alta

I cleaned out the chimney today by climbing up onto the roof -- which is pitched just enough to be scary -- and using a special long handled wire brush. I managed not to fall of the roof and then installed a locking door knob after much cursing and drilling of holes in the wrong places. After a bath and calming down a bit we went for a walk down Drum Power House rd. to gather blackberries at Chloes secret spot. I was already pretty tired at this point so we had to turn around about halfway down to the bear river.

On the way to and from alta, we saw several decked out vans and buses on their way to Burning Man. There seemed to be a steady stream of these for the whole weekend, but on our drive back we saw all of the team trucks for the indy racing league. It was a fun contrast between the home painted vans with stacks of PVC tubing poking out of the backs with the streamlined impeccable graphics Toyota and Honda team trucks. Amazingly, there was no traffic coming back to the bay area this time!

snowshed bouldering

We got an early start from Berkeley today and headed up to the Snowshed at Donner for a little bouldering. The problems were fun, even if there weren't very many of them, but there was one beautiful and inspiring line which I threw myself at for an hour or so without too much success. With cooler temperatures and a little more power I might have a chance this fall!

We also put some finishing touches on the hot tub: specifically a lid for the heater and some hasps.







As it got dark, the bats came out and were swooping in near the deck to catch the bugs that were swarming us. I sat on the deck chair and managed to get a great picture of one of them, with the dark outlines of cedars in the background


after thirty more minutes of sitting in the dark with my finger over the shutter release, getting attacked by mosquitos, I managed to get one more bat shot: