Around 11, Diane, Amy. the dogs and I hiked up Bolton Mountain. It was a gorgeous day. The conversation was so much fun (what we want to be when we all grow up) that we made the summit in record time. We made a quick stop in the staff warming hut at the top. I wanted to show Amy some of the Sam graffiti. The place had been newly repainted.. so most of it was gone. But I still found a bit of Sam There. We left another SamStone there just to make the place a bit more homey.

Then we climbed the rickety old fire tower. Climbing this tower has become sort of a ritual for me on on Sam’s passing day and on his birthday. It was fun being up there again just for no reason.

The view up there is really wonderful !

Ooops.. almost forgot the SamStone, Diane brought one up with her.

We paused for this self portrait on the way down from the top..

Back at home, Gabe and Dylan were hanging out with Kristinn and Sydney. The girls were goign through Gabes things and dressing up as him.. Here’s  slacker Gabe..

.. and nerdy Gabe…

.. and snowbord dude Gabe…

Around 5:30 folks started showing up for the potluck. First arrival was Fritz on his homemade electric motorcycle. Note that it runs on electric drill batteries !

THe food started piling up.. here’s a loaf of bread that Diane made in our earth oven, and a loaf that Gary had made in  his solar oven .   How green can you get ?!?

It was a great party.. not too big, not too small.. and lots of good food.

Then it was time to start making SamStones. With Jen’s help, we made a new mold to make 2 additional URL stamps for the back of the stones. I used Woods metal,  a low melting point alloy of Bismuth to cast the new stamps.

We made a ton of stones tonight.. more than 50 pounds of samstones tonight. Quite an accomplishment !

Allison (the Nurse from the Colany) and  her friend Samantha showed up around 8. . She’s a great friend of ours..  It was so very cool to see her  walk into our house !

Here we are showing Amy and Alison all of our pictures.. including the ones  in Sams room. I’m proud of all my kids…

The rest of the evening we hung out talking abotu the colony experience, and tlaking about/calling our other freinds. It was great to have other folks to talk about it again !.

Sround 11, Gabe convinced us all to go outside and launch a hot air balloon . The air was still and cool. just perfect for launching. The baloon when up several hundered feet.. then we all saw a huge shooting star cross under the balloon. It was magical !

OK.. too tired to keep typing.. so I’lll end there.. have a good night my friends . Good night Sam
-me