For those of you wondering why I haven’t updated this site recently, it’s not because I’ve been lazy or have had a lack of things to talk about. On the contrary, I just spent 3 weeks hiking ~230 miles through some of the most beautiful wilderness in the lower 48-states. I hiked the John Muir Trail from Yosemite NP down to Mt. Whitney in Sequoia NP. I hiked the majority of the trail with my friend Matt from college and his girlfriend Minette. Rob, a friend of mine, and Brian, a friend of Matt and Minette’s, then met us 3 days from the end of the hike to bring in our last resupply and to hike the rest of the trail with us.The hike was fantastic. I think my favorite parts were doing Half Dome by sunrise and pretty much all of the northern section of Kings Canyon (even though we got caught in our first hail storm and my ankles started hurting around then). Making friends along the trail was cool, too. Everyone we met was worth getting to know. Being on approximately the same schedule meant we saw the same people quite a bit on the trail and would often end up camping or at least eating lunch with them. After we completed the trail on Friday most of us got together for dinner/drinks at the Mexican restaurant in Lone Pine.Other memorable moments: seeing the silhouette of a bear walk by my tent at night in Lyell Canyon and later hearing one attempt to get into our canisters around 2 AM, getting caught in a hail storm while taking a dump near Guitar Lake, all of the polar bear club swims after a long day of hiking, the lightning storm later that would prevent us from pushing on to Trail Crest and ended up killing two members of a boyscout troup (a leader and scout) in nearby Sandy Meadow, and scrambling/climbing up to Mt. Muir along the Mt. Whitney trail with Rob. Oh, and of course all of the beautiful sunrises and sunsets.It will probably be a few weeks before I’ll get the photos uploaded to the site. I’ll be sure to post when they’re available.
Invisible Elevators 
Congrats! Glad to hear you made it, although sitting in front of your computer for 8 hrs a day doesn’t sound so appealing now does it?Look forward to seeing you guys next week.
I’ve also done some interesting hiking recently. Two weeks ago, my son Ron and I went to the World Future Society convention in Chicago. One day, we went for a hike from the hotel to the lakeshore (Michigan, I think) and back (over six big city blocks, which is a long way for a 94 year old) We met a homeless person who reluctantly gave up "his" parkbench so that I could rest a bit. Earlier, we went to our homestead on the Kenai Penisula in Alaska. I hiked over 600 yards through the woods along a survey trail so that I could stand on my property. That survey trail has a sign on it that reads: "Leon A Windeler Highway". It’s the longest street sign on the Kenai Peninsul.
Uncle Leon, sounds like you’re quite the adventurer! I hope I’m that mobile when I’m 94.I, too, traveled along the Chicago lake shore recently. My family took a trip there to visit my brother Kurt over the 4th of July weekend. I took the opportunity to run along the lake shore as part of my training before the hike.