First day in Nags Head. Took a walk on the beach every morning. That night we all went out to dinner at an okay seafood restaurant. All the males (and Margaret) wore bolo ties in honor of my dad and Henry Kolm.

Photo of the Ford kids by David McCallie.

Spent a couple hours playing in the surf on some rented kayaks. Super fun. Photo of me by David McCallie. Took a bunch of kids to see Brave that afternoon.

Another sweet hot day. When i was out kayaking with Greg, we saw dolphins!

Went to the Kitty Hawk museum. When we got out of the museum, there was a big brush fire on an island nearby.

Saw a school of rays under my kayak while i was out in the surf.

That afternoon i did a photo shoot with Nina's family and unfortunately i was having focus problems with my lens and about half the pics were out of focus. Still makes me mad at myself.

A bunch of us drove down the outer banks. Some of us visited the Bodie Island lighthouse (which was closed for repairs), others made the drive down to the Cape Hatteras light house.

Nina took that picture of me.

Last walk on the beach. Saw the dolphins again before driving back up to Norfolk. Arrived at Katherine's house to happy dogs.

Teco at 17 and a half (about).

Chrystal and i went on a zipline tour at Okemo, as they were letting employees take the tour as training for the guides. Totally cool. The Jackson Gore Concert Series was just starting as we finished up, so i stayed and shot a couple rounds of golf. That's my friend Jeremy's dog Arlo.

Drove down to Westminster, Vermont to drop off my car at Sportscar Services. Thomas drove up from Newfane and met me there, drove me home, then drove back to Newfane.

Thunderstorm rolled through.

Mommy and Daddy drove up from PA to visit a friend of theirs who lives in Wallingford. I came over for dinner, then they stayed the night at my house before heading down to Newfane the next day.

Took the dogs for a walk in the morning, then drove down to Newfane for my sister's wedding. Hung out at their place over their new store until the evening, then headed home.

Started zipline guide training. Worked in the signshop for an hour or so in the morning, then spent the rest of the day out on the ziplines getting familiar with riding them.

Well, the zipline training was going well and i was feeling pretty comfortable with landings and rescues. At the end of the day i was up on platform 7 and Kirk asked if i was comfortable with riding the last line by myself (no one on platform 8 to catch me) and i said yes. So i rode it down, hit the stop-block, made it to the platform, reached out for the catch rope, and then, probably because the force of the stopping had swung me upward a bit, my hand got caught between the cable and the stop-block, smashing and tearing up my middle finger. Dammit.

I clenched my fist closed on the injury and in that couple of seconds, couldn't hold my landing, so slid back out onto the line. I ended up out by the scaffolding for the Big Air Bag and called down to Kirk to tell him what happened. At some point i relayed the information that i had "a fistful of blood". The main problem i had was that there was no one on platform 8 to send a retrieval line out to me, so i was stuck until someone could get up there (55 feet off the ground). Fortunately i was still high enough in my harness that i could reach the cable, so i began one-handing myself back to the stop-block. After a few minutes, i made it there, then had another couple minutes of hanging on until i managed to hold myself in place with my injured hand and transfer one of my safety lines to the other side of the stop-block, holding me there.

Meanwhile, Bill, one of the guys from the company that installed the zipline, got his ascender out and slowly made the long climb up to platform 8. He finally got up and sent the retrieval line out to me, which, after fumbling with (i was getting tired) i got hooked to my harness and he reeled me in. Bill lowered me down off the platform, Evan did some great first aid, and Deb took me down to the Ludlow Health Clinic, where they cleaned it out, took xrays, and wrapped it up.

I didn't sleep well the previous night because my brain was going full speed thinking about the mishap i'd had on the zipline. I went to work in the signshop for the morning, but then went out that afternoon in a guest harness and got rescued from the zipline 3 or 4 times. It was cool to see how the other guide trainees handled the rescue situation, and i helped out with suggestions as i hung there. I didn't get a chance to ride line 7, the line i hurt myself on, but i'll get back out on it again.

Picture of my Mini at Sportscar Services (taken by the owner of the shop).

Teco in a field.

Injured-finger boy.