Scattered Thoughts . . .

T his is a relatively short blog entry with just a few photos showing our attempt at making it to the summit of Garfield Peak at an elevation of just over 8000 feet.  Just 300 vertical feet short of the summit, we made it to 7700 feet where my health forced us to make our way back down this rather treacherous peak.   I should also point out that this was during our first few hours at the higher elevation of Crater Lake and an unexpected road closure prompted us to change plans.  We were simply "looking around" and exploring the area right around the lodge and found ourselves on the beginning of the trail to this summit so we figured, "Why not?"  Our thought was that if this proved to be too much for my health (or for any of us), we could always just turn around and head back to the lodge.  So, we pressed onward toward the summit. The photo below shows the rim trail near the lodge.  Near the lodge, the rim trail is asphalt to minimize trampled ruts....

Today was an action packed day at the lake house! The grandchildren arrived today with their great-grandparents in tow.  They were supposed to be here on Monday but a last minute appointment near home kept them from visiting us until today.  After Monday's appointment, they had school on Tuesday and they have their last day of school tomorrow so that left today open for a quick day trip and they'll be back on Friday to stay for close to a week. After canceling their visit to us on Monday they were itching to get here today! The weather was rather chilly and windy this morning so we decided it was a perfect day for hiking to the summit of Owl's Head Mountain overlooking our lake. It was sunny and clear but a bit too chilly for swimming on the beach. This worked out well because when we arrived back at the house after hiking it was definitely warm enough for swimming and a little kayaking. The hike was great! The views were spectacular and, although we (the adults)...

Seven seconds... That is all the time that elapsed between the first shot posted here which shows Adam a little bit bored and the second shot which shows Adam hiking over to keep the sailboat from capsizing... seven quick seconds.  Things change quickly on the water but when you are sailing such a small, light and nimble boat such as the Minifish, these quick changes require fast thinking and quick action to avoid heeling over and ending up in the water. We had a week of some pretty wild sailing conditions. The wind would be calm and then within seconds the wind would whip up suddenly creating white caps on the lake. The wind would gust to well over 30 knots from a sustained wind of only 12 knots... then the wind would instantly change direction by up to 90 degrees! Some of this quick thinking and fast action involved knowing how to duck in an instant as the wind suddenly gusted and changed direction, slamming the boom over to the other side of the boat, narrowly missing your...