Visiting my cousin Doug in Fort Collins, 4-year-old cousin Hazel proves a tough interview subject. Five-month-old Miles is more cooperative. We sing happy birthday to their Grandma Beth.

We spend our last day in Vedauwoo on foot. I concoct a southbound traversal linking many of the trails I’ve scoped out and one I’ve never seen, finishing at the Nautilus rock formation, too pooped to climb it.

We fail to account for July 4 climbing crowds.

We hike and climb and best of all, sleep.

Wyoming greets us with hail, rainbows, and the prospect of sleep.

We have an encounter with a nighthawk and experience vacation jitters.

You’ve never been able to listen to the hobolog, UNTIL NOW. In fact, you’ll have to if you want to know why I’m suddenly posting audio and what we have in store for July.

There are a few things I hope to learn with this little project:

• to use my words
• to express feelings
• to tell a story
• a new medium

Despite the fact that Ann and I did not change our basic situation in 2015, still living on the Truckee river and walking together daily to the Reno Collective, it was a year unlike any so far. Here are the main things that made it unique.

I worked on my own product all year long

Postmatic has grown into a real product with thousands of installations. I have customers, and the impact my actions have on them is immediate and visceral. Mistakes bring pain, and fixes bring happiness. It’s nerve wracking but fulfilling work, different from anything I’ve done before.

Last year I thought 2015 would reveal the fate of Postmatic. It did not. We end the year with clear evidence that it’s a valuable product, but I think it will be 2016 that shows whether or not it will thrive as a business.

Ann gets adhesive capsulitis

While I’m thankful that Ann has been free of life-threatening monster ovarian cysts this year, it’s been anything but easy for her. Starting in July her left shoulder started giving her pain, and she ends the year still suffering from frozen shoulder.

It’s likely we’ll remember 2015-16 as the time Ann learned through trial and terror what can be done with 30% range of motion in one shoulder. Hike? Thankfully, yes. Climb? No. Take off a sweater? Yes, but you might get stuck. Best ask for help.

Ruby mountains

After working through 2014 without ever spending more than a few consecutive days outdoors, we were determined to do at least a week-long backpacking trip. The Ruby Crest Trail was a perfect choice. For years we’d looked at these mountains from afar and made oaths to visit them one day. They did not disappoint us.

In fine fettle

Happily I’m in good health, perhaps the best of my life. The harder I work the more need I feel to balance it with exercise. I enjoy the climbing gym more than ever, and extended my running range, maxing out with a 27.7-mile, 3,889-foot run on pavement, dirt, mud, snow, and ice. Now that we’re getting much-anticipated snow and I’m hiking as much powder as I can manage on the split board.

This statistical madness has now been going on long enough to compare a few years: