Goodbye Summer, and Don’t Come Back Soon.

A couple readers ask that I hold my AC/DC, Metallica self in check for a week and instead unleash my inner Beach Boy. I was sent me off in this direction: what I did on my summer vacation.

Now that it’s September and the weather’s cooling I can reflect on the previous three months in a positive light, especially since June, July and August are now in our collective rearview mirrors. But I don’t have unaided recall of last summer at all. Thank goodness for diary entries.

June 3. Rode Hartmann’s for the second time with Ian and Mark. How did I get out of shape so fast after the ski season? They kicked my butt on both the downs and the ups. Fell once when I kicked a loose rock on an uphill. Cuts on my right shoulder and lower leg. Lots of blood but no stitches. Must get a dual suspension MTB.

June 11. Water roaring on the Upper Taylor. Paddling solo because no one else wanted to go. Used my head as a center-board. It felt like grounding a small sailboat on a rocky beach. Helmet offered good protection from the rocks but got a bloody lip and some loose teeth. Not so loose as to require professional medical attention. No stitches. Note to self: when paddling high water get out of the darn playboat and into something bigger.

June 14. Rode a back and forth on Snodgrass. Trailing friends again but did manage to pass one ageing hiker on an uphill. Knocked off the bike by an aspen. Bruises but no cuts. I swear there were flowers open on the way back that weren’t open an hour before. No wonder we’re the Wildflower Capital.

June 23. The Gray Hares, the only softball team older than we are, beat us this evening. At least we made them happy. Boy can we play awful.

July 1. Welcome to July, the month of insufferable heat, biting flies and hay fever. By far the worst month of the year. Skip tells me that if I break a sweat each day my allergies will be livable. Not proving to be true. How I hate that Neti pot Robin makes me use. What could be stupider than pouring warm salt water into my nose and down my gagging throat. One more reason I embrace western medicine if not all the pills.

July 6. Gates of Lodore river trip. Great water levels. Chris gets 57 mosquito bites in 60 seconds when he takes off his shirt at a beach camp. I actually counted the bites because the attack was so impressive. Phil and I beat Johnny and Fred in the horseshoe world championships at the last camp. Take that. Sad memories of the Gray Hares defeat fade somewhat.

July 14. Olathe corn in. Who says a person can’t eat eight ears?

July 15. Robin catches my arm before I am able to heave the evil Neti pot in the pond.

July 17. Guiding for the Land Trust Caddis Cup, Dr. Chris from Oklahoma City comes in 2nd place with 350” of trout in six hours on the water. We miss 1st place by 5”. One more pipsqueak brown and he would have got a Sage pack rod.

July 19. Rode a solo Deer Creek feeding those nasty biting flies the whole way. Why do I ride Deer Creek when each time I do I say never again? And why in July?

August 1. Do a down and back at Arts Festival making sure we hit the Mulay Sausage booth. I greet the people at the HCCA booth. They greet me back though I wouldn’t call the greeting hale and hearty. I don’t see a Friends of Snodgrass booth. Good.

August 14. We beat the Hairnets in the playoffs and advance. Just love beating those little Rastas. Carlos does a slow sizzle and owes me $2.

August 21. Find a leaning aspen threatening the power line in the Summer Home Group during a ride. Return with my trusty Husqvarna. Manage to hang the tree in the line, catch the tree on fire, electrocute myself, and knock out all the power up Cement Creek causing great inconvenience to the neighborhood. Jeff from GCEA arrives at my door hours later and makes me write “Only fools fuss with power lines” one hundred times.

August 22. Chris from GCEA confirms that when you stick a screwdriver in a household socket you get a tingle. But when you tangle with a power line you get a deep burn that feels like you’re on fire.

August 25. My friend David from up Cement Creek insists I have a wood problem, meaning that my woodpile is too big. I reply that when you heat with wood you need a supply on hand. He continues that I should write about what a moron I am for getting the chainsaw anywhere near a power line, and can he have some wood?

August 29. My beloved Pirates are 20 games out of first place. They haven’t been in the chase since the second game of the season. Sports Illustrated reports that the Pirates have only one ballplayer in 2009 who was with the club in 2008. Also that there is not one Pirate who is paid the average MLB salary.

September 7. I just knew that SI’s Peter King was going to pick the Patriots to go all the way. I think he has something for Tom Brady. Or at least for Giselle. What I didn’t think was that he’d have the Steelers not even making the AFC Championships. That’s fine. He’s not the world’s best picker.

September 8. Morning temps at 30F for a week. The Neti pot is now just a distant bad memory. Time for a snow dance. In the CB Mountain Guide contest for first snowfall, picked October 8. Put fresh glue on the skins, setting up the wax bench. Winter is such a nice, long safe season here!