Kiddos and Dinos

Miranda, Darin, Adrian, Elliot, and Esther came for a visit! We spent saturday in the 'world's largest dinosaur museum' down at Thanksgiving Point, and Darin and Eric went to a Coldplay concert that night. Miranda and I made the 'world's best apple pie' and a fantastic pizza for dinner. They are the first family to come and stay at our house with us, and it was great! Eric was impressed at the amount of energy that is required for young kids. He'll warm up to it one of these days..or years. :)Here are some pics from the dinosaur musuem.





Never tell a climber not to climb the rocks...



Shenanigans with my great brother in law, Darin.


Elliot. What a cutie.



The great hands on part of the museum- the water erosion table!



Can't tell if he's having a good time or not..



Adrian LOVES dinosaurs!

Last Weekend in the Desert

Liz and I went down to Castle Valley outside of Moab in November and climbed a couple desert towers. My camp stove stopped working, the rappel off the tower got a bit mixed up, we hiked down in the dark with no head lamps, and we met a not very nice female climbing guide, but other than that the trip was really great. Liz is one of my favorite people to road trip and climb with.




Liz and I on top of Owl Rock in Arches National Park


at the second pitch belay ledge with Castleton Tower in the background


I'm scoping out the route



the awesome approach. we climbed the face in the sun of the tower directly behind Liz. the route is called Fine Jade, 5.11 on the Rectory (that's the name of the tower. there's also the Nuns and The Priest-two other small towers behind the rectory)

The Rest of the Story

At the beginning of the month, Eric's parents came out for a brief weekend visit. Unfortunately, it was raining the whole weekend! but that didn't stop us from getting out on a rainy, cold, and snowy hike. During the weekend we planned a progressive dinner on bikes with a bunch of friends. we all live relatively close to each other so we had the bright idea of having appetizers at one house, salad at another, entree at another house, and finally desert at another house. since we live so close we all biked between houses. it was a blast!

Finally, towards the end of october a whole crew of us went down to the desert yet again. and as always, the desert was best enjoyed with the company of many. eric got in a few good pictures too. enjoy.




yellow marks the trail



Cary and I hunkering down in the rain


Mike, Cary, and I



The whole gang at our house during the progressive bike ride dinner



Biking between houses



This is where I spend all my time...the impressive Indian Creek Valley





A few of Eric's handy work pictures. me on Excuse Station, 5. 11

Desert Trip 1

In the middle of october I went on a stellar girls trip to the desert. My friend Jamie from work and Jen and I went down to moab specifically to mountain bike and climb. Jen is our resident expert female mountain biker so she chose two mountain biking trails to take us on. Jamie and I are not so expert mountain bikers, but we gave it a lot of effort! The views were incredibly beautiful from the trails, even if i did have to walk parts of them! we spent two days mountain biking in Moab and two days rock climbing in Indian Creek (just south of Moab). This was the girls first time to go crack climbing, and they gave it a lot of effort. I was pretty worked after this trip though- it felt like 4 days of a jane fonda total body work out! but it was great time spent in my favorite ecosystem(the desert) with even better friendships and conversations enjoyed.



At the end of the trip we all demonstrated our climbing ability. except Jamie who had a bad attitude about how painful crack climbing can be...



Jamie and I were psyched that our wag bag was attached to the outside of the car... Wag bags are basically ziplocked bags that you must use to pooh in when camping in the desert. As you can imagine, they don't smell very good. But they are helping protect the fragile desert environment, one pooh at a time. :)



The girls at the base of Coyne Crack in Indian Creek. Jodi (on the left) was our token canadian that we met while climbing the crack (indian creek is such a popular place that we almost always meet foreigners climbing there. Jodi was great- she was on a trip with a couple of guys and was so happy to climb a bit with girls. she said she had forgotten how great it was to climb with just girls!) Next is Jamie, then Jen, then I.



This is me climbing Coyne Crack, 5.11. I remember struggling on this climb just 1 year ago, and this time around it was just simple, pure FUN!



This our explosion of mountain biking gear in the parking lot after riding the classic slick rock trail in Moab.


Jamie and I on the slick rock trail.



Jen and I goofing around during the lunch break on the slick rock. you can just see the snow covered La Sal Mountain range in the back ground.


Shadow Fun!


Jen and I jumping for joy at the top of Amasa Back, another classic Moab mountain bike trail.