10/01/2006   Portland Marathon  
Jeff talked me into running Portland with him, or perhaps it was the other way around. We met several years ago at the Mercer Island half marathon and have been running together from time to time since. He takes them a little more seriously than I do, perhaps because he doesn't run as many. As I noted in my comments on my Maniacs marathons page at the time: I think maybe his wife Anita ran a 5K that day. Jeff's finish time was probably a little under four hours; mine was about 13 minutes over, respectable enough as far as I was concerned back then. We ate somewhere reasonably nice together afterwards before driving back to Seattle.

10/07/2006   Indian summer  
It looks like I spent a day digging petrified wood over at Saddle Mountain near Mattawa, probably with Pat but I don't recall for sure. From the look of the wood it came out of the big hole in which we and others excavated pieces of a petrified Sequoia stump some 8 feet in diameter over a period of six months or more.
Back home in the garden it was a good year for tomatoes, and as previously noted, also good for Tree Frogs in the greenhouse.

10/08/2006   Nick's mom's wedding  
Nick's mom married an Auburn businessman at Federation Forest State Park. Nick reported that he's an okay guy. Someone was blowing soap bubbles after the ceremony so David and I tried to photograph them.

10/13/2006   Visiting Daniel at Proctor  
Proctor scheduled a Parents Weekend about six weeks into the school year so we took the occasion to visit Daniel. We attended an English class, ate in the cafeteria and hung out around campus for a beautiful fall day. The boys juggled. We met Daniel's girlfriend, at least she was reported to be his girlfriend, and her parents. Daniel did not appreciate our enthusiasm about her and her family.

10/15/2006   Jackson  
After visiting Daniel at Proctor he accompanied us to Jackson for a few days and joined Sarah's group at Mae Kelly's on Sunday night. Susan must have driven him back to Proctor on Monday morning. I hiked up to Slide Peak with Matt. No snow on the mountain yet though the leaves have mostly fallen.

10/22/2006   Back home  
Back home the field and garden have their characteristic autumn aspect, damp and unkempt. The fall foliage is brighter and more colorful on the east side.

10/29/2006   Tri-cities Marathon  
I finished fifth from last but since I started two hours early I crossed the finish line while the clock still read only 3:23, which was quite gratifying. One of my best clock times ever. The day was sunny but a strong west wind was sweeping across the river, and since the course is mostly on a dike along the water, we ran much of the race leaning sideways into the wind. I ran mostly with a local woman whom I have never seen since but we got to talking and overlooked the cones marking the turnaround so ended up running an extra 3 miles. I ran the Halloween Marathon last weekend so this was the first time I ran marathons on successive weekends.

11/05/2006   IUWR Seattle Marathon  
For my third race three weeks, I ran along the Green River from Kent to Alki in 4:33. I wrote in my Maniac Marathon notes "A quiet well-organized little race sandwiched between rain storms. Ran w/ Barefoot Jon."

11/11/2006   Ron Herzog 50K  
The Ron Herzog 50K in the hills near Granite Falls was probably my toughest race to date. For the middle third of the race we ran in an inch or more of slush and the bottoms of my feet got so cold I felt as though I was running on little foam pads. Completing it qualified me for four stars in the Maniacs listing.

11/24/2006   Thanksgiving  
Daniel flew home for Thanksgiving and we had a modest dinner together in front of the fireplace. The next day we drove up to Crystal, as I recall in a long-lost Snowboarding page:

12/15/2006   Storm  
A windstorm brought down one of the 30-foot leaders on the Cedar tree, narrowly missing the front porch roof. We used our old climbing rope to lower it to the ground so I could cut it up. The storm also knocked down an ash tree in the woodlot across the street. The tree fell across the utility lines and into the road. I don't recall if we lost power but I eventually sawed up the ash tree, carted it up to the workshop and split it into firewood.

12/25/2006   Christmas day  
Daniel returned home for Christmas and we celebrated the holiday at home rather than going to New Hampshire as we often did. Actually the boys and I celebrated part of the day at Crystal Mountain where conditions were good and crowds were modest.

12/27/2006   Year end