One More Snow Hiking

Even though I'm not in the best of shape because of all the travel to the East Coast, Gaius Derf really wanted to hike so I agreed to go today. The hiking gods were smiling. We had an unexpected couple of inches of snow! With the change to daylight savings time, even at 8:30 AM we were the first ones out. The snow wasn't too deep and was nice and powdery. While it was around 30 degrees when we left, there was no wind, blue skies and bright sunshine.

Even the cacti were in winter wonderland.

The snow puts a whole different view on the mountain,
Especially with the bright sunlight.

A couple of happy hikers!

Reflections on Old Love

I'm not talking about an old love - like someone you use to be in love with. I'm talking about the love relationship that develops over decades and decades of being with someone. Of having gone through all the crises, and traumas, and challenges with the resulting deep relationship.

All the long trips back and forth to Connecticut and the emotions invoked have brought on a lot of reflection. On one recent flight, it seemed that all the on board video entertainment related to young love, the move, the TV reruns. I thought back to those days.

Certainly when you are young (or even not young) and have yet to experience love or have not have a love relationship in your life, there is that lack. And when you find it, there's all the excitement, and drama that goes along with it. Our culture just wallows in that experience. It dominates. It is followed in frequency by the breakup - when the love relationship sours because the parties just couldn't make it work - because no matter how passionate initial love is there is this long hard process of transforming that into a sustainable, mutually nurturing relationship.

If you are fortunate enough to have gotten over that challenge, what you end up with is old love. Love that is deep. Love that you can count on. Love the supports you and that you provide support for. Love that is assured and unconditional. It's a different animal. You don't need the extremes of passion because you substitute it for the foundation of depth. You appreciate every day, every moment you have it because it took so much to get.

We need more movies about that.

Back to Connecticut

On the business plan this year was trying to reduce the amount of travel in order to focus more time on my home market. Of course the Father crisis has turned that upside down. On the plus side there are all those frequent flyer miles for visiting children in far off places. We're no longer in the crisis phase. More in the waiting stage. But my brothers and I still feel a fairly frequent degree of physical presence is important. So I'm off tomorrow and back on Wed. Wife is going with me this time which is nice.

Finishing With The Goths

We got back from Washington DC Sunday night but had someone in town for training Monday thru today so I didn't have a chance to finish posting of our Visigothic adventure.

We took advantage of Friday to take to the two younger Goths 2.2 and 2.3 to the Natural History Museum of the Smithsonian.

Our Gothic young charges in highly disciplined close order drill on the way to the museum

The highlight was the butterfly exhibit. This was an area that is filled with live butterflies. You have to go through an airlock to get in. You are FIRMLY told to not touch any of them...even if they fly up your nose. When you're done, you go back out a different airlock and are checked from head to toe to make sure you aren't carrying out any inadvertently.

2.2 loves all things associated with animals.
She was totally entranced going around with her identification card and finding as many as she could.

And of course what butterfly wouldn't want to hob nob with Wife?

Of course if we're with #2 and 2B, some sort of eating out extravaganza is in order. They selected a place in Falls Church called 2941 Restaurant. I will forgo the full review but hit a few high notes. The reviews I saw were quite mixed as they had changed their dining room and menu format. But we loved it. Especially the service. We had a great waiter and sommelier which really made for a great time. A few of the dishes had fruit sauces that were a bit too sweet but the majority were very good.

The new format emphasizes their bar drinks. Martinis, Vespers, Manhattans all excellent.

Happy Goths

One of the final things we did on Sunday before I left was teach 2B a recipe that he loves, deviled eggs. He has developed a significant interest in cooking and baking so it was a pleasure to pass this on.

Pre-emptive Strike on Goths

After the depredations of the Christmas season when the Imperial Albuquerque was occupied by multiple tribes of barbarians, Wife and I held a session of the high council and decided that the defensive strategy we'd been pursuing was not working. What was required was an offensive strategy.

So we headed off the the Washington DC area where the Visigoths are wintering in anticipation of their alleged Pacific Rim offensive. Our surprise was total.

Visigoth Queen (aka daughter #2) in shock that Imperial Troops are forcing her to entertain.

Visigoth King (aka SiL 2B) dismayed that his wine plunder is being re-plundered

One of the younger Goths tried to capture Wife

But she was detained

Happy Chicago

I'm in Chicago for my bi-monthly business trip. Lakeview Coffee and I had dinner with his good friend and our former colleague Ricardo. It is always a fun time with Ricardo because restraint in food and drink is almost an oxymoron with him. We went out to sushi at a place that is LC's go to neighborhood place where he and LL are super friendly with the owners.

Today we meet with our three clients. We have a new associate starting with us in Chicago and both Ricardo and LL had leads for us. Very nice.

I've notice that I am significantly more relaxed with work. Maybe it was the disruption of the last month that has me appreciating how much I enjoy doing what I do and how relatively effortless it is for me to do it. Interesting.

Be Careful Of What You Ask For

With the amount of time I've been in Connecticut, I pretty much missed most of the good snow hiking periods this winter so far. But Wife told me that they had a good snow Tuesday night and Wednesday morning just before I returned on Wednesday night. On Thursday morning there was still lots of snow in the foothills (it frequently melts off within hours) so I was hopeful that there would be more snow on the other side of the mountain where I usually go in search of snow hiking. Friday, and the signs were still looking good.

I got up early on Saturday and headed out. When I got to the parking lot there was no one there. And there was snow right from the very start. That's pretty unusual so it boded well for the rest of the hike.


The first part of the hike was what I expected with the train pretty beat down and turning into ice because of the melt and re-freeze. What I didn't expect was after only about 15 minutes of hiking to suddenly find the foot prints starting to dwindle.

And dwindle

Until I got to a spot only a half a mile into the trail when the foot prints stopped all together. Trail breaking - Fresh Snow from this point on.





Going through fresh snow is not the easiest thing to do. There was a mixture of snow that had developed a crust that you kept breaking through and just powder. With all my time at sea level, I'm not in the best of shape. Plus this kind of hiking you end up going half the speed and requires twice the effort.

It kept getting deeper...

...and deeper!

Finally I came around a corner where the sun was shining on the untrammeled snow. This picture is not touched up. It literally looked like a field of diamonds.

After about an hour, my legs were really tired and I decided I'd better let discretion trump valor. I didn't see a soul until I got back to the parking lot. Sweet hike.