Because I get a gun. I learned this morning that I have an elk permit, zone 10, October 19-25th. Not the first choice, but a good one. It’s also on our anniversary (sorry dear!). Zone 10 is south and west of Grand Canyon, a bit of pine forest and lots of high desert scrub. It’ll be pretty that time of year, and this summer I’ll take the bike up and scout roads and creeks for fall.

My stepdad is excited. He tracked down a .30-06 Remington, stainless barrel, synthetic stock. A solid all-weather and all-purpose rifle. He has a scope on order, and is no doubt going over it in his meticulous manner, rebedding and all. It’s always been a particularly impressive process for me, because the obsessive attention to detail and exacting fine motor skills of gunsmithing are things I do not possess.

I should also note that the Kaibab is mostly free of snow. I’m very anxious to get up and scout, ride new turf, and put together the pieces. I gave a poster to the bike shop in Springdale Sunday, and the shop owner was very enthusiastic, somewhat bizarrely so given how little info he had from me. It will be very interesting indeed to see the turnout. Hopefully by next year a calender of sorts will have evolved for these sorts of races, and a regular enough following will have developed that our choices for using time off will have become even more exacting.

I’m also getting excited to watch Transiowa unfold. Small regrets that I won’t be there, but it was a good exchange for the other stuff on tap this summer and fall.

For today, I’m still playing catchup on sleep. Coffee can only do so much.