Busy Summer

So much has been happening recently that my head is spinning, and I finally realized a couple of days ago that it had been a month since I last blogged.

A burgeoning small business that is taking up huge amounts of my time and energy as I work hard to get it off the ground.

The business is slightly (but only slightly) off the beaten path and slightly (but only slightly) little more than a hole in the wall.

LC and I had little money and zero connections in town and yet..........and yet.........it's working.

I have been paying all bills since the first month of operation which is extraordinary.

And a couple of days ago someone looked at me and said "you have the best store in town".  

I was a little stunned and a lot appreciative (and whether it was an overstatement or not can be left up to each visitor to my business), but regardless I am very appreciative for kind words and ever increasing support.

Good deal.

Very good deal...............

I have been working six days a week since the business opened in mid-April (and not much less than that for the two months leading up to opening as I put it all together) but I am loving every minute of it.

As the saying goes "if you do what you love, you'll never work another day in your life".

That's not EXACTLY true, but there is definitely something to it.

Creating something from nothing.

The long hours will change at the end of September as Cody begins to wind itself down for the winter and as the days get shorter..........

LC, Kory and I have had a hundred small adventures throughout this summer. 

A summer that is slowly (but irrevocably) coming to an end.

For months (first at the house in town that we were renting) and then later at the house we bought out the South Fork, the three of us quickly got into the habit of searching for adventure once I got home from work.

Bag thrown in the corner.  Lap top dropped in another corner.

Grab the camera.  Grab a couple of bottles of water.  Try and catch up with Kory who had been barking and bouncing off the walls in anticipation, from the moment I had pulled into the drive way..............

Those adventures have taken us to Beck Lake, to see the wild horses, out to Buffalo Bill Reservoir, far out the South Fork, out onto BLM land all over the surrounding area.

They have taken us on fishing trips, and hiking trips, and swimming trips, and picture taking trips.

It has been a crazy busy, endlessly busy, exciting and exhilarating and tiring summer.

Filled with the purchase of a home, the birth of a new Cody business, a move into a rental and then a few months later still one more move.

It has been a summer filled with quick dinners eaten at 8pm.  Or 9pm.  Or never mind, it's too late to eat dinner, I'll just grab a bowl of cereal...................

These pictures were all taken sometime in July at the lake close to the house we purchased.

I went kayaking for a few hours with the same woman that I shared a number of quiet and enjoyable adventures with early in the summer.

At some point she and I (without either one of us realizing it at the time) tried to buy the same day pack from the same woman on one of those online Face Book classified sites.

I got the pack.

My kayaking buddy interpreted the loss as my buying the pack out from underneath her and never spoke to me again.

I had no idea until after the fact, that Kelly had also been trying to buy the pack.

I never pursued her decision to stop communicating with me.

If someone would walk away from an easy-going, low key and adventurous relationship without a word, I'm not one to lose sleep over it.

An unfortunate development that did not have to happen, but it is what it is................

This early morning kayaking trip was the last time we ventured out together.

The world was silent and still and beautiful....................

Our turn-around point, about 90 minutes into our kayaking trip..............

Kelly saw this guy before I did and I wondered what she was staring at until I finally turned and saw her.

She was standing silently at the top of a hill, staring down at us, obviously mesmerized by us.

Both Kelly and I stopped paddling and quietly smiled over at each other, happy to be out on the still water on this early Sunday morning and happy to be engaged in a staring contest with a lone antelope.

A few minutes later we continued on with our trip back.

The antelope was still standing in the same place, staring at us.

Click on the picture to enlarge...............

Pictures taken later that same day, on a drive a few miles further out the South Fork.
Picture of the south fork of the Shoshone River - still raging and high, even this late into the summer...................

A beautiful summer night in a beautiful place, just a few miles from the house.

We LOVE living here..................

My father has been battling cancer for a couple of years now and there were times when I wondered if he was going to make it.

My mother has also been battling cancer over this past year.

Last month my sister contacted me to say that the treatments my mother had been receiving were no longer working, and the doctors were going to send her home and focus on making her as comfortable as possible.

She has been given 3-4 months to live.................