A couple of weeks ago Steph, Grant and I went to Utah to visit my family.  I am from Ohio, but bit by bit my entire family has migrated to Utah.  Mom is ecstatic.

On Saturday night we decided to climb Timp.  Everyone was invited.  The group who went was: Steph, my sister Catherine, Steph's Sister Kim, Kim's boyfriend (and soon-to-be fiance!)


David was about to come, but this happened:

We started climbing too early, or we climbed too fast.  We got to the top of the mountain at four in the morning.  It was freezing cold when we got there, so we huddled in the tiny shack on top of the mountain and waited for the sun to rise.

Good times!

Got up this morning and went for a bike ride at five.  It was dark until about ten to six.  Good clean fun.

Yesterday Steph and I cut down some branches from a tree that was brushing up against the eaves of our house.  What we should have done was rent a chainsaw for a couple of hours and chop the tree down that way.  Instead, we bought a handsaw and climbed the tree and cut the limbs down that way.  More exercise.

Here is what our porch looked like afterwards.  The gaping hole in the roof was there before, and was caused by someone trying to patch the metal roof by laying a piece of plywood on top.  (note to self)

Steph and I are planning on fixing this porch area.  We really have no idea how we should do this, but I think the first step will be to clearly find out how extensive the water damage is to the porch.  This will likely involve some deconstruction of the porch, getting the roof off, etc.

This is a side view of our front porch.  You can see I patched this one up as well.  It is really just a patch though, to prevent cats and things from coming into the porch area thorough the gaping crack.  Eventually Steph and I are going to have to fix this porch as well... probably by tearing it down and building a new one in its place.

This is Bill writing.

I woke up this morning at 5:00 to go for a bike ride.  It was waaaay to early, so I went back to bed for an hour.  At six o clock I dressed in spandex and rode to Montrose. It had been raining all night long, and the clouds were low and ragged.  Foggy and cool.  

The Mississippi is pretty slow moving and flat where I ride, and there are acres of lily pads along the shore.

A few leaves have started to change.  Fall is coming.

I am feeling a little frustrated with where I am.  I want to be great at something, instead of tolerably good at a lot of things.  In order to do something very well, you have to do it intensely.  That is why I woke up at five... to start being intense.  But instead I went back to sleep.

That is ok.  I will be intense tomorrow morning.