Visits

My mom and little bro came out to visit this weekend and we had quite the interesting time. We went to the public houses of the local breweries (which I am ashamed to say, I still haden't done to that point) and got entertained by a huge street fair in downtown for saturday evening. Oh, yea, and the afternoon before I watched the Cascade Cycle Classic downtown leg and watched the front runners all pile up right at my feet during the last few laps. Broken bikes and blood everywhere! Ok, tangent over, back to the family. So then I convinced my mom and Fritz to go up South Sister with me (see, I told you I couldn't take rest days) on Sunday. Got everything all ready the night before, parked, handed out water bottles, food, and started up. At 8500 feet, they both realized that, oops, they forgot their water bottles! I had 2 liters and they had one liter that I had put in their pack the night before. I handed the bottles to my mom at the car and she promptly put them back into the car. Genius! Luckily for them, I brought iodine tablets so we were able to finish the climb, but I bitched at them to no end for being so dense.
Work update; In about 4+ miles myself and one other guy cut out 140+ lodgepole from the trail. Now this might not be that incredible, seeing as we did about the same thing in 6 miles of trail with a chainsaw several weeks ago. But the 140 we did this week was all cut with a 3 ft. crosscut and 16 in. hand saw. I have several days in the running for "hardest day of work ever," but I think this one might take the cake. Our boss expected that to take 3 days. We did 3 days work in one 11 hour day. I have started taking 6-10 200mg Ibuprofen per day on the trail though. I am filling out an inury report form tomorrow regarding my foot. Something in the big toe tendon feels like it is bathed in IcyHot. Not so good.
Random other news; last week I forgot to mention that on the PCT I met a throughhiker who knew Greta! He said they hiked early on in California. Sometimes those "shot in the dark" questions do work out. I think when Greta comes through here, I will have to meet up with her and hike a bit of the trail.
Some of you may know who Michael Reardon was. He died in Ireland yesterday while soloing some sea cliffs. Unfortunately though, he did not die soloing, rather he got taken by a rogue wave while at the base of a climb he had just finished. RIP Reardon.