Thanksgiving Week

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone.

We are having an entertaining stay in Austin for the holiday week.

Dylan did great on the drive out, even napping when we asked him to on the second day.

Our first day out here Linda and I headed to Riemer's Ranch to do some climbing with Matt and Katie (who is almost 6 months pregnant) and Thu and Natalie. I was experiencing an "I hate Riemer's" day, climbing like crap and in general not enjoying the activity though I did have a good time hanging out with friends. Katie nearly sent her second 5.11 ever, before she got pregnant she had only climbed 5.10, so the bigger she gets the harder she climbs, go figure, Linda could not climb after about 4 months. Linda worked out the moves on Learning to Crawl, which is a pretty stiff 5.12c with lots of powerful moves and no real rests. Matt finally laid to rest Super Cruiser 5.13b which he probably got on the first day he climbed at Riemer's maybe 3 years ago and claimed it was easy and would go down any try, well 3 years later and countless tries it finally did.

On Tuesday I did a 200km permanent, which was basically a combination of 2 local rides. One, the dam loop is largely in town with a handful of big (for Texas) climbs and the other, the Fitzhugh full on Flog is an out and back to Johnson City (home of Lyndon B.), called a flog because of the endless rolling hills.

On Wednesday, Thu got off work early and we headed out to the crag which is on land that he and Nat own, Flat Creek. Dylan and Noah had a great time playing naked in the creek and sharing food. The adults had a good time pulling on some steep rock and Linda worked out the moves on Scapegoat 5.12b and basically did it with 1 hang on her second try to lead the route. Thu came quite close to finishing off the 5.13b he has been working for the last few months and Nat got some good beta for the crux section of the route she has been working on. I on-sighted Amnesia 5.13a and Carl's Route 5.12c, it is always interesting finishing routes at Flat since there are no anchors. You have to mantle and top out, then rest and reverse the mantle and drop. We will probably be headed to Flat again tomorrow, hopefully, and with cooler weather.

Today is a big Thanksgiving party at Linda's sisters house with family and their friends. Since just about everything is closed today I got to make blue cheese hamburgers for everyone for lunch. I think we finished 6 pounds of meat, but there may have been 15 people.

I have some photos of the kids playing in the creek and Linda climbing that I will try to get up once I can downsize them.

Dylan's Tuesday

Well yesterday was an interesting day. We had Dylan's first parent teacher conference of the year. He seems to be doing OK at school, getting along with the other kids and such. He has some issue with listening to the teacher so we have been working on that. He does not like to go in from the playground when outside time is up, the teacher even tried to "leave" him out on the playground and take everyone else in, in the hopes that Dylan would get spooked being out there alone and come running in. Dylan just continued to play in the sandbox as though nothing was wrong.

We received a book that one of the teachers had made of a story that Dylan told her while on the playground and during early care. It is a story about a dog (who happens to be named Komo, which is the name of Chris, Jo and Trinity's dog) and Dylan and the dogs friend that Dylan made up. The teacher than wrote it down and illustrated it, quite well I might add, apparently she is an art teacher.

After the meeting Dylan had his 3 year old Dr's appointment. This one includes no required shots and Dylan was actually quite distressed that he was not going to get a shot. Since he is no longer allergic to eggs though he was able to get the flu shot which he was surprisingly happy about, though his eyes did get big when the needle went in. I wonder how often it is that a 3 year old asks for a shot and fusses when they are told that they don't need one?

Dylan with Buzz and a Weekend of Climbing

Here is a video of Dylan playing with his Buzzlight Year toy.

On Saturday we headed to Datil which should be too cold to climb at by this point, but instead it was too warm to climb in the sun. It seems as though it is going to be a warm and dry winter. Linda got back on "Straight on till Morning" which is 5.12c she had tried once a couple of years ago. She nearly did it on her second try this time around. It would only be her second route of the grade that she had done. Hopefully it will stay warm enough for us to make another trip out this year so she can get it done.

On Sunday I headed up to the Sandias with John Kear to try and climb a new route that was put up earlier this year called Daisy, named after the first ascentionists dog, that is reportedly 5.13. John had gotten on the route on Friday and worked out the moves but not been able to link it without falling because it was too hot, how can it be too hot at 10,000 feet in November? We warmed up by climbing a couple of pitches up a neighboring route since the hard pitch was the first off the ground. John then gave a great fight, squeezing for all he was worth and nearly puking and managed to send the route for the second? ascent and after watching him on it I was able to do the route first try as well. It probably is low end 5.13 and not mid range but still a great route. The second pitch is really fun and quite a bit easier on good hold up a steep red wall. Sadly the last pitch leaves you with a bad taste in your mouth as the rock quality deteriorates dramatically and it seems as though the first ascent party did not put much effort into cleaning it, though they may have put more time into cleaning it than the other pitches it could still use some more. All in all a pretty good day out in the mountains for John and I, and a really good route if you can look past the final pitch.