June 22nd has a habit of showing up with a lot to say. Twenty-five years ago it arrived with a double punch, a job reassignment that sounded about as exciting as watching paint dry and a car repair bill that made the eyes water. That was the bad news entry, and it reads like a man tallying his losses in real time.
A year later, two posts from the same day. One a full airing of grievances, dog bills, loneliness, a canceled camping trip, and the particular silence that settles in when you're feeling low. The other, a blink-and-you-miss-it quick update about race results and a daughter's photo. The contrast is striking. Despair in one window, pride in the next.
By 2003, the Alaska dream that had been circling finally had a ticket attached to it. The Glennallen entry practically hums with barely contained excitement, complete with full flight itineraries copied in like a kid packing their bag three days early.
Then came the physical reckoning years. A creeping headache in 2004, earned honestly by the bike. Tubeless tire parties and a laundromat story that needed its own paragraph warning in 2010. The annual Rapelje countdown in 2011, which read less like a race preview and more like a kid on Christmas Eve.
A goose in 2012. A Porsche on a boulder pass in 2015, which honestly raises more questions than it answers. Race prep at Chico Hot Springs in 2016, the old-people question still very much unresolved. An in-print gallery from 2018, and a survival strategy for Mondays in 2020 that honestly applies to most of life.
Something unknown happened to Elle in 2021. In 2022, when things got messy, the response was to look back and find the gems. Waterworks Hill got a poem in 2023, all bitterroot and blanket flowers and Montana light. And then 2024 closed it out with a gondola, a dog named Buttons, and a very good day at Silver Mountain.
June 22nd has carried broke-down cars and broken moods, race starts and trail ends, bad days at the laundromat and perfect days on the mountain. What it keeps proving, year after year, is that you show up anyway.