The pictures don't quite capture the incredible, piranha-like schools of mosquitoes that were swarming the course at the Northwood meet.

It's always a roll of the dice where you land, but this time it was on a hay field belonging to Vera and Dean W., from whom we buy produce at the Goshen Farmer's market.

Based on this guide to Michigan snakes, I think the snake was an Eastern Hog-nosed snake (they love toads) but see what you think.

Anna and Naomi recommended the Chimney Tops hike. It's about 4 miles roundtrip, with 1700 ft of elevation gain. There was a beautiful, somewhat exposed part at the top that would have been treacherously slick if wet. But the weather was dry and windless, and the crowds and the variety of people made you think, "well *I* could climb that!".

We took a second shorter hike: You can park close to Clingman's Dome. A broad concrete path leads straight up to a observation tower at this highest point in the Smokies. But we took a side path that involved 3/4 mile of hiking and 500 ft elevation gain, with a short section of the Appalachian Trail on the ridge that leads up to the Dome.

But it's quite a charming collection--much of it acquired from a radius of just a few miles around the museum's location (just north of big Knoxville). And it does an excellent job of evoking the life of these vanish-ing(?) -ed(?) subsistence farmers.

Through the Visitors' Center one can reach the rotunda. But in order to get into the House of Representatives or the Senate Chamber, you need to go visit your Representative's or Senator's office.

After a trip to Senator Lugar's office, where we took the opportunity to affirm his support of the DREAM Act, we emerged with passes in hand.

A 125th anniversary exhibit at the Bureau showed off historical memos, including this one allowing women at their Atlanta office to wear pantsuits. Another memo documented how many "girls" were needed for each "man" in new offices: one girl per man, except for Chicago which didn't seem to be able to get by with fewer than 3 to 1.

We spent a day walking around monuments and visiting museums - National Galleries, Air and Space, and Native American.

At Columbus, Kathy was organizing one set of children's activities. A summer student of Paul's set up the online MPress website in conjunction with the press coverage that the GC Comm department organized. We ate a lot of lunches with the Knoxville youth group and their sponsors-Anna and Naomi!

Our first stop after the convention was to see Aunt Libby, Jeff and Christina in Lebanon.

City tree guru Aaron Kingsley came by and diagnosed rot from some long gone limb wound that had never healed.

But before we were able to schedule a tree service to take down the rotten limbs, another one fell on top of our neighbor Sarah's car parked on the other side.

The last photo, taken after the tree was trimmed, shows ants making themselves at home. Amazing it didn't come down earlier!

In the end nobody was hurt, we still have our rope swing and laundry line, Rich has kindly relieved us of a quantity of firewood, and vehicles were only lightly scratched in the making of these photos.

The annual ride (with distances from 26-104 miles) was June 20. I drove a van, and Elena joined me, to fix bikes and pick up the weary.

christinereimerdesign.com

The nerdy things that are hard to see are the means of making all the text available to search engines -- inspired by some tips from Eric actually. If you do a Google image search for costume designer vancouver Chris' site is #1.

The Henry David snapshots are mostly at the Minneapolis Children's Museum.

I spent the morning with Katie, Elena and Robert. Tried to get some pictures of them from below, but they were always down the slope before me.

Coming from MI-40, the crossing looks rather like a 4-way stop, except for the extra, smaller sign below the red octagon reminding you that cross traffic doesn't stop.

A white SUV was speeding along through the blinking orange light and thankfully managed to swerve a bit as K pulled out, and she hit him in the side at perhaps 15mph, rather than him hitting her at his full speed.

Airbags blasted, car totalled, but nobody hurt. Phew!

The Pink P-40 hanging in the lobby belonged to the Museum's founder, Suzanne Upjohn Delano Parish. She sounds like a fascinating character--WASP pilot, grand-daughter of *that* famous pharma founder, later an airplane racer.

They have a fascinating collection of aircraft, including an SR-40 spy plane. However the historical planes and space exhibits (and, we hope, the triumphal view of WWII) compete in the minor leagues for attention compared to the rides!

The treehouse now has a roof on it unfortunately the frame was not straight with a delicate twist. Construction will now likely halt until Spring!

Total number of trick-or-treaters who visited our house this year: 517.

Was it the drooping economy? or the the warm weather? or the later-in-the-year-shift-to-daylight-savings which kept it light until near 8? We had more creatures visit us this year than last.

Conditions were ideal: low 40s at the beginning of the race warming into the 60s. Much of the race was on shaded bike and park paths. The only downside was that these were sometimes a bit close-packed with runners.

The race was very well run, with water/snack stations about every 2 miles. Pace runners carried aloft signs with prominent celebrities and their marathon times. Would have been nice, but I knew I wouldn't quite catch George W. at 3:44 (motto: "Imagine how much faster he could have gone if he hadn't been searching so hard for WMDs")

I felt great up until around mile 19 at which point my quadriceps began to slowly turn to concrete.

Elena broke her arm on the first day of summer vacation. But her cast was gone by the time we hiked.

We also built a treehouse... a platform at least supported by the swingset and one tree. Benj and Elena did a lot of the work.

Oh, and had to check out Eric's new scooter as we dropped him off in Denver.

• 6.5 miles
• 3000 ft ascent

Hayden Mountain has a very long ridge. The Hayden trail rises from the million-dollar highway very steeply through aspen forests along a gulch, and then emerges in the aforementioned meadows.

From the high point of the trail you can make out Uncompahgre, Wetterhorn and others to the east (behind Bobby and Rich in the photo where Rich is holding a map).

From there, the trail, runs north, and then west around the Hayden ridge. but at one point Bobby said "Let's go!" to the ridge another 500 feet above. The views from there were fantastic in all directions.

We scrambled down a shale field on the north side, and then re-joined the Hayden trail, which drops down Squaw Gulch on the other side of the mountain, where Al and Mary Ellen picked us up and whisked us to the Ouray hot springs(!)

• About 4 miles round trip
• 1600 ft up?

Just across the million-dollar highway is the Hayden trail-head.

• 5 miles roundrip
• 1600 ft ascent

This was a nice short hike starting from the Amphitheatre campground itself up to a dramatic waterfall with a good view over Ouray.

It started to rain near the top, and the trail turned into a stream by the time we returned. What happened to my camera?? I thought I had a photo of Lucas with muddy water swirling past his ankles....

We struck camp in the Great Sand Dunes Nat'l Park and planned to take 6 hours to drive west to Ouray, 2 vans and the Jeep pulling Al and Mary Ellen's camper. However....

• The Jeep stopped working (for the second time) on downhills....
• and had to be towed (to Pagosa Springs).
• So a U-haul truck was rented to pull the camper the rest of the way.
• But then night fell as well as lots of rain,
• and a mudslide blocked the road from Silverton to Ouray.
• But when we retreated to Silverton, all the hotels were full from folks in the same situation.
• But some meager information led us to believe that the mudslide was being cleared so we headed up the road (the "Million-Dollar highway") again.
• By midnight we were at the Amphitheatre campground in Ouray (in driving rain).
• So most everyone crowded into either the camper or (suddenly convenient!) the back of the U-haul truck to sleep.

By morning, the sun was out and we had fantastice views of Ouray (below) and the Amphitheatre (volcanic, bowl-like formation)!

We all made it down to the trailhead before afternoon rain moved in again. Though once back at the Great Sand Dunes campground, K and P found that their tent had been blown over.

• 4.3(?) miles up one way, then back.
• 2800 ft ascent. (More for those who went on to Ellingwood).
• Link to Google terrain map

We started up from Lake Como earlyish in hopes of avoiding afternoon storms. The path climbs past a number of lakes before going rather steeply and directly up the pile of boulders forming the bowl at the base of Mt. Blanca. Plenty of cairns marked the way up to a ridge between the two 14'ers, Blanca and Ellingwood. By late morning most of our party made it to Blanca's peak amid sunny, nearly breeze-less conditions.

Rich, Mark and Rose found a ridge route to make their way over to Ellingwood Point. But on the descent, sliding down a snowfield, Rich bumped his shin.

On the way back to camp, clouds moved in and everyone was caught in a hail/rain storm that lasted an hour or so.

With a sodden tent and a baseball-sized swelling on Rich's shin, he and Eric decided to pack in the tent and hoof on down to the Jeep at the trailhead. (They eventually reached it in about two hours and spent the night in a hotel in Alamosa!)

The rest of us, with mostly dry sleeping bags, decided to stay at Lake Como, hoping for a change in the weather. Rose lifted our spirits a great deal by managing to kindle a fire.

• 5.5 miles (6.5)
• 2600 ft (3400')

Mark had suggested Mt. Blanca (14,345') as the next peak for a Meyer hike.

The trail up towards Mt. Blanca is a jeep road for the very adventurous. We parked our van at 8200 ft, but Rich--with the Jeep and the kids--made it up to what the books mark as the nominal hiking trailhead at 9000 ft.

The trail climbs steeply up Chokecherry Canyon arriving at Lake Como at 11,600 ft, where we set up camp by mid-afternoon.

This would be our base camp while going off to hike Mt. Blanca, but was a beautiful site in its own right. Running water and real flush toilets in the camp facilities (woo-hoo)!

The next day was the eve of the RAGBRAI bike ride across Iowa--lots of team buses as well as cars with bike racks all along I-80.

We stayed with Eric for two nights in Denver before traveling south to camp at the Great Sand Dunes. Among other theater work, Eric has recently been involved with the production of The Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui.

Seen here:

• Conscientious objector Rob W played lots of "Axis and Allies" with Peter while he was waiting in Goshen.
• With K's help, Elena did almost all the sewing of a dress for herself.
• Playing outside, include Benjamin coaching the "Goshen Wolves": Elena, Greta, and Josie.

To download a photo (using Firefox):

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Or, you can can browse the originals (even higher definition that the 'big' photos shown in the slide show).