An amateur photographer was invited to dinner with friends and took along a few pictures to show the hostess. She looked at the photos and commented, “These are very good! You must have a good camera.”
He didn’t make any comment, but as he was leaving to go home he said, “That was a really delicious meal! You must have some very good pots.”
I’m totally speechless! Rodale/Bicycling Magazine just emailed to say I’ve won a bike (above) as part of their BikeTown USA program. I never win anything, at least not until today…
So cool! Wow!
I’ll get it at a ceremony on Monday at Gasworks Park with 49 other people who also won bikes. They are giving them away around the country to encourage more people to commute by bike.
I have grand visions of a basket, bike racks, bell...the total coffee shop cruiser!
Nick and I went to see Return 2 Sender last night. The first half of the show - Parallelojams - was an amazing tour of crack climbing in the Indian Creek area of Utah, led by Timmy O’Neil. After a successful weekend of friction climbing, I’m totally inspired to tape up and give it a go.
Nick was more interested in the short about Cycada, a 10-year old boulder climber who can climb her age. Yes, that’s V10! ("Damn hard” for the layperson.) The idea of climbing without ever getting more than a few feet off the ground sounded appealing to him.
When we got home, Nick attempted Kitchen Crack for the first time. It’s a gnarly traverse that starts with the off-width between our sideboard and the dining room wall (see that gnarly finger crimp on the thermostat?) and traverses over the arch to the windows in the front of the house. He didn’t get very far, but it was entertaining to watch of course.
I forgot my camera this weekend (bad grrl!), but thought I’d put up a short post about our adventures in Leavenworth anyway.
Jeanine, Bruce, Matt, Susan, Colt and I signed up for a friction climbing seminar with local guru Dave Anthony. We met shortly after 8 a.m. at Krystalle’s (Leavenworth’s version of Denny’s) and began our schooling at the side of the Icicle Creek Road, where we got in touch with the balls of our feet. They soon became our best friends as we scrambled and slid around on low-angle slabs in our mountaineering boots. (Our pain, Dave’s sadistic pleasure.)
After a few hours we grabbed our climbing gear and headed off to an area just below Gibler’s Dome to practice on top rope. Staying in our mountaineering boots we worked routes with Cebe, Dave and Brent offering (sometimes) useful advice. The phrase of the day - “intellectually interesting, but physically impossible” - kept jumping out of our mouths as the next new challenge was thrown at us.
Just about the time we were finally allowed to switch to rock shoes, the sky opened up and drenched the rock, making it all but impossible to climb. The rain only lasted 10 minutes, but killed the rest of the day.
Not to worry, the hot tub was calling. We soaked our bones and had dinner at Visconti’s, before crashing into bed.
The next morning came way too early and cries of “oh, my aching calves!” could be heard across town.
Day two was all in rock shoes. We scrambled to an area called “Anthony’s Classroom” above Gibler’s Dome. I don’t believe that the Leavenworth Climbing Guide has it identified at all, but Dave is primarily responsible for its bolting. Hopefully the third edition of the book will have it labeled correctly.
Anyway, lots of fun. Some challenging starts on relatively easy 5.3 and 5.6 routes and some easy starts to some challenging 5.7 and 5.8 routes. By the end of the day we were absolutely worked. Dinner at Gustav’s soothed our aching ankles and we made it home just in time to get some sleep before waking up for work on Monday.
Oh, my aching calves!!!
I came across some pictures of our recent Tour de Whidby. I think it was last weekend, that we rode the sausage creatures across the Sound (way cool to drive to the front of the ferry line) and explored all of the twisty backroads from Fort Casey to Coupeville to Langley.
Fort Casey was really fun. You can see in the picture above that the main gun was covered over, probably for restoration. We drove over to the lighthouse as well. Lunch in Coupeville was an experience. This normally sleepy little arts town was completely overrun by marathon runners/walkers. Getting a table for a bowl of soup was a three-restaurant, 30 minute ordeal. Langley was delightful, as usual. We poked in a few shops and had hot chocolate and a pastry at the bakery to fortify us for the ride home.