If your dad is anything like the other person who’s also a dad and recently typed this sentence, he thinks there’s too much stuff in the house. As he may have mentioned to mom, who narrowed her eyes and folded her arms, he’d like to rent a truck and get rid of some of it.
So dad probably doesn’t want more things to have; he probably wants more things to do. As an example, Many Glacier Hotel in Montana looks like this:
When it’s not raining or snowing, the back patio looks like this:
Dad probably wouldn’t mind drinking an afternoon beer or a morning coffee on that porch. Or one of each.
National park and state park lodges give you comfort in a relationship with enjoyable effort. You can spend the day hiking and emptying your canister of bear spray, then sit next to the lake and put a bartender to work. If you’re looking for a memorable Father’s Day gift, look around for remarkable places to stay in a dramatic natural setting. Custer State Park Resort in South Dakota. In Texas, the cabins at Palo Duro Canyon State Park, or the privately owned Doves Rest Cabins on the rim of the canyon, though you might want to not make that reservation in summer. In Minnesota, a houseboat at Voyageurs National Park, which you can rent locally. In Wyoming, Jenny Lake Lodge. And so on.
You can usually find gift cards for beautiful places to stay, like Xanterra gift cards for the company that runs lodging at national parks like Yellowstone, Glacier, and the Grand Canyon. The South Dakota state park system sells gift cards, too, which pay for camping reservations, hunting licenses, and access to the parks.
As a final thought on the theme, the cabins at Ross Lake Resort in Washington float on the lake:
Yes, your dad probably wants to sit in one of those chairs that float with a cabin on Ross Lake. He’ll just sit there and stare at the lake, and he’ll be pretty happy about it.
If you’re an adult thinking about a gift for your dad, remember that your dad probably spent your childhood planning and organizing your family vacations. You can do for him what he did for you, and he’ll notice what you’ve done and what it means.
If that’s too much work, for you or for dad, Minor League Baseball is the best outdoor activity that you can do in a city. Stadiums are small and put you near the action, food and beer are usually way-cheaper than the infamous $22 Budweiser at Dodger Stadium, and the teams are much more family-friendly than they are in the Major Leagues.
If doing stuff doesn’t work this year, consider buying your dad a book about a time when the culture wasn’t full of dismal wokeslop and mindless whining.
Alfred Lansing’s brilliant book Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage describes one of the greatest feats of physical toughness outside of combat in the history of the world, and also an accomplishment on the open ocean that demanded astonishing levels of skill and nerve. If you wonder what men can endure and overcome, here’s the answer. It’s an antidote to … whatever bizarre moment of post-manhood this is that we’re currently living through.
Another antidote is David Hackett Fischer’s magnificent book Paul Revere’s Ride, which mostly isn’t about Paul Revere. Fischer describes a world of duty, honor, and mutual respect, sending Revere and others on a ride through towns full of men who shared a common culture and knew how to meet a crisis. The riders spreading the alarm that regular troops were riding out of Boston to disarm the militia “awakened the institutions of New England,” Fischer writes:
As the Lexington militia gathered on the Common, Captain Parker exchanged a few words with each individual. He did so less as their commander than as their neighbor, kinsman, and friend. These sturdy yeomen did not expect to be told what to do by anyone. They were accustomed to judge for themselves. Many were hardworking dairy farmers in a community that was already known as a “milk town” for the Boston market. Their ages ranged from sixteen to sixty-six, but most were mature men in their thirties and forties. They were men of property and independence who served on juries, voted in town meetings, ran the Congregational church, managed their own affairs, and felt beholden to none but the Almighty …
Their minister wrote that the purpose of the muster was first and foremost to “consult what might be done.” They gathered around Captain Parker on the Common, and held an impromptu town meeting in the open air.
Again, a cultural antidote for what currently ails us.
And finally, if travel and books don’t strike you as something your dad would like, the limited edition Laphroaig Cairdeas is a cask-strength single-malt that may be — I’m biased — the most delicious thing on the face of the earth. It’s flavorful, is the gentle way to put it, so skip this if your dad likes gentle sipping whiskey. It’s like drinking raw peet smoke in a howling ocean wind while someone lights your face on fire. I mean, it’s that good.
A lighter and less expensive good American bourbon is Four Roses Single Barrel Kentucky bourbon, a known staff favorite at The Federalist, though some of us are pretty happy to drink the WhistlePig single-barrel 10-year rye.
If you can’t bring yourself to choose, feel free to combine: The Laphroaig Cairdeas on the porch of a good wilderness lodge would be juuuuuust fine, leading to no complaints of any kind.
And Happy Father’s Day, in advance.
