“Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution”—Clay Shirky

  “I do believe in simplicity. It is astonishing as well as sad, how many trivial affairs even the wisest thinks he must attend to in a day; how singular an affair he thinks he must omit. When the mathematician would solve a difficult problem, he first frees the equation of all incumbrances, and reduces it to its simplest terms. So simplify the problem of life, distinguish the necessary and the real. Probe the earth to see where your main roots run. ”  ―    Henry David Thoreau  

In case you’re in a hurry.  There is actually a drive through window around the corner.  These are everywhere.  After spending weeks in Utah this is a big change. The Wind River Range.  Rugged, steep mountains! This guy wanted to look at the map with me.

Farrah and I spent a few days in the Uinta Mountains on our way from Salt Lake City to Pinedale, Wyoming.  Between thunderstorms we did a little hike and some climbing above Ruth Lake.  We would have loved to stay a little longer but the rain just wasn’t letting up long enough to get a whole lot accomplished.  Beautiful place. This is the view from the climbing at Ruth Lake. Being a little artsy…

Farrah and I spent the last four days at a music and arts festival outside of Salt Lake City on the dusty, scorched salt flats in the desert south of the Great Salt Lake.  The festival was being held on the property of Bonneville Seabase which is a geothermally heated, salt water, high altitude mini ocean with colorful marine tropical fish in the middle of Utah.  Apparently the water pools around the property have been stocked with a multitude of tropical fish including several docile nurse sharks.  People pay to snorkel and scuba dive at Seabase.  Kind of novel.   Unfortunately the pools do not have the

A farmer challenges an engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician to fence off the largest amount of area using the least amount of fence. The engineer made his fence in a circle and said it was the most efficient. The physicist made a long line and said that the length was infinite. Then he said that fencing half of the Earth was the best. The mathematician laughed at the others and with his design, beat the others. What did he do? *************************************************************************************************************************************** Has anyone figured out the answer to this yet?  Here’s a hint…what is considered inside the fence?

Awoke to rain pooling on the sunroof of the van this morning.  A cool, dewy reminder that we are from Seattle and that even though Utah is the second driest state in the country, it rains here too.  It was actually a relief to see the rain despite the fact that it sidelined my plans to climb at Cecret Lake in Albion Basin today.  Rain is exactly what this place needs.  To clean the smoke-filled air and to give local fire fighters the upper hand extinguishing several wildfires that currently burn in nearby canyons. So for now Farrah and I sit in a cafe at

Wow.  There really are a lot of fires in the Western states right now.  Farrah captured this picture from in front of the coffee shop we’re sitting at.  It looks like there is another fire burning somewhere near Salt Lake City.  Currently there are at least 100,000+ acres of wildfires burning in Utah alone.  The idea that it’s the 3rd of July and tomorrow will be a veritable war zone of kids playing with fireworks does not bode well with fire prevention measures.  We’ll be staying on top of where the fires are located and avoid them at all cost. 

The last few days have been a little slow going.  Farrah and I had a small oil leak in the van which I wanted to get it taken care of right away.  I brought the van to a local mechanic and when the van was returned to us it had damage to the interior and the transmission was acting up.  Needless to say we were less than pleased and we let the owner of the shop know this.  At first he was defiant but once he saw the damage that his mechanics did to the interior of the vehicle he quickly became apologetic and