Farm Trip

Kristen and I made it to the farm on Friday around midnight.  We were the first there, Ma & Pa hadn't made it yet. We got the ladder up to the tree house, but noticed a lot of splintered wood laying around.  We decided it'd be best to stay in the house that night.

Saturday morning we investigated further, and determined that a limb had landed on the roof at some point, punching a hole through the eave, and slightly buckling two walls.  That was better news than I had feared, I was afraid that the trunks of the trees had been crushing the structure.  Shortly afterward Ma & Pa & Lena showed up.  While they were getting unpacked, Kristen and I headed into Louisville to pick up our half-marathon packets.  We did a bit of shopping for some supplies we knew we'd need.

Sunday morning we headed back into Louisville before daylight.  The temperature was hovering in the mid-30s.  We parked, and walked past KingFish restaurant which I distinctly remember from my childhood.  The starting line for the race was at the Louisville Water Tower, and the course ran along the river into downtown.  The weather warmed up, and the day turned beautiful.  The nice weather stayed with us for the remainder of the trip.

We both achieved our fastest time ever.  There must be something to the whole low-altitude thing, we both felt amazingly great running the 13 miles.

Afterward I helped Dad put a larger hole in the shop roof for the wood burning stove he's installing in there.  I hammered the tree house back into shape, and we decided to spend the night there instead of up at the house.  Kristen got the bed all set up, and we did quite a bit of cleaning.  We stayed warm enough, but it was difficult to get out of bed the next morning.

Monday involved patching the tree house roof, and installing the chimney box.  This was a full day project, Kristen and I ran into town around 6 pm to pick up enough chimney to finish the job.  We got a good burn in done before bed, unfortunately leaving the place smelling a bit funky due to the paint/enamel fumes.

On Tuesday Ma & Pa swung by for sticky buns warmed on the newly functioning stove.  A little later we headed out to gather some firewood.  We all worked hard, and semi-joked about jumping into the lake to cool off.  Kristen and I stacked up a pretty good supply of firewood by the tree house.

At some point during the trip we headed over to Luther's and walked around a bit.  We also got a bit of fishing in, catching a few nice bluegills and several small bass.

We left Wednesday after packing up and closing up the tree house.  Once at the airport, our flight ended up being canceled.  Luckily we were able to reroute through Atlanta, and made it back to Boulder after 10pm.

We had a lot of fun on the trip.  Thanks again Ma & Pa for the hospitality and all the help and food.  We'll be back in a few months!