Last weekend, I went hiking without the family for the first time since the kids were born. I likewise haven't been on any long bicycle rides, though pulling 100 pounds of kids and their gear to daycare and back every day can be strenuous in a completely different way.

The hike was instigated by John Leo, who was my TA in a theory class when I was a student at MIT around 1986 or 1987. An avid mountaineer, he moved to Seattle and has done a lot of hiking and climbing. He ran across my name when looking up changes to the Java programming language, and he still remembered me. He saw from my webpages that I lived in Seattle and that 20 years ago I had done a lot of mountain climbing, so he invited me to go out with him. We chose to hike/scramble up Kaleetan Peak, which is relatively close to Seattle and non-technical (class 2). I enjoy hiking with my family, but sometimes a bit more challenge and speed is fun. We had a great time walking and talking, and the day wasn't even diminished when my car's radiator cracked on the way back to Seattle.

I still haven't downloaded the pictures from my camera, but John's pictures are most likely better anyway. The captions have a lot of information, too. He uploaded them that very evening.