Yesterday our friend Sheldon and the husband and I went up to Mt. Aeneas, in the Jewel Basin hiking area right across from our house. Mt. Aeneas is a popular hike. We did it last summer, and we wanted to get up there again before they close the road after Labor Day for construction.

We began our hike around 4 p.m. in an attempt to avoid the worst of the heat. It was still pretty hot. Once we got about halfway there, we stopped seeing other hikers, most of whom had gone up earlier. We had the whole summit to ourselves. That was really nice. Usually it's crowded.

This is a marker pounded into a rock on the summit, just in case you aren't sure where you are.

I took some panorama shots, but there is a fire burning to the south and so it was pretty hazy up there.

The husband is very intrepid and likes to try new ways to get off the mountain, some of which do not include following a trail. We decided to hike along the top of the ridge. If you look at this next picture, you will see Aeneas in the background (that high point), and coming towards the foreground is the ridge we came along. There is a trail about 2/3 of the way along, and then the trail sort of just disappears. At one point, we (Sheldon and I, at least, because the husband appears to be part mountain goat) were scootching along (very sharp) rocks on our butts to get down the ridge. It was a bit challenging but I never felt like we were in danger. We just had to go slowly. I was glad I had my ski pole with me for leverage (I have learned not to hike without it).

Eventually, led by the sherpa the husband, we got down the ridge and back to one of the real trails. Here's the view looking back up.

It was actually pretty cool and I said to Sheldon that people pay big bucks to go to national parks and do what we had just spent the last hour doing. Would we go that way again? Maybe not. But it was an adventure.

We got back to the truck just as the sun was setting in the west. All in all it was a great afternoon.

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Knitting? . . . ah, knitting. It's still going, albeit slowly. DD#2 tried out for and made the junior varsity cheerleading team, so my life has been upended in new and interesting ways. One of her good friends, who lives around the corner, also made the team. Her parents and the husband and I have been trying to share transportation duties. The problem is that the other girl's parents have jobs with schedules that don't always allow them to drive, and there are two smaller kids at home. In some ways it's good, because I either drive very early in the morning (they have to be there by 6 a.m. three days a week), or in the evening (the other two days), so I get a lot of work done during the day. However, when I drive in the evening my knitting time suffers, although I AM teaching a knitting class tonight at Camas Creek, called "How To Read a Knitting Pattern."

When the kids were little I had a parenting book, and one of the things I remember clearly from that book is a sage piece of advice. The book's author said that one of the challenges of parenting little kids was that they were constantly growing out of one schedule and into another, and that it was important to remember that each stage wouldn't last forever, no matter how awful it might be at the time. I would add that that piece of advice applies as they get older, too. DD#2 grew out of her elementary school schedule and into her high school schedule and the husband and I just have to roll with it.

This blog may go away for a while, too. I have mixed feelings about that, but I am not writing about knitting and that was the purpose of this blog. It may remain with more infrequent postings that are aimed mostly at reassuring my mother that I didn't fall off a mountain while hiking.

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I am still really enjoying my new line of work. I get better at it every day and every day is completely different. My account managers have been wonderful to work with. I still sort of pinch myself every day that a) I have a job in a field that everyone said I would never find a job in and b) that I like it so much.

I do want to post again this week with pics of the garden, because we have had a few interesting surprises. Stay tuned.