Sunshine get on me

Whatttt uppp?!!

Since my last post I have finished up an A-M-A-Z-I-N-G week of climbing in Red Rocks, stayed at my first couch surfing home, visited Joshua Tree National Park, camped in Los Padres National Forest and drove along the coast from LA to San Fran. So much in such a little amount of time! I am now sipping coffee and lounging in the missions district of San Fran.

Red Rocks put a love spell on me.. I considered dropping everything and moving to Vegas.. kind of, briefly.  California will probably change my mind on that one, but we will see.  Emy and I went to some new areas that were completely opposite of the busy and touristy climbing of my first 3 trips. We had climbing walls to ourselves on multiple occasions, enjoyed the shade of freshly green trees, and savored the sights and smells of the dessert flowers. Well mostly I did all of this.. in a slightly obsessive way. My past trips to Red Rocks have been in January where it is nice during the day, but with the sun setting at 5.. long durations of freezing temps must be endured.  I have always been grateful of the winter climbing opportunity, but going here in April rocked my world! The sun set around 8.. making for a long relaxing day of climbing and time for naps and yoga and reading and landscape gazing. I climbed my first multi pitch AND led my first traditional climbing route (with the assistance and gear of our camp mates).  I won't go into too much detail for my non-climbing readers, but I can not see why climbing is a life long sport and I am psyched to learn new skills and collect more gear! It might take me 10 years to get a trad rack but lets do this thing!

So seductive

5.5 crack.. Holla!

After leaving Red Rocks, Emy and I stayed with a climbing family who recently moved to Vegas. The dad met us for some quick climbing then we got to use their kitchen, hot tub, and best of all BATHROOM! We then headed in a round about way (missed a turn) to Joshua Tree, which is another climbing destination. We knew ahead of time that we lacked the proper gear for this trip, but we wanted to check it out regardless and continue to enjoy the hot dessert weather (don't forget that we froze our arses off in Utah!) Our friend Sam met us there for a couple nights of camping and Joshua Tree exploration. It is a really interesting place. I got on one boulder problem that almost led to the skinning of my whole front body.. so that was the ONLY climbing I did there. We boogied out of there Sunday morning to make our longest drive yet... past LA and up the coast. We stopped for lunch in Santa Barbara and then got probably the last camping sight in the Big Sur area! It was a site for bikers or hikers only, but the camp host saw us driving around and around looking like zombies and offered for us to stay there. What a change in environment! Woke up in the hot hot dessert.. went to bed in the moistest lands of Cali.  Mist for days, dew on the ground, and ocean views.  We loved it!

Crazy cool cactus + surprise bee

Top of Ryan's Mountain-Joshua Tree

DANG J tree sunset.. you da bomb

Eye Candy yummm @ Big Sur California

More fun to come. Stay in the present, there is no day like today!

Will just be doing my job of moving Viets car around to avoid parking tickets .. every two hours to be exact!