope…

As a kid growing up in 1960s suburban America, I played “stadium” baseball, rode intricate routes on my bike, trampolined, played tackle football, engaged in hours-long games of hide-’n’-seek, went sledding played indoor basketball and tightroped. And I did it all without leaving our block. I was reminded of my cul-de-sac-as-adventure-park youth Sunday by a New York Times story on UCLA’s CLEF project. The Center on Everyday Lives of Families…

In the April Outside magazine, I read about stand-up paddleboarding and thought, there’s another crazy thing I’ll never try. Last week, I walked out of Great Outdoor Provision Co. and thought, Man, there’s something I can’t wait to try. The difference perspective makes. Here’s how the Outside article started (quoting from the drop headline): “Masochistic surf kook bent on taming very large stand-up paddleboard seeks Graveyard of the Atlantic for…

The next time you hear someone badmouth all the New Yorkers here, invoke the name of Jessalee Landfried. She’s the reason we’ll get to ride our bikes, free of motorized traffic, over a mile-long loop of downtown Durham streets Sunday afternoon, and she’s only lived here since September. Think about that. In less than nine months, she moved from the Big Apple, started a new job, moved into a new…

Story in today’s The News & Observer about the high cost and other challenges of feeding kids a healthy lunch at school. Healthy food is more expensive — and thus costs the kids/parents more — and because most high schools at least let older kids leave campus over lunch, there’s competition from the outside. I believe McDonald’s Dollar Menu was mentioned. There is one alternative that gets short-shrift in this…

Marcy chuckled at her computer screen. The wife was scouting upcoming runs, triathlons, bike rides — anything that might provide a carrot for getting out and training. “The Grueling Triathlon of Doom,” she said, letting me in on the joke. Grueling Triathlon of Doom? Such truth in advertising, I thought. Triathletes are well-conditioned not to view what they do as “grueling,” nor to entertain notions of “doom.” My mind raced;…

If you’ve ever visited Kids Together Park in Cary, you probably had no idea it was designed back in the mid-1990s as a handicap-accessible park. There are no signs touting the park’s handicap-accessible features, no special section with specially designed equipment. That, says one of the adults responsible for the park’s existence, is by design. “We feel we’ve achieved our goal if no one sees this as a park for…

While fitness and health experts would like you to get an hour’s exercise a day, they’ll tell you that, above all, the key thing is to just move. With that in mind, here are a number of Earth Day “just move” events this weekend. (Yes, technically Earth Day isn’t until Thursday. But Thursday doesn’t fall on a weekend, this Saturday and Sunday happen to.) Most involve a short hike, followed…