Yes, you are in the right place. This is Susan's blog. Hopefully the new format will be more user-friendly.

Note- all the pictures except this one are of our jeeping trip on Friday. The rest of the events recounted in this post all contained the potential for some priceless pictures, but your blogger could never seem to be able to remember her camera, except for on Friday.



Hello to my friends, family, and readers. As I was typing that line, I wished there was a name that would include all three of those, so it would read more smoothly... Hello to my freaders? framers? framlers? ok, enough.

It is another idyllic mountain morning two thousand feet below treeline, the sun bouncing around the thin atmosphere like it owns the place, shadows chilly, birds happy. Beads of water gathered on my patio table from last night's showers. Bobby and I went for a nine mile bike ride last night, back into the ranch, and were forced to take cover under a bunch of beetle-killed trees that had toppled into each other, forming a sort of teepee that kept us less than soaked, if not dry, as a "toad strangler" moved through. It was gone as soon as it started, leaving the ground slippery and little ice-pellets littered about, but we continued our ride anyway. I got lots of little bits of gravel flung into my face, and since I was panting on the uphills, into my teeth. Nothing is more disgusting than munching on gravel. We were dripping sweat, remembering why we do not ever want to live where it is humid, and the mosquitoes had a field day. But it was still fun. B and I almost never get to ride together anymore. I took several people on bike rides this last week, but they rode Bobby's bike while he was at work. We got back home covered in mud, undressed in front of the washing machine, and put our clothes in it to save the rest of the house. Our bikes will need a good hosing-down and greasing this morning.

We have been having a bit of company this week. It has been entertaining, but unfortunately the work does not stop when it is unhandy for us to do it, so we have been cramming our schedules full of both work and family. It would have been lovely to just be able to take all the time we wanted to spend with the family, and leave our clients to fend for themselves. But that is why we wanted to host this year's Kenneth and Luella Koehn family reunion- B's dad's family. The last one, held in Swan River, Manitoba, B and I had to skip altogether.

So the reunion was scheduled to start last Saturday, but everyone had already arrived by Friday night. We procured lodging for everyone for one night, until the house we had rented was available the next day. Just as all of B's family was arriving, Uncle Leroy called to say he was in Georgetown, just on the other side of the divide. It was almost too much excitement. We went out to dinner at Dos Locos, the bar and Mexican restaurant in Keystone, and met Leroy at our house after we had returned, just in time to grab our suits and head for the hot tubs in Keystone. Those of us so inclined spent several house simmering, then took our wet selves back home for showers. Wendell and Leroy stayed here for the night, and we betook ourselves to bed in the wee hours of the next morning, after both the Blue Moon Ale and the conversation had been abused to the point of exhaustion.

I got to take Leroy on a bike ride on one of my trails before he left the next day. It always makes my day when I can get someone talked into riding with me.

Saturday, the reunion commenced without me (who would have thought?) as I was at work. In the evening, B and I showed up for burgers and baked beans, hot tub, and the poker game that would not end. Oh, it ended for me, and early, after I went all-in on a bluff that was promptly met, but Bobby, a much more conservative player, just kept gaining and losing chips in small increments until long after the bedroom doors had been closed and the voices lowered.

It was mostly the same story the next three days. The group of twenty-somethings made their rounds from the pool table in the basement, to eating, to playing card or board (bored) games, to eating, to an occasional walk, to chasing kids, mopping tears and snot, changing diapers and taking them potty and realizing the futility of naptime, to the hot tub, to the pool table, to eating...

We did trade with Marci two days, one day she got off, the next day we did. On the morning we had off, we loaded up ten bikes in our covered utility trailer, and twelve people in two vehicles, and took the whole lot to the top of Vail Pass. After unloading, sorting out bikes and gear, and adjusting seat posts, the whole lot of us took off down the bike path, twelve miles downhill to Frisco, where our drivers were waiting for us. It was a good activity for lowlanders, since no physical exertion was necessary, even though the bikes we provided generated a bit of whining about sore posteriors. Ya see, a bikepath cruiser, which was what most were riding, has a wide, cushy seat, one capable of bearing one's entire weight for miles without causing saddle-sores. A mountain bike, on the other hand, has a narrow, hard seat, only designed to bear one's weight on an uphill climb. Narrow enough to allow one to slide behind it, push it into one's stomach on a downhill, hang one's bum a few inches over the back wheel. It allows one to keep one's weight far enough back that one won't dive over the handlebars should one ride off of a ledge, get caught in the tree roots, or hit a stream bed. And so that one can bail off the back of the bike without a moment's delay in the event of, say, a bear on the trail. But nobody on that particular ride was too concerned with any of the before mentioned hazards and obstacles, so the hard, narrow seats on the three mountain bikes we provided were cause for much complaining, and some spraddle-legged gaits upon dismounting in Frisco.

We vacated the rental house on Tuesday morning, and cleaned it for the next arriving guests. Since we had to reserve a whole week, and were only planning on using it for three days, we had sold off the remaining four days to my cousin Brian, for his wife Sam's family reunion.

Jay and Wendy moved to our house for the rest of the week, since they had committed to staying until Friday, to meet one of her friends in Breck Friday morning. Malindy and her husband Jeff are hiking through Colorado this summer, two months on the Colorado Trail, and had arranged for Jay and Wendy to meet them with a resupply package on Friday. As it turned out, they made it here two days earlier than planned, as a result of twenty miles a day instead of fourteen as planned, so they had two days to hang out, sleep indoors, and shower before hitting the trail again. We invited them to our house in the meantime.

On Friday, we planned a day with Brian and Sam. As soon as we had said goodbye to Jay and Wendy, Jeff and Malindy, the four of us (Brian, Sam, B and I) piled into the topless jeep drove up to the little town of Montezuma, 10,500 feet, and hit the uphill Saints John road. We ground our way through the ghost town of Saints John, past abandoned mines and mining cabins, to the top of Glacier Mountain, where several herds of mountain goats were waiting, posed on top of rocks, beside cabins, curious and tame. From the top, we took the Middle Fork of the Swan down to Breckenridge, and long, bouncing descent, much of it merging with a stream. We stopped to give several mountain bikers directions to the Colorado Trail, and stopped again at the old dredge boat floating in the pond in Horseshoe Gulch. By the time we made Downstairs at Erics, the best pizza in Breck, we were some hungry, sunbaked, dehydrated little people. (Even though we always take plenty of water, just the act of drinking it on such rough roads can get one soaked enough to want to choose dehydration over being hydrated inside and out)

After we dropped Brian and Sam off with their family, B and I did something strange for us- we did something while we were doing nothing. We killed off an evening like time was something we had, and work was not something we were worried about. We shopped for a pair of sunglasses for me (didn't buy anything though. After I had tried on a pair for $170, I got discouraged because nothing cheaper felt as wonderful on my face, and did not have the wonderful lenses that sharpened every detail, barely dimming my world, while cutting out the squint-causing glare, and I just can't bring myself to pay that much for something so easily destructible, and if I can't have those, I don't want new ones at all, so there).

Then we got ice cream. I figured, I had already blown my no dairy rule with pizza at lunch, may as well binge while I was at it. Bobby said if we were binging, he would rather have a soda than ice cream, so we detoured by the convenience store. And no sooner than I had sunk my spoon into my cappuccino-heath blizzard than he swung the jeep into the trailhead to the Old Dillon Reservoir.

We have just discovered, after living here for five years, that there is a 10-acre reservoir on top of the hill between the Dam Road and I70, filled by reverse-siphon from the mountain on the other side of the interstate. It supplied the old town of Dillon with water until the old town of Dillon was moved to a higher location to make way for the present, massive reservoir that now waters the town of Denver.

Not that our delightful discovery does us any good. It was just announced, just a few months after negotiations had begun to expand it, that it will be drained immediately. Apparently earthen dams are on the radar lately, leading to the closing of the road across the earthen dam that separates Lake Dillon from the town of Silverthorne below it, to the outrage of the 8,500 people who drive across it every day. The closure of the Dam Road also means the closure of one of the only three east-west routes in the county, leaving only the interstate, frequently closed, scary dangerous, clogged and bottlenecked enough with tourists and through commercial traffic without local commuters being forced to add to the problem, and Swan Mountain Road, with it's 30 mph speed limit, constant bicycle traffic, hairpin turns and no shoulders. The Dam Road has now reopened with restrictions, but nobody expects it to last.

But the tiny mound of dirt on on top of the hill, holding back the 10-acre reservoir stocked with trout and accessible only by footpath, has also been deemed unsafe, in part because the beetle-killed trees growing on it have weakened it and, when falling over, take some of it with them. So with ice cream in hand, we took our hello-goodbye hike up there. It is a darling little lake, with a wonderful view. We stood and looked over the new Dillon Reservoir and wished for a boat. I am afraid my B will just never be happy unless he has a means to be on the water. We decided just a canoe would do it for us, just something to paddle around it, rock on the waves, hear them slapping against. But it wasn't long until the canoe idea had morphed (in his mind) into a small boat with an engine, and old one. But then the whole idea got dropped when his wife reminded him that anything that needed to be towed would need to be parked, to the tune of $50 a month, so if it was worth $50 a month, it should be worth more than what we would pay to park it for a year or two. Practical women are the downfall for many a good idea.

Binging on dairy products before hiking was as bad a choice as hiking in flip-flops, but it was still a good little jaunt. From there, we drove to Wal-mart, because my stopwatch had stopped working that afternoon, and my left wrist felt naked and I kept looking at it and trying to read time on a nonexistant watch. B bought me another cheap stopwatch, made in China, with a green nylon and velcro band.

We drove home under a bright pink sunset, more relaxed than in a long time, and this one was thankful to be there, paying dearly for her day of dairy (don't ask)

On Sunday, we went to church and reconnected with all of our local friends (since that IS the main reason for going to church, right? Oh, right. God is a local friend, too.), caught up on all the comings and goings of these crazy outdoorsy people who are loving summer, as busy as us, but still find the time to mountain bike Pikes Peak, take river trips and camping trips and backpacking trips. And as soon as I got out of there, I checked my phone for missed calls and saw one from Grandpa Weldo. When I called them back, they were just coming past the Frisco exit, on their way back from visiting Uncle Dalin's family in Eagle for the weekend. I flipped a U-ie on Highway 6 and sped back to my house, to meet them there and show them the house, say hi and bye and how-are-ya. They only stayed about twenty minutes, since they were in a hurry to get on the road, but it was good to see them.

And now tis monday. The crazy week is behind us. No plans for company. What ever shall we do with ourselves?

Hello from the land of wildflowers and afternoon showers. Even as I type, I hear the inevitable grumble of thunder... or is it an airplane? Oh, right. It's an airplane. But never mind, the thunder will grumble presently.

I am sitting on my "new" front porch, newly restained but still warped and splintered, at my actually new patio table. Oh, I love wireless internet. My plan is to go for a bike ride shortly, and to be back by the time BBD has to go to Denver. Our boss is leaving for Japan in a week, so Bobby and Marci will be driving down to his house this afternoon to get instructions on how to reset our server, located in his house, if it turns itself off while he is away. I am hoping I have given the trails enough time to dry since tghe rain last night. Thursday is the next Diva's ride, so I will not be riding between now and then, so my legs can be nice and fresh. Those women could kill me on the uphills.

I did ride this morning, for the first time in about a week. First the rain, then company, then work, then more rain...I took the whispering pines trailhead- the closest trailhead to my house-back into the back ranch system. I ended up on highway nine, by Breckenridge, and had to do a little road riding to get back to a trail which would take be back home.

There are two trails notoriously tricky and technical for mountain bikers just outside my door, and I try to work them both into a ride, since the ranch system is conducive to riding loops. One is the Blair Witch trail, a dry, sandy trail, littered with needles fallen from dead lodgepole pine trees. The lodgepole pines all look more or less the same, and the trail winds and doubles back on itself and twists, and wherever a dead tree has fallen across the trail, instead of moving it, riders have merely lain piles of logs beside and over it, so the men may be separated from the boys. The men will ride over the piles of logs, but the lesser men fear a nose dive, and endo, do not trust their bikes to take the shock, and stop to walk over them. The first couple of times I rode it, I chose the walking route, but I have since come to discover that while my shocks may not be able to take a fourteen foot drop out of the keystone drop zones, (never been tried) or even a three foot drop off a log drop on the top of keystone's "cowboy up" trail, (been tried), they can certainly take anything I subject them to on the ground. I have also stopped fearing the mightly endo, since I have several of them behind me, with minimal injury except to ego. So I hit the piles of logs. New this year, I have also stopped walking two by six plank bridges. It is all in one's head. One can ride a six-inch wide trail for miles, never veering out of it, but when one does not have the option, because the trail is now a plank over water and rocks, one tends to freak out and inevitably fall off and down into the stream. I have decided to not accept falling off as an option, and ignore the fact that I am on a bridge. It seems to work. I discovered last year that speed in an eight-inch wide, four inch deep trail was possible if I focused on the trail six to eight feet ahead of me rather than under my front wheel, and gave nary a thought to the trail immediately under me. That was the day I began to love mountain biking. Expanding that strategy to bridges has worked wonders.

The other is the Mushroom trail. I do not know why it is named the mushroom trail, since I have not seen any mushrooms along it, but it is a tight, narrow, winding trail through a much greener forest than the Blair Witch trail. One must time their pedaling so as not to scrape the rocks on the trail, and one's must be fairly comfortable with one's handlebars, so one does not wrap one around a tree. it is the perfect end to a ride, because it coasts down into Summit Cove. When one is too exhausted to think about tackling another climb, but is not ready to put the bike away just yet, they can take the Mushroom trail down and enjoy a technical, narrow, slow trail all the way down.

I love my bike.

Do not get me wrong, I love my little purple and brown Gnu snowboard. It has gotten me down some amazing terrain. It has sustained injuries to it's metal edges that would have caused a less loyal (or less broke) rider to replace it. It's wood and fiberglass core has lost some camber, it has nearly outlived two sets of bindings, and it still takes me down the most amazing runs, allows me to keep pace with friends who frequent those runs.

And I love my new Volkyl Attivas. The blue and white skis, the shiny new boots that in no way look like rentals, the new poles. They are a new love, so far limiting the terrain I can experience, throwing curves at me, new and unfamiliar. With them, the frontside runs that I have done a thousand times and know by heart on my snowboard become new and somewhat menacing. I cannot jump off cornices, I must slow down for turns, I do not dare to go in the trees. I have poles to be mindful of, where to plant them, to make each turn a neat arc around them. I refuse to do the "texas swing" with my shoulders, and try to force my hips and legs to move while keeping my upper body calm, the way I see skiers do who know what they are doing. Every day on the Volkyls is a learning experience. And I love it.

And I love my cross-country skis. All the freedom, the thrill of the downhill, but without being tethered to a lift. Hiking trails now open to winter access. They kick my butt, throw me face-first into the crusted snow, they are the trickiest to control, but allow me to ski in the great white stillness that is unmotorised trail usage n the winter. I come home awed, humbled, scratched, bruised, and sore, and can't wait to go out again every time I return from a cross-country ski jaunt.

And running, well, nothing is like running. I love it, but I hate it. It is pure endurance, pain, but so conducive to introspection. And the accomplishment one feels after a run by far overshadows the accomplishment one feels after other sorts of exercise. Running puts one into an instant club. No contraptions, no noise, just feet on a trail or on the pavement. One can run in a sports bra and no one thinks twice about it. Other runners suddenly become chatty. It is universally assumed that when one runs, they are training for something. What is it, a marathon, triathlon? Big race? And that just makes them instantly cool.

But nothing i own for fun, and I do mean nothing, is as beloved as my little Stumpjumper. From the moment I hit the saddle, till I unclip and dismount, sore and happy, it is where I want to be. The click of the gears, the feel of the handlebars, two fingers on each brake lever, pedals attached to shoes, shoulders low and relaxed... it feels familiar. it feels good. It feels like summer. It feels like good memories. It feels healthy and invincible. Bobby asked me a very serious question the other day, which I liked more- him, my new house, or my bike. Well, of course i like him best, but after that, I was a little bit stumped. He gave me a priceless look when I finally decided on the bike over the house that he has put so much time and effort and money into. I hastened to explain that I did love the house, yes. It's more than I asked for. But a house is a necessity, and a bike is a luxury, so I was free to love them in different ways. He was kinda obligated to find me a place to live, but he bought me a bike, which I didn't need, and even though it was a smaller purchase, it was worth more, ounce for ounce, than the house in brownie points. And I don't clean house to escape from my bike, but I do ride my bike to get out of the house.

Which is why right now, I am in my element. I am completely in love with the mountains, the trails, the weather. My contentment level right now is extremely high. It is mountain bike season.

Oh wow, reading back over this I sound pretty gonzo, don't I? That's not to say that I am. I have never climbed a fourteener. I don't kayak. I don't road bike. And I have never competed. Competing turns a bike rider into a biker, someone who runs into a runner, and so forth. Sure, I can run the distances they do, but not in the time they do. I feel like my life is like that- all the ingredients are there, but it'll never make a cake. Not that I mind so much. It's ok that my life remains without commitment, that I can enjoy a healthy lifestyle without any pressure. Maybe in a few summers, if I still have no kids and I work at it enough, I can be on a mountian bike team or something, but for now, I am just out on the trails doing my thing, and it's good. Although the thought of sponsors is certainly a rosy one...

Blah, blah... a blogger can certainly be a bore sometimes. I type what I am thinking at the moment, which can be centered around me quite often. But I almost feel I do not have freedom to write about anyone but me... so I am sorry that you have just had to slog though all the things I do to entertain myself.

Laci and Terra were here over the 4th of July weekend. We spent the 4th shopping the outlets. We had an al fresco lunch at the Grill by our office, in which I ordered a twelve inch pizza to feed me for the next two days... and ate all but one slice in one setting. Oh, I feel a little embarrassed about that. I tell myself that the fact that it was marinara sauce and tomatoes on a wafer-thin crust, lacking it's usual layer of cheese, that made it less filling than it looked, but I fear the truth is, I have just never eaten "like a bird". When the metabolism stops metabolizing at the rate it does now, I shall have to face the fact that I am actually a pig. Anyway, it was strange that the entire seven slices plus two glasses of water never did make me miserable. In fact, after a sun-baked, windblown afternoon of shopping, walking between outlet villages, driving in a windy, topless, windowless jeep, I was hungry again.

We grilled hamburgers, brats, and garbanzo bean veggieburgers, made pasta salad, and opened bags of corn chips for dinner, and just as soon as we had crammed down all we could hold, all piled into my jeep, sans it's top and doors, with our jackets and do-rags, and made our way to Frisco. Of course, no parking could be found. The first spot we located was about a mile from the marina, not a big deal since there was a bikepath that connected us with the marina. We ended up bushwhacking through a meadow, however, since a portion of the bikepath was closed, in the area where the fireworks would be launched from. Halfway there, Bobby went back for the jeep and illegally parked it much closer to the Marina, on a curb angled for a fast getaway. We met at the marina at darkish, the five of us trying to keep track of each other. Finally, we located a spot of grass along the water's edge, and settled in for the fireworks.

Fireworks always seem to disappoint me these days. They are never as loud, never as big as they used to be. Oh, well. I clapped and ooh'd and ahh'd and cheered like as if it was the coolest thing ever, to the point of drawing a glare from poor B. After the grand finale, we bolted to our feet and joined the jostling sea of boozy-breathed people and tangled dog leashes, pushed and shoved our way through, climbed into the jeep without taking the time to open doors, and before we were even all seated, Bobby had thrown it into gear and was bouncing off the curb and onto the highway. And we were lucky. We beat the traffic jam. There were 22,000 some more people in the county this 4th than last 4th. It was like Christmas-New Years in the middle of summer. As we drove back to our house along Swan Mountain Road, we could see down on the interstate and Dam road. They were both parking lots, unbroken strings of red lights, sitting still.

(a week later) hmmm. That's where it ended. I must have gotten distracted.

Our thoughts and prayers are with Aunt Margie's family. (I think she passed away on the morning I was writing this). I felt a little guilty posting it that day, prattling on as i was about all the fun I'm having, while others in the family were in the process of losing so much, and Aunt Margie was in the process of gaining so much.

Wow. What a reunion it is getting to be, Over There. Lately, Grandpa and Grandma have been doing a lot of welcoming, but it has been younger people, people they did not grow up with. Now, it can be someone they knew for a long time. They must be so happy to get to see Aunt Margie. Funny, how one fears that transition less and less, the more people over there that they know and love and miss. Honestly, I do not want to give people the wrong idea, because I am nowhere near being finished with my life, in fact I am a LONG way from being tired of living, but it makes me feel just a twinge of jealousy. I want to see them too.

It seems like the gulf gets smaller the more we lose to it. People who have never been more than a phone call away, still feel like the phone call we never make away. It still feels like if I just had the right number, I could call Michelle or Grandma and have them tell me about it.

And to all my family who I haven't lost yet, I want to say this to you. You rock. I love you. Every crazy, deviant, funny, sweet, beautiful one of you. Especially the dysfunctional, honest, human ones. I love having roots in such a diverse group, and getting to call you family is an honor. (And to those few I'm not actually related to- hey, I call you family too.)

I know that to say I haven't lost you yet may sound morbid, but if this year has taught me anything, it's that we lose those we love. Whether it's you or me that gets to move on, one of us will before the other one, and if it's you, I don't want to leave my last paragraph unsaid.

Cheers, me

Hi to all my peoples again...
Wow, hawaii seems like a long time ago. I may have sat down long enough to check my email about four times since then, and my computer has laid on the coffee table and gathered dust in the meantime. When we got home, we had three days until we closed on our "new" house, and in those three days we told ourselves we should just relax, get a few things done, and prepare for being really busy. I didn't do laundry (should have) I didnt cook ahead (should have) but I did go to the basin and get one last day in on my snowboard. Well, not an entire day because the weather did not cooperate and threw little stinging balls of sleet at me until I gave in and went home. Seems like every time I take the time in May to go up to the basin and make a few turns, that is what happens. It can be toasty warm every other day, people skiing shirtless, barbeque grills and sunburns, but the day I go up, the clouds build, the coats and neck gaters come out, and I finally have to concede defeat because if I'm going to be riding on corn and ice, it had better be on a nice day, or it just isnt worth it. I returned home and watched tv, catching up on all the shows I had recorded to watch before we lost our DVR box when we moved out.

And then, on the 27th of May, we met the seller, gave her a check that pretty much cleaned us out, and I spent the rest of the day removing popcorn from the kitchen ceiling. It had been painted over, and painted over, and painted over until it was cemented to the ceiling, I discovered. The only way to get under it to scrape it off was to knock off the tops of the "popcorns", soak it with water from a spray bottle, wait a minute while it softened, then chip at it with only slightly more success than before. I spent about ten hours on the kitchen ceiling, skylight, and utility ceiling before calling it quits on the rest of the house. That night, my shoulder cramped up so bad I was nearly in tears, and BBD wanted to be mad at me that I had undertaken such a job in the first place, since popcorn on the ceiling was not something that one simply couldn't live around, unlike unfinished walls and lack of flooring and filthy, decrepit appliances. he couldn't be too upset though, because I was already furious at the ceiling that was almost to get the better of me.

I finished the ceiling the next day and cleaned up the mess, and we began painting. The people who lived here before us had begun texturing over the dark brown panel walls, but had given up before they were finished and just painted the rest of them, so I got out the sheetrock mud and began filling the grooves. We got a little help painting from Amber and Scarlett and Marci, and the walls that did not require mud were soon a warm, yellowey color. We tore out the remaining carpet, holding our breath as the pad beneath disolved into yellow dust and all the stink hiding under it was exposed to fresh air. Tore up linoleum. That night, after our help had gone home, Bobby got out the fireplace poker (because his crowbar was at home) and began prying up the countertops. After that, I don't really remember all the details, i only know we ripped, we mudded, we textured, we painted. then we made our first trip to denver for materials. We tried three U-haul places for a trailer, to no avail, before BBD got really frusterated, mashed on the gas pedal, and drove decisively to the trailer-sellin place, where he wrote an ill-afforded check for a 6x12 utility trailer. Our days of dealing with u-haul are over, thank goodness. We took the trailer to Lowe's and Home depot, and loaded it up with carpet, vinyl flooring, more paint, more mud, wood trim, wood for the countertops, and formica to laminate the countertops with. More foggy details followed. Cutting, sawing, pounding, hammering, measuring. We decided to save a little money and not replace the painted-over oak cabinets, instead I sanded the edges to give them an antique, distressed look. A floating plank-vinyl floor went in, then carpet. I was going to wait with the lighting until my dad came up, since he's the electrician, not me, but I got so excited seeing it all come together that I could not wait. I unwrapped just one fixture... just to see it... but seeing it on the countertop was not enough, so I climbed up on a chair and installed it... then another one... and another one.... then the chandeleir... until they were all up. And after BBD ironed and stretched the last of the carpet, and the vinyl floor was close enough to finished to be livable, we hooked up the trailer again, went to denver, and loaded it with two couches, a table, chairs, barstools, a used fridge, a used dishwasher, a new stove, switch and outlet covers, vent covers, more lights, a ceiling fan. Bathroom fans. A tv stand. The next morning, we unloaded it all into the house with only one major glitch. We had measured the couch and knew it would fit through the door only it we turned it on end and swiveled it through. we did not however realize that a trailer house door may be a bit shorter than a regular house door. We pushed and grunted and angled it and staightened it until our fingers were raw from handling it before conceding defeat and getting out the wrecking tools. When we had the screen door, door, and door frame torn out down to the two by sixes in the wall around it, the couch finally fit. We decided a new door would be nice, anyway, after all that, so we did not bother replacing everything we took out and now, after dark, a generous shaft of moonlight shines in around it.

Finally, it is livable. The bathrooms still need the same treatment the rest of the house got, but they are usable as they are. We removed the woodstove from the corner of the living room and before winter, will install one that meets EPA standards and is capable of heating the whole house. We still need to decide what we will do for a vent over the kitchen range, and in a year or two, might buy a fridge and dishwasher that matches the rest of the kitchen. All the trim needs installed, and the windows are a little drafty, although with free heat from the woodstove that will not be a huge issue between now and when we have the fundilation to replace them. BBD agreed to install crown molding around the tops of the kitchen cabinets, since that was the one completely useless fancy detail I fixated on. It is far from finished, but it is already home in a way that the house on Bighorn Circle never was. We live here. Alone. And it's a house that we own. We got the title in the mail a week ago. Our touches are everywhere, everything is personalized to us. Every surface in this house has changed in some way, and it was our hands that did the changing. And even better, we are living inside these four walls that bear our mark for the same amount of money that some people here pay to be a roommate in someone else's house. We bounce around three bedrooms and two bathrooms for a less than half of what we were paying to share four bedrooms and three bathrooms with as many as seven people.

I almost have to gulp sometimes when i reflect on how things have worked out for us. Was it only a few months ago I was praying, penciling, calculating, even having conversations with BBD about our options for when we were forced to move out of Summit County? When we realized that we would need to be moving, and that rent had increased at the same rate as real estate in the two years we had been living at Bighorn Circle, we had almost convinced ourselves to sell our souls to a half-million dollar mortgage. The house that we rented for $2,200 a month would be re-renting for closer to $3,000. A three bedroom, two bath is now renting for almost what we were paying for our four-bedroom, three and a half bath. The mortgage payments seemed almost doable in the light of that sort of rent increase, as long as an economic collapse didnt happen. we even looked at some houses for sale. We had been told by an evicted former resident of this park that no new homes were being allowed in here, and the old ones were being phased out in favor of developing the land it sits on into two-hundred-thousand dollar homesites, so we did not even consider it an option until, in the process of beating the bushes for housing, we realized that there were actually quite a few new homes going in here. So we stopped and asked, and were told that no development was in the plan, in fact the owners of the park are bringing in about ten new trailers a year just to sell once they get them set. We began to think that the payments on a new double-wide would be more affordable than the payments on a house and land. The fact that we live in a trailer park really is not an issue at all for us, since this is, after all, summit county. Even the trailer parks here are beautified and covenant protected. And then one day, long after we had given up on being called back on an older trailer we had called about, the lady called us back, and all the pieces tumbled into place. We almost have to wonder if this is exactly where we are meant to be. It feels like an answer to prayer. We have no right to be able to live in such a place for so little, and we feel a little guilty, because many of our friends up here were not as lucky as us and still have mortgages. I remember being nearly in tears as the one-bedroom cabin in Montezuma rented, the two-bedroom in Silverthorne, the condo in Keystone, the townhouse in Frisco, all rented before we could get our names on the lease. I remember wanting to scream, I was so sure we would end up in half the place we wanted, for more money than we could afford. I wanted to run ahead and get something NOW, so that wouldn't happen. But once again, I have been humbled and reminded that when the timing is right, everything will be better than it could have possibly been had I run ahead of myself.

Living in Summit County is about living hand-to-mouth, in debt, as one's trade-off to being smack dab in the middle of world class skiing and some of the most beautiful mountains one can find without getting far off the beaten track. It is about somehow managing a half-million dollar mortgage on three poorly-paying jobs and never even having the time to enjoy one's surroundings. Carrying a bicycle and a kayak on top of one's car all winter because one has nowhere to store them. Having the bicycle on top of the car cost more than the car itself. Leaving the car parked in the free skiier parking and taking the bus home because even if you hadn't spent the money on beer that you should have spent on gas, and are now unfit to drive it home, you still feel that the money went to the better cause. Helping the rich get richer, helping them buy their third vacation home while you beg them to allow you to clean it in your free time and hope they remember to pay you and do not find some issue with the job you did and use that excuse not to pay you. For some, it is about helping a friend pay their rent in exchange for the priviledge of sleeping on their couch, or even in a utility trailer in their backyard, and turning complimentary ketchup packets into tomato soup on a bunson burner. There is a reason that the population in this county is a revolving one. And I am almost wondering if, in having everything fall into place as it has, we are being given the message that we are supposed to stay here, at least for the time being, because of some thing in our future that we do not know about yet.

My mom and dad came up here over father's day weekend to help us move. we actually had most of our stuff moved already, but the house on Bighorn still needed to have a thorough scrubbing. The walls had suffered in the two years we lived there, with such a revolving door of roommates and company, and many of them needed repainted. The day mom and dad were here, we spent in Bighorn, scrubbing and scouring and shining and spiffing and moving furniture and fluffing couch cushions and chasing cobwebs, in the hopes that we can collect most of our deposit. we took time off at noon to make a quick trip to Frisco, for the Frisco barbeque- the entire main street in Frisco becomes home for two days to a couple hundred vendors, all selling smoked meats and competing for the $15,000 grand prize for all-round best food. There was a boot-scootin band in the park, sunburns and greasy fingers abounded. Even Brother Nathaniel was there, waving his "Got Hope?" sign and gettin jiggy. There was so much meat, and so many people like me (i assume) who do not eat meat on a regular basis, that all the lines for smoked veggies were rediculously long. I waited and waited for smoked asparagus and when I finally got to the front of the line, it was gone. Oh, well. I sipped a high-fructose corn syrup and mango smoothie and gnawed on a drumstick like a good little omnivore.

Bobby spent the next two days painting, we hired a carpet cleaning company to restore the plush white carpets back to their original plushy whiteness. Finally, we are done with Bighorn. We had some good times there, but it was still nice to let it go. It was such a big house, it never entirely felt like home.

Before they left, dad wired in new ceiling fan (something I felt very underqualified to tackle) and mom and I took a walk. Did I mention that I live right on the edge of summit county mountain-bike central now? I am a quarter mile from the Colorado Trail, the volunteer maintained trail the stretches from Denver to Durango, and there is a regular spider-web of trails that are known as the "back ranch", accessible from the trailhead right outside my door. The new swan mountain recpath winds across the hillside just above me. We have a big, sunny, south-facing deck where we sit and eat our cereal in the morning because it is warmer than inside the house. We are suddenly geared to outdoor living, with everything we need just a few steps from the couch. Anyway, we took a walk, wound back through the trees that surround Swan Meadow, before they left. Then Bobby and I got out our bikes and went for our first bike ride of the season, on the same trail. It is finally dry. When we got home, I left BBD there and kept riding, up the recpath to another trail I discovered which took me to the top of a ridge above our place. There are a lot of wild rose bushes up there. Some day, I am going to sneak up there and dig just a few, from between the wheel tracks where they wil just get killed if I leave them there, and transplant them to my yard. And so began our biking season. The next day, i biked to work, then a friend gave me a ride home so my legs would be fresh enough to ride the trails with her that night. I rode with her and her husband, around the ranch, walking through the water still running down from the high country. And tonight, I am planing on meeting the Mountain Sports Outlet Divas for a ride on Oro Grande trail, their first ride of the season. In a few weeks, maybe Keystone Mountain will even be dry enough to ride up, even though it is a construction zone right now. A new Gondola is being installed by a massive helicopter, hovering and lowering towers into place to the tune of $12,000 an hour (i heard). Apparently, keystone plans on hauling up a few paying customers to pay for that.

And now, i must run. I am meeting Bobby and a couple we used to know in Kansas for lunch at the Red Mountain Grill, the restaurant beside our office. Another reason to love summer- kansas people occasionally pass through and want to see us.

Photos- 1-the beachfront walkway I have now pounded up and down almost every morning this week
2-more of the beachfront run

Day eleven, I sneaked out of the house again, this time at five thirty, for my run. i stealthily dressed in clothes laid out in the hallway the night before, beat the sprinklers across the lawn, and ran to Wailea by way of the road, prefering pavement to sand for a change. I ran horribly that morning, dehydrated since I had not drank much the night before, but the sunrise was beautiful. I watched the sun crawl over the edge of Haleakala, at the same time watching it's new, pink light slide down the islands of Kahoolawe (the uninhabitable island visible from Maui- it has too many unexploded land mines leftover from WWII on the island in in the surrounding water) and Molokini. I ran back along the beach, not listening to my ipod, instead trying to imprint the whole sensation, the waves, the breeze, the sunrise, into my mind, since this woulod be my last run. I got back to the condo, and noticed a few things amiss... BBD's running shoes were out on the lanai, the door was open, the lights were on... I went inside, and he seemed a little squiffy. Apparently, he had not noticed when I got up, but woke up shortly after and impulsively decided to do the one thing that always builds instant brownie points with me- join me on my run. since I had not turned on lights and crashed around getting ready and putting on my shoes and filling my water pack, he thought I must still be in the condo, and when he saw I was gone, he grabbed his clothes, tied his shoes, and tore out the door after me, running along the path I had described to him and never seeing me (because I was up on the road). After a mile of running on the sand beach, he decided he would not catch me, and returned home. I felt terrible after I heard his story. I had begged him the night before to go with me, just once, but I never thought he actually would. I told him i would do anything he wanted the rest of the day, to make up for it. We had by then heard that Turtle Town, a highlight of the snorkel tour, was actually only about a quarter mile offshore (if even. I have no concept of distance over water.), so he smeared on about a quart of sunscreen and i donned long shorts and a long sleeved, turtleneck surf shirt. (I try to avaid sunscreen whenever possible, because of how sick it makes me feel. I must be sensitive to an ingredient, because at the end of the day I have more energy and less raw skin if I just wear clothes instead of sunblock) and we splashed out from Wailea Beach in search of turtles. When I say turtles, I am talking about those huge, green sea turtles in Finding Nemo (for example), with flipper feet, about three to five feet across, huge and rare. We swam out until we reached a coral shelf with deep, inviting caves beneath it, and saw nothing. We hung around, swam in circles, peering down into the murk, and nothing. Finally, feering we had come all this way for nothing, we began lazily paddling back to shore, when Bobby grabbed my arm and began gesturing wildly, and there, swimming beside us, head stuck out of the water as he checked out the activity, was a turtle.

Now, for those of you who might not understand, turtles are kinda my thing. When BBD caught on to this, he began buying me turtles, fuzzy stuffed ones, from everywhere he went without me. I gave them names like Edgar and Otto, very cool turtle names. (then he married me, so turtles ceased to be necessary) My enthusiasm for all things turtle has rubbed off on him, and he claimed, as soon as he got there, that he would not be leaving without swimming with a turtle. And these are no ordinary turtles. They are a symbol of Hawaii. They are huge and beautiful and protected, and they command respect. They are old, one knows by their size. Did you know that a turtle does not die of old age? Their cells regenerate differently than ours do. They grow old, but as far as lifespan is concerned, they could be ageless. They die instead of encounters with fishing nets and boats and predators, poluted water, diseases, anything that kills besides old age.

We followed him for a while, until he sank down to a murky cave under the coral shelf, then we began swimming along the shelf. This time, i spotted the turtle first, what looked like a smooth, round rock drifting along the bottom. We swam closer, until we could see him, and followed him for a while. By that time, we were a long way from shore, so we turned around and began swimming back, and suddenly another one swam beneath us, this one just plain enormous, and close. We watched as he faded out of view into the murk (visibility was less than wonderful that day) and finally, made our way back to the beach, having swam more than a mile.

When we got back to the condo, we brought all of our stinky, wet clothes and towels inside, along with our snorkeling gear, because we would not be using them again. We did laundry, ate more leftovers, lay around, and finally came up with a plan- sleep now, then stay up late, so that we could sleep in the next morning, so that we could be prepered for the loooong day the next day.

Which we did. After a nap, we spent some time by the pool, read some books, ate dinner, channel surfed, and finally got out my computer and watched the movie "Munich". It is about the aftermath, the reckoning, that followed the killing of eleven isreali athletes at the '72 (I think) Olympic games. A depressing movie, and a long one. we stayed up for the whole thing, but not because we wanted to.

There was no run on day twelve. We slept in as long as possible, used the last of the fruit to make smoothies, packed, cleaned, and hung out at the condo until check-out. Since we had ten hours to kill until our 10:40 pm flight, we drove to Lahaina and ate at the Hard Rock Cafe. It was a lot to pay for a veggie burger and a brisket sandwich, but it was our only actually eating out experience while on Maui, if ya don't count Panda Express take-out a time or two. After lunch, we walked down the main drag, a narrow, waterfront street lined with shops and restaurants. Breckenridge without the snow. We even bought tee-shirts and souveniers. Ate Lappert's ice cream on the boardwalk. Wondered through the art festival under the banyan tree. The banyan tree is a landmark of Lahaina. It was planted for the express purpose of shading an entire city block, and it does just that. It's arial roots have grown into the ground and turned into trunks in over thirty (I think) places, it's branches wind and twist overhead, and the area it covers was home, on that day, to a gathering of local artisans in something called the Festival of Canoes. we left Lahaina hot and full, and drove an hour to Kahalui, the airport town, where we found a Borders bookstore and prepared for a bit of boredom by buying reading material. We found a beach six miles out of town, and took a walk while the sun set, then shared one last Panda express meal, even though we were far from hungry, and drove to the airport two and a half hours before our flight. Two and a half hours we were loaded, buckled in, luggage stowed, ready for takeoff...and then the pilot came on and announced that the crew was experiencing a bit of confusion, because the on-board navigational charts were nowhere to be found. So we sat. Thirty minutes later, he announced that come to find out, a change of policy had just been instated, and the pilots were now expected to carry their own navigational charts, instead of relying on the on-board library to provide them. The incoming crew had taken them with them, and the outgoing crew was now without them. Someone would have to drive to Lahaina, through road construction, to bring them back. So we sat. We slept in our seats. Two and a half hours later, the crew recieved their charts, and we could leave. We have never been so glad to have a non-stop flight. When we picked up our luggage, we were two of about five people waiting at the baggage carousel. About 150 more people were milling around the customer service counter, trying to rebook their connecting flights.

Now, as I finish writing, we are finally home. We hit the road in Phoenix on a few catnaps caught on the plane, after being up for twenty four hours. We drove ten hours to Wendell's house in Cedaredge at nine:30 that night, then, as is our norm when with Wendell (the guy does not sleep until he drops of exhaustion these days, so we often go to bed in the wee hours when we are in Cedaredge) we stayed up until three am this morning. We slept like the dead last night.

This morning, we drove through a green, green Colorado, the Colorado river already swollen from run-off, marveling at the beauty of this place we call home. We almost decided that we would rather live here than in Hawaii.

Every island in Hawaii has something to offer. Something one is loath to miss out on by going instead to another island. The Na Pali cliffs on Kaui, the war history and big city on Oahu, and I am sure the other islands all have their offerings, too, even though we have not been to them. But for the most part, Maui is the one we have been on, most tailored to mainlanders. We saw almost none of the rusted vehicled on blocks, the beach locals living in tents made out of old blankets and holey tarps, or the local's hostility that we ran into on Oahu. There is more going on than on Kaui, more accessible beaches. The crowd in Maui seems to be of the light-skinned, mainlander variety, We did not even see very many Japanese, local or tourists. The ethnic diversity seems to not be as strong on Maui. The landscaping seems to be everywhere, not just in the resorts. The homes have windows, not just bars over sagging window frames. Shingles instead of tar paper. Kaui is as well kept up, but just does not have the things to do, the areas to visit. Mostly, Maui seems to have a lot of sunburned tourists than anything else. So I suppose if one likes to keep their comfort zone close, Maui is the island to go to. More accesible reefs (and reefer, I noticed- maybe that's why many locals seemed to be an extension of the Summit County crowd) more beaches, more hospitable locals, and lots of open country, small farms and ranches tucked behind eucalyptus and fruit trees. More guitars and ukaleles on street corners, more back-to-the-land types. More board shorts and flip flops, less glamourous types of tourists than Oahu. More farmer's market and fruit stands. Less chain restaurants, more local dives.

It was a good trip. But it's good to be home, too. The lake is melted off, there is no snow left in the yard, even though the peaks are still white. On tuesday, we plan to close on the house, so we will be busy, but having fun, too, fixing up our home in Summit County- something we never thought we would be able to do. We thought we would be living in increasingly smaller apartments for as long as we cold afford to live here, and finally we would be forced to leave. So the security this offers us is incredible. It is strange, being so happy to be home.

Description of pictures:

1 and 2. The coast north of Lahaina
3. Sunset from one of "our" beaches close to our condo
4. Golf course in Kapalua
5. Some of that "fresh dirt" lava
6. that surreal evening, waiting on the beach while bobby was snorkeling
7. a stop on the road to Hana
8. The road to Hana (you can see the road carved into the cliff in the background)
9. A ranch near Hana
10. The black sand beach near Hana
11. Your blogger, posing with a rainbow eucalyptus, which loses it's bark every year, revealing it's colorful trunk underneath.
11 and 12. The bamboo forest on the hike to Waimoku Falls
13. Waimoku falls
14. The seven sacred pools in Oheo Gulch
15. Looking across the top of the Haleakala Crater (10,023 feet elevation)
16. The Iao needle

Hello to my peoples, from vacationland.

It is day...lets see...number seven, I believe. Day number two on Maui. We are beginning to settle into our routines here. I make Bobby get up early, and he whines, and gets downright grouchy. but it's a good system, because it gets light about five o'clock here, and then we are ready for bed as soon as it gets dark in the evening.

Our first day on the island we mostly concerned ourselves with preparing for the rest of our stay here. After my morning run, we attended a complimentary breakfast hosted by an Expedia Local Expert in the pool courtyard. The Local Expert presented us with a slew of options, a map of Maui as well as suggestions on activities, a few opinions on which would be the smartest booking options. We have been kinda planning on going on a snorkel cruise while we are here, but have not booked one yet. Breakfasted with fresh fruit, we went shopping and bought all the necessities we could not pack. We found a farmer's market and bought onions, green peppers, tomatoes, mangoes, papayas, strawberries, pineapple, and lettuce. Then we went to Wal-mart and bought dry goods like rice, corn chips, and noodles. Then to safeway (I think it's funny that we got a safeway card in Honolulu last year, and have not used it until Maui this year, even though there's a safeway in Frisco) for apples, celery, carrots, avocadoes, bananas and mangoes (I forgot I had already bought some at the farmer's market) as well as other staples like bread, tortillas, fruit juice and booze. We staggered into our condo lugging our plunder, and have been slicing, peeling, and paring ever since, three meals a day. I could live like this for a long time.

By the time we had finished our shopping, it was raining, so we drove a few miles up to Makena, Big Beach, where the trees were dripping, but the rain was not falling, walked down the beach for a while, then kept driving until we passed a large backhoe, behind which the entire stretch of land, until it dropped into the ocean, was dug up, turned over in massive chunks of dirt. We actually puzzled over it, why the need for such massive, deep digging, until I looked closer and realized, this was not a new construction site, this was what a lava flow looked like. We felt a bit silly, but hey. How were we to know? They should not park machinery so close to it, leading people like us to make the wrong associatons when presented with such a foreign landscape. It really did look like a garden, freshly turned with a spading fork, but on a macro scale. last years potaoes in this garden would have been about the size of our rented Pontiac. We parked where the road ended and hiked into the lava field a little way, until it looked like no new scenery was going to present itself, then turned around. For kicks and giggles, we walked down to the Wailea beach, by all the grand resorts, and swam out. We had on our swimming goggles, and as soon as we stuck our heads under the water, found ourselves mesmerised by the world down there, fish we had never seen before. We dived for a while, snorkled without snorkels, coming up for air when we needed to breath (I am the world's worst at holding my breath. I start getting panicky and oxygen deprived after about twenty seconds) before we came to the inevitable conclusion- we needed snorkels. Back to Kahalui we drove, and spent some more time in Wal-mart. Cheap, but not too cheap... we finally settled on some, and brought them home, to be used in the morning.

This morning, I got Bobby up at six o'clock, and brought his breakfast to him in bed. No, this is not because I am such a doting, submissive wife (oh, wait... maybe it does) but rather, because he is too large for me to pull out of bed, and the consequences would be too dire were I to try it, so i must resort to other games. I know that chewing takes enough mental energy to keep one from falling asleep, and once the sugars from his meal hit his bloodstream, he will be much more alert. And although he would rather lie there and sleep than sit up and chew, he must take that first bite because I am standing there doing my best chef routine- as if my entire world hinges on what his impressions of my culinary creation are. So yes, i shamelessly admit that breakfast in bed is one of my weapons I pull out when I want him to get out of bed early, instead of letting him fall back asleep. Sure enough, before long, he came stumbling out of the bedroom, plate supported by a weak, wobbly wrist, halted when he realized that the living room was open to the entire out doors, set down the plate and stumbled back down the hall to find some clothes. He finished breakfast outside on the lanai, and before long, was all excited about snorkeling. yes, I connive. No I do not apologize. I pride myself on being good at only a few things- mostly things involving balance and endurance, such as snowboarding, and there are other things which I strive every day to be better at. Cooking and zen, for two, and for three, nonverbal control of my world. It just makes things easier. Ok, admitting that might come back to haunt me some day.

We stuck our faces under the water at Kamaole III beach, the one we are closest to, and paddled around for a while, delighting ourselves with being marine creatures among marine creatures, then went to Ulua beach, this one with a nice reef around it. This one had such a wonderful array of tropical fish, we stayed out until we were thouroughly waterlogged, came back to the beach to grap our waterproof disposable camera, then headed back out. we snapped some really good pictures, (we think), came back to the beach, only to realize the camera was full of water, inside the case. Only then did we remember dropping it earlier. Sure enough, closer inspecton revealed a cracked case. So much for our pictures. but we still had fun, even though it took a few hours for the red ring encircling our eyes and nose from the goggles go away. We had some time to kill, and wanted to work on the tan, so we let the chlorine water in the pool wash away the salt water, then positioned ourselves on lounge chairs for about thirty minutes. All the factors for a good sunburn lined up just right, because we both have fiery burns. It was a nasty surprise for us. The burns are in patterns to suggest they happened in about a fifteen minute space of time, since that was all the time spent in the position that presented those particular parts of ourselves to the sun. BBD got it worse than i did. He shaved his chest hairs because they are causing his chest to itch, which makes him scratch it, which reminds him that he has a painful burn on it.

He tried to nap after lunch, but I wouldn't let him (oh, i can be relentless), insisting that if he slept now, he would not be able to go to sleep until late tonight, and then he would want to sleep in in the morning, and all my hard work this morning would be shot. So he dragged himself out of bed, and we drove to Lahaina, a historic whaling town. I felt like I was back in breckenridge, except with the pacific as a backdrop, instead of ski slopes. It was cutesie, but i find myself increasingly annoyed with towns of that nature. We drove on to Ka'anapali, with it's big resorts and shopping mall with overpriced surfwear and clothing that could be worn no where but here, and not even here unless you are a tourist, art and jewelry stores, also overpriced, and it was in one of these impractical board and boardwear stores (we were shopping for another pair of swim trunks for BBD- didnt find any) that I looked up and saw, on a bigscreen TV, a shredder, bursting through about three feet of freshies, a frontside board grab, a faceshot of snow, and as wrong as it felt, i wanted to be there. Oh boy. What is happening? Who am I? At that moment, I really wanted to trade my sweaty armpits and frizzy, humidity-destroyed hair for my new plaid snowpants, and a big, fluffy snowdrift under my snowboard with it's woodgrain graphics and the few stickers and decals i have gotten for free over the years and slapped on it. Surfing sucks. You heard that right. It sucks. If man was supposed to surf, we would have been born a little more amphibious. So much work for a few second's ride. But a mountain, a guaranteed ride down after all the work of getting up, marshmallow softness, knife-edge corderoy, ice, corn, bulletproof, bumps, glades, cruisers... ok, so maybe if we had been meant to do that, we'da been born a little more... furry. But it still seems natural to our species.

Don't get me wrong. I am loving it here. It is icy and snowy at home, and I am basking in perfect temeratures, day and night. Plants, trees, green, green, green. Coral reefs, golden sand, cool shade and salty breeze... it's almost heaven. It would be if snow fell here, warm snow. But, somehow, i think the vacation is achieving it's desired purpose. It's making me appreciate my home again.

We stopped at Kapalua and wondered down to the shore, through a portion of the golf course that hosts the Mercedes Benz Championship on the PGA tour. It really is picture perfect. We passed an ancient graveyard, now a protected culteral and historical site, and made our way to the cliffs at the edge of the golf course. I suppose i have to grant, in it's manicured, perfect, every-blade-of-grass-in-place way, it was one of the more beautiful places I have been in. I of course left my shoes in the car, thinking I was just gonna read the black and bronze plate explaining the burial sites, so I made my way along the lave cliffs barefoot. The rocks had all been worn round, so I did not risk cutting my foot on a sharp piece of lave, but I did stub the piggie who had none, this time on the right foot. Even Bobby, walking beside me, heard it pop. At first I was convinced I had broken it, but four hours later, I can wiggle it painfully and though it is swollen, it is still pink, not purple, so perhaps things just got rearranged. I will be very surprised if I am actually buried with all ten of my toes intact.

Back at the condo, dinner made and eaten, we are feeling fairly ready for bed. The effects of the generous splash of coconut run in my fruit smoothie was making me a bit woosy, making the typing a chore, but it has passed, and I now I am steadily getting drowsier. it is sad indeed, since that was not even a shot's worth. And it is cheap rum, less alcohol content. I simply can't hold my booze. i'm a lightweight. And it seems to be getting worse. But then, i have barely sipped a drop of the stuff since I was ten pounds heavier than I am now, so maybe that makes a difference.

Tired. Must sleep. Big day tomorrow (doing what, I don't know yet)

Day ten. Ok, this keeping track of the days has gotten tedious. I have a three day gap here, and I cannot for the life of me tel you what we did on each day. But I can recount the high lights. One of those afternoons (it might have been day eight) we did nothing. We sat in the condo, beside the open lanai door, and watched tv while it rained. I read another novel. The tv remote does not work to decrease the volume, only increase it, so we argued about the TV being too loud, and I kept gettin up to turn it down. We needed that one day of doing absolutely nothing, of being bored. One day, and no more. It helped us realize that we really are vacationing, not a single thing we need to do. That was the day I got up early and went for a run, up the beach to Wailea, and realized i had wasted a lot of energy running the other way, into Kihei. Toward Wailea was much nicer, waterfront walkways where the beach was not runnable. The sand right here is condusive to running, at least along the water. It is very fine and firm as long as it is slightly damp. But if one wants to enjoy it without dodging too many people, especially on the beach-front walkways, one must be up early. I try to hit it at six thirty, and be done by seven thirty, because just before eight, everyone wakes up and the walkways no longer belong to just the runners, but to ambling retirees and motorised carts hauling lawn care equipment, as well as tables, chairs, umbrellas, and food for the outdoor restaurants and resort "ballroom" areas. And after eight, the families hit the beaches, and one may as well just walk no faster than the flow of foot traffic. The run starts at Kam III beach, just outside our door, on a gravel and woodchip path through a protected native bird nesting area, goes across the Kihei boat ramp, teeming with departing fishing, scuba, and snorkel expeditions at six-thirty, across the grass of the first of the Wailea resorts, then hits the beach for a half-mile or more. It is a broad, flat beach, studded with lava outcroppings, a wide area of sand smoothed by the waves breaking on it. After that, it climbs onto a foot bridge, which turns into the beach walk that separates all the uppity Wailea resorts from the beaches, and finally turns into a paved walkway along the cliffs that winds through several ancient culteral sites, and is well signed, making it a culteral and botanical tour. It ends at the last resort before the beaches are claimed by lava, and here, one must return either the way one came, or by the road. By the time one turns around, the sun is well up, and the sweat has begin dripping, even where there are no clothes to encourage it. It is a good way to start the morning. I have begun doing it every morning. By the time I get back, BBD is up, and may have even found his way to the beach. On that morning, I met him in the park that separates our condo from the beach, and followed him down to the water, where i stripped off shoes and socks and dived into water that felt like pure heaven, while he wandered around and snapped pictures. We returned to the condo, I grabbed an apple, and we scratched off to Wailea beach to snorkel. The water was less than pristinely clear there, so we had to go out a long way to find clear water, and by that time, we had to dive down a long way to see the fish and coral. I don't know why my ears are so sensitive. I used to dive to the bottom of the ten-foot deep Leoti pool, and sure, my ears hurt a little, but nothing like they do now, under five or six feet of water. But I almost want to scream from the pain, so diving is not something i do, unless hot on the tail of some really bizarre or beautiful fish, and then, not for long. And after that, I sat down, and realized my constant activity of the morning was catching up, and we proceeded to do nothing for the rest of the afternoon. At dark, we finally got achy enough to want to do something, so we went back to Ulua beach, and he swam out, in spite of the fact that it was overcast and threatening rain, and the beach was deserted. He saw a turtle, which made him even happier, while I sat and drew pictures in the sand, and took pictures. There were two other people in the water, standing on surfboards, paddling them around on the calm water. They gave the scene a very surreal feel, with the water the same gray shade as the sky, two grayer figures suspended between the water and the sky.

Day nine, I did not get in the water, not even once. It is possible for me, if not for BBD. He really is happiest in the water. Some of the best times we've had together have been in or on the water, and i think it is because there, he finally really forgets to worry about things. Maybe there is a phychological explanation, having to do with being weightless and washing your cares away, I don't know, but for him, water works. Instead, after my run, we threw some food in the car, stopped at a gas station to fill up with $4.29 gas, and hit the Hana Highway. Hana is not, as suggested by the name, the destination of the Hana Highway. The road itself is the destination. There are 61 one-lane bridges on this road, and six hundred curves. The road to Hana is included in many poeple's must-do list for Maui, and it was, indeed, beautiful. We stopped at several waterfalls, several viewpoints, and had a picnic lunch in Hana, at the famous black-sand beach, flanked by lava tubes and blowholes. Hana is tiny, one inn, one restaurant, both rediculously overpriced, a place where everyone would love to live in theory, but is just too isolated to be realistic as a home. It does have a unique sub-culture though, so isolated that it is much easier to support local growers than pay delivery trucks to bring groceries over that road. Farms and fruitstands abound, and the people there are proud of their sustainability.

At the end of the road is an entrance to the far end of Haleakala National Park, and a hike we had already decided to take. It is a trail that winds up Ohea Gulch, through a surreal forest of bamboo, banyan, and guava trees, two miles and five hundred vertical feet, until it ends under the several hundred foot Waimoku falls. We lounged in the damp shade, water droplets falling around us for a half-hour, then made the two mile return trip in good time. At the point where the stream from the falls meets the ocean, is a series of seven pools, cascading one to the next, each one deep and inviting. These are called the Seven Sacred Pools, a name the locals find irritating because there is nothing sacred about them. The name was a shameless marketing ploy, along with the carefully planted rumor that in ancient lore, the seven pools represented seven something-or-others. Emotions, or beliefs, or something like that. I'm a little fuzzy on my fake history, and can't remember where I picked up that fun fact to varify it. Bobby swam in the lower pools, while I climbed to a few higher ones. Swimming is discouraged in them, because in the event of a flash flood, the only way out is out to sea, but it does not seem to deter the three hundred (or six hundred- another unvarifyable fact) visitors that drive the road to Hana in a given day.

And now, day ten, the day not yet over. I forwent the run in favor of a bit of snuggling, a leisurely breakfast, and an early departure. Everyone says we should watch the sunrise, or at least the sunset, from the Haleakala crater. Haleakala is the ten thousand foot volcanic sentinel of Maui. We deviated, because we are deviants. Well, actually we are lazy. One must roust at about 2:30 am in order to make sunrise, and we could not be sure of the clear view at sunset that we knew we would have mid-morning. The volcano on the Big Island has been sending vog (I still do not want to believe that's a real word) over here, obscuring the crater ever since we got here. This morning was the first time we were able to see it. We drove to the top, watching the landscape morph from tropical to sub-alpine, to a moonscape. As we were preparing to leave, Sky, a bouncy, blue-eyed brunette with a natural history degree, arrived and shouted to all who would hear that she would be giving a natural history degree. We stayed, to learn about tectonic plate movements and volcanic hot-spots, eruptions and erosion. Then we wondered around the visitor's center just long enough to learn nothing new, except for the identinty of the unusually large spider perched on the wall of the observation deck at the summit, and breath dep breaths of wonderfully thin air, not realizing until that moment how much the air at sea level makes you feel like you are breathing soup.

Just down from the summit, we swung over and picked up Chelsea, a hitchhiker in a big, floppy hat, dirty linen pants, and an overnight pack. She had spent the night in the crater, and the rest of her party was hiking all the way down the back side, to Hana, but she had to be to work tomorrow, so she hiked back out the way she had come. She is doing an apprentice-ship on an organic farm in Hana, three days a week growing coffee, papaya, every imaginable fruit and vegetable. The farm is completely sustainable, the employees living almost exclusively on what it yields. It sounded, when she talked about it, pretty much like eden. The manager lives in a banyan tree, in a treehouse complete with stained-glass windows. Occasionally, meals are provided by local health-food restaurants, cooking with consideration to any diet- raw foodism, veganism, you name it. A place for nuts like me, with urges in the direction of an all-natural lifestyle, to live it out to their heart's content. It could only work so well here, in a place where one has only to drop a seed into the ground to watch it grow. But before you say it, be sure that B already has. He is a city boy, he tells me before I even have time to sigh a wistful sigh, and if i want that sort of lifestyle, I'll have to do it without him. And that is where my passion for it breaks apart, because as healthy and good as natural sustainability is, what good is it if mixed with loneliness?

After dropping Chelsea off, we grabbed lunch and did a bit of shopping, then drove to the Iao (pronounced ee-oh) Valley, the scene of one of the bloodiest battles over land ever fought between the local people. In the heart of the valley is a needle-like cone, flat on the top, used as a lookout during war times, and, as Oahu soldiers closed in, as a retreat for the local Mauians. By the time it was over, the stream in the bottom of the valley ren red, and was dammed by their bodies. How completely pointless, all the wars faught over land, when in the end, even the victors will lose it to an even bigger rival. All it took in this case was a union of greedy American plantation owners, a few strategic lies, and a queen who loved her people so much she chose abdication over more bloodshed.

And now we are back at the condo, letting the day wear on at it's own pace, the lanai shaded behind the palms. Maybe, if I am lucky, I will be able to get online long enough to post this, maybe even add some pictures.