Well, it's been a long week or two, but I finally got out to go climbing! I met up with my good friend, John Dickey, and we headed out to Tahquitz/Suicide to get away from pavement and onto the rock. The first day was HOT but still beautiful. The area reminded me of Lumpy Ridge, in Estes Park, CO, and we climbed a couple of long, moderate routes. JD was wearing his San Antonio Spurs jersey and I decided to wear a bikini top, so we dubbed the day "white trash day." It was pretty sweet. We forgot most of our slings and had to use stoppers as runners, ran pitches together and ended up simul-climbing large portions of the routes. John Dickey took to yelling, "Hey y'all, how's it goin'" to climbers on nearby routes. We were basically a huge junk show and everyone around us probably thought we were going to kill either ourselves or them. Nonetheless, it was a great day and nice to be out moving about on the rock.
Yesterday we headed up to Suicide for some fun, one-pitch routes on scary, low-angle rock. The clouds rolled in late in the day, and we headed back to town where we sat in a local bar watching, what else, a Spurs basketball game, sampling various cocktails, and munching on sweet potato fries.

Today I am feeling sore and happy after a big diner breakfast and am ready to head back to the city to continue with the moving process. The hot spell has broken and it's raining here, so it's a perfect day for indoor tasks.

Oh, and I know that most of you have been dissing on so-Cal, but I think you're being a little harsh. I for one am psyched to be in California, to have the ocean at my back door, to get a little taste of city life for a bit, and to explore all the climbing that Cali has to offer. There is SO much of it, everywhere, from bouldering to sport climbing, to old-school trad climbing. I mean, the other day I was in gym in Berkeley, California and guess who was in there climbing? None other than Allen Steck. There's so much climbing history out here. I mean, there's a reason that the state is full of people...