From One Day to the Next

I guess this is typical for January, but it is difficult to know whether today is a day for skiing, biking, or hiking.  On Sunday, I caught VSO riding a short technical climb on her bike (above).  By Monday, I had both girls breaking trail for me in 18 inches of snow (below).  Today, I think I'll be walking in the foothills:  It is too muddy for riding and too sloppy for skiing.

Real News

At Rural Ways, it is our general policy that we make our own pictures and write our own stories.  But, today, we are uploading a story and two pictures that we did not make.  They came from GAO's sister who was visiting his niece in Ithaca, NY:  "Skim of snow on the ground yesterday.  This morning, this . . . "

Warned

In southern Utah we are facing our third winter storm warning in as many weeks.  It begins to feel like a cry of "wolf."  We've had some ragged clouds covering the valley and a couple of days of drizzle, but not much storming.  It has, I suppose, impacted travel at some locations.  But, for us, we've ignored the warnings and spent the week hiking in the foothills.

420 Grand: The Bedroom

This one was difficult to understand.  In an attempt to add value to the building before selling it, the previous owner decided to replace an old carpet with some laminate flooring.  That sounds OK, right?  But, instead of removing the baseboards so that the floor could be installed against the wall, they laid the laminate in the middle of the room and left an inch between the edge of the floor and the intact baseboards.  It is difficult to see how they were going to finish the project?  They would have needed two or three inches of additional molding to cover the exposed edges of the floor, which seems nearly impossible.  At any rate, the installers eventually realized that they had a problem, and simply walked away, leaving the floor unfinished.  I had to pull up the entire thing and start over from scratch.  It is starting to look a lot better though.

420 Grand: The Kitchen

Four hundred twenty grand.  It isn't what we paid, but what we hope to get when we're done.  I spent yesterday trying to make the kitchen functional:  Got the hot water going, the mold out of the fridge, and the range burning; shop vacced all the cupboards and 409ed the counters.  This is what it looked like before I stared (above) and after I finished (below).  Actually, it doesn't look that different.  I guess my camera doesn't capture mold.  The 60-year-old plywood cabinets would probably look pretty good if I sanded them.  But, that will be a project for another day.

Formidable

VSO just had a birthday.  A few days before the event, we were out in North Wash scrambling around together.  I made this picture of her.  After downloading it, I took a moment to reflect:  This is a woman of superior intelligence, artistic and accomplished; but she is also a formidable back-country athlete.