Ignore the weather forecast

This past weekend was promised to be sunny and cool -- up until Friday morning. We took advantage of the wet morning on Friday to catch up on some chores, and do a local mountain bike ride. By the time we left for VAR it was starting to clear! We had a great night partying with old & new friends, and of course Bob's dad Stan. Bob especially enjoyed playing guitar.

Saturday called for rain, threatening to cancel our plans with John & Mary to go climbing at Buzzard Rocks. Well we ignored the forecast and went anyway. There were a few drizzles on the hike up there, which was gorgeous by the way. We were able to do a few climbs each before the rain started. We were soaked on the hike out, but we had a great time and got some great exercise plus quality time with our friends!

Jimmy, John, Mary, Anna

Colors

We met a great guy in Colorado this summer -- a friend of a friend of our friend Taz -- who has this picture of a big ol' cheesy, mega-ton burrito on his cell phone. He was very proud of this meal. I couldn't help but think of him when Bob felt compelled to take this picture of a fresh tomato-cucumber-basil-mozzarella salad that I made!

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One of the vendors at Old Timer's Reunion is 'Peter the Potter' from Camden , Maine. This year we bought this lovely vase that we've really been enjoying these past few weeks. It's perfect for our gerbera daisy's...

Lately...

Anna getting ready....


We did a metric century over the weekend in Charles County, MD. The roads are deserted early morning, and don't get bad as the day goes on either. All this solitude makes it unfortunately easy for the locals to dump garbage. It seemed that there was a lot more trash than the last time we were through here. There are still plenty of stretches of beautiful forest though!

This creepy toy is one less piece of litter. It rode the last 20 miles or so attached to Bob's bike.

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Bob's been enjoying getting back to his wood shop, and the tables he started in the early summer. This is taken from a Thomas Moser "bungalow" design. Certainly the most difficult project Bob has tackled.

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We finally planted grass seed in the bare spot created by our fence project last June. This is less a week old, and really seems to have sprouted up just last night!

Old Timer's Reunion

This gathering of cavers has been going on for 60 years. Bob has been going since he was a baby with his family. This year, we drove to OTR on our way home from Colorado to hang out with Stan and join the party.

Stan with his moped.

Ely from Ashville, NC and his cool bike that he made.

There are vendors that come also. Here is an amazing piece.
It's a hollow turned vessel that was then carved.

Aspen...

Here are long awaited pictures from Aspen...

At the end of Lincoln Creek Road.
That's Grizzly Lake in the background.

We turned around before the ghost mining town,
because of threatening weather and Anna's back was acting up.

These were taken at the "grottoes" area of the
Roaring Fork River, up near Independence Pass.

Bob went down into the grottoes -- basically where the stream has cut crazy paths through the rocks. There is also an "ice cave" down here, where I imagine the snow stays until well into summer.

Every year we go to Aspen we do the Lost Man hike, but this year we finally did the loop, going over the pass and down the other side.

This is looking back behind us.

Looking down the other side of Lost Man pass, the way we hiked.

I just put on rain gear here (lower left), since some kind of frozen precip was falling.
It got sunny and warm later in the day.

We're past the lake and have turned the corner on the loop.
Awesome views!

Self portrait