Black Canyon of the Gunnison

I have a fear of heights. I could not see jumping out of a perfectly good airplane, like Dave did a couple of years ago. Out west this summer there were plenty of occasions when I had to force myself to edge closer to a precipice, just to get a nice photo. I’m always careful when I use a ladder, like today. Instead of biking, I decided to work around the house. The paint is peeling on our living room window’s exterior. Earlier this year, I began painting basement windows. The only ladder that I used on those windows was for something to rest the paint can on. The living room windows are higher, but I was able to strip the bottom 80% of these windows with our step-ladder. I tried using our large extension ladder, but it was too long. In order to get that top 20% though I decided that I needed a new ladder. When I was out in Monterey I eyed somewhat covetously my dad’s multi-position ladder. This type of ladder is longer than our step-ladder and also more flexible than our extension ladder. It bends in half and each half extends independently. This last feature is especially nice for the living room windows, because the ground is sloped there. Another nice feature of multi-position ladders is that the legs on both ends flare, adding extra stability. I got the ladder setup, scraped the top of one of the three windows and then ran out of gas. That’s OK, because tomorrow’s another day and the weather should be fine.