woke up this morning and there was no water. we knew right away that the pipes had frozen, as it was about ten degrees out. an unusually cold night, for here, though i guess as we get into late december, and early january, maybe not that unusual. One usual thing was that the sun came out and before long it was quite reasonable; eventually we got our water back. One thing that was unusual was that it was the last day of school, so the kids, knowing that they would have an easy day, were relatively good-natured about it. and it's not like most of them take showers, or even brush their teeth.

there are four, almost all teenagers, and they go out in two different rides, because one has basketball practice at six a m. on the mountain roads in the fives, like five thirty, you generally see a lot of elk and deer, and this morning a huge elk jumped right in front of me as i was driving down the main highway. i wasn't even on a back road; i was on the main highway, and there he was. he was a little dazzled by my high beams, and jumped in the wrong direction at the last moment. But I missed him; he swerved at the same time i did, and i went around him.

i found the pipe that had frozen, and was most lucky that it hadn't in fact burst. it could do that, as we do get some powerful cold spells, but this wasn't one of them, and it didn't. it had frozen good enough to leave the whole place without water though. what had happened was that one of those yellow thermometer plugs didn't seem to work. it's entirely possible that i'd used it wrong. but in any case, it got well below thirty, and i hadn't done anything about it.

actually, going into winter break, i consider myself lucky. i had one bad incident on an icy road, trying to pick up my basketball players. the car broke down. with my wife in the hospital, i'd neglected to check the oil regularly enough, and it had valve problems, and broke a radiator. i am now planning on being more careful about everything like that. my wife is now back on her feet, able to drive, and more in the game. it was a little thousand-dollar mistake.

unlike her helicopter ride, which as it turns out is a forty-six thousand dollar mistake, but with that one, we might get help. what they say is, they charge you what it's worth, but, if you were way out in the country, and they had to do it, they have a fund that will help you pay it.

the pictures below tell a little about our lives. one is the road behind the school, where i wait for the kids in the afternoon. i find it an incredibly peaceful place, although cloudcroft itself is often colder, foggier, even snowier than where we live. i sit in the car and play on my phone, and it's a pretty good deal, except the phone goes down rapidly, sometimes from 80% down to 30% even in less than an hour. Eventually the kids show up and we go home. it's not that special. but to us in the mountains, any day in the mountains is better than any other, anywhere else.