home again, home again

We've been on the road for the past week and we just got home on Saturday night. I had hoped to pop in once or twice from my cell phone, but we spent the vast majority of our vacation out of the land of 3G. Or 1G. Or any signal at all. And....I kind of loved it.

We spent a solid week hiking all over southern Utah, visiting Arches, Bryce and Zion and Canyonlands National Parks along with a quick drive through Capital Reef. We drove over 2000 miles, covered over 30 miles of "strenuous" trails and even spent 6 hours one day hiking up a river. In a canyon. It was awesome.

Dear Bryce Canyon, you are beautiful.

And then we left the balmy mid-70's of Utah behind and landed in Minnesota, where Fall is quickly turning into Winter and our boiler system is still out of commission. When we walked in the door on Saturday night it was 52* in the house. If you're a thin-blooded wimp like I am, that's pretty gosh-darn cold.

So instead of lounging around and squeezing in our last pre-half-marathon long-ish run, we've been working fast and furious to get all the pipes reconnected so we can turn on the heat. My dad spent the entire afternoon in the basement with Nick, helping him connect all the return pipes. Then Dad headed home and Tim showed up and the menfolk worked on the run that goes through the kitchen.

Speaking of Tim, while we were galavanting around Utah Tim was manning the homefront and entertaining our dogs. And fixing our fence. And garage door. And trimming trees.

Yeah, we like Tim a lot.

Last winter a strong windstorm came through and ripped one of the back gates off of the post, damaging the post beyond repair. Plus, over the course of the last year we realized that the (massive) front gate needed some extra support. So Tim tackled both projects last week, putting in a new post in the back (along with a stronger support system to attach the two gates) and adding a wheel to the front gate. The wheel is exactly what the front gate needed and the latch closes perfectly again. And now our back gate is operational, instead of held up by random lumbar. Dear Tim, we love you. Please don't ever leave us.

 In a nutshell, here's what I've learned over the past week:

1) Vacation is super fun
2) Hiking in rivers is even more fun
3) When you leave for vacation, people Tim will come and fix your house for you
4) Not having to do the work and having it still get done is awesome
5) We should go on vacation more often