If I could pick a day…a day to remember and cherish…a day that made me feel that I had tasted life…I would pick today. There are a lot of other days that I cherish and remember, for a lot of different reasons, and some days that make my blood run cold and my heartache in remembering them…

But today. A day that a few select friends met me in the early a.m. – not even their choice of times but because they are my friends, they arrived at the time I specified. We cruised to a Toyota Dealership where I left my favorite vehicle for scheduled maintenance – of course it’s a toyota 4x truck – and we drove to Mt. Charleston to visit an avalanche area and then drifted off to Fletcher Canyon for hiking, hiking, hiking.

Somewhere in this area is where the avalanche started.

The final result was a mangled mess of snow, dirt, trees, branches, rocks, and all around mayhem.

My hiking ‘buds’ (Dan B., Chad P., Jed L., and Wayne) are standing on about 40 feet of packed snow and the avalanche happened more than a few months ago. Don’t fool with Mother Nature. Isn’t it amazing that even though I live in the desert, I’m just an hour’s drive away from snow and mountains? Sweet!

Fletcher Canyon was a lot of uphill, down in the canyon, along the bank of a raging little snowmelt stream, which we crossed several times, in both directions. We made it almost into the canyon, after about a mile and half trek, before we decided to give it up and come back at a later date when the runoff was finished. The weather had changed to overcast and intermittent sprinkles.

I picked up my truck and came home to nap for a few hours before getting ready to visit Jeff’s house for a poker tournament. Wayne met me there. There were new faces and familiar faces of people that I know from the poker room. Thirteen of us played in the tournament. I tried to run over A-A with the A-K H…WOOPS!

I had a great time. Of course I was drinking my favorite wine. All kinds of munchies, friendly people, and poker! Wow! That’s the perfect combo. My camera was a must for this event so I managed to take a lot of pictures and make a few .mpgs of some of the kids while they played poker.

Around midnight it was time fly. After I arrived home, Vivienne found me in an online chat. I suppose I hadn’t had nearly enough to drink or just wasn’t ready to end the night, but no matter what it was, she came over and joined me in a backyard chimenae fire, wine, and long conversation.

Somewhere around 5 a.m. I managed to hit Sandman Land. Too tired to think, too much to drink, too much fun, never enough time…