Twinsies!

So on Sunday night, Ian and I pulled into the grocery store and I went "Twinsy!". I've been saying this every time we see a dodge sprinter, but this time it truly was our twin. There was a solar panel and roof vent on top and a guy sitting outside it with his dog. So we parked and walked over to say hey and check it out. It was awesome, they converted the van and organized it quite similarly to ours. So we chatted for a bit and ended up hanging out at camp for the rest of the evening. They are a young couple who are on an extended rock climbing road trip. I think it's pretty amazing that we found a van almost the same as ours and people doing a very similar trip.


We've been climbing in Flagstaff for a couple of days now, and made it out to the Overlook to do some trad climbing on Sunday (where we use gear to protect the climb). The rock was basalt and pretty cool to climb on - it was the first time for either of us climbing on that type of rock. Monday we went back to the Pit to climb some sport and ended up doing some fun ones. Our hands are starting to show the normal signs of wear and tear, but we are starting to feel stronger already.

Piton is enjoying herself and seems to have settled into life in the van. She made a new friend the other night, Hueco, from the twinsy van and had a blast running around the camp site. She's enjoying her days in the sun and seems to find odd places sleep when we are out climbing. Right before this shot her eyes were closed and her head was resting on that rock - what a pillow!


We are still rocking out to the XM radio, and I'm particularly enjoying it for playoff hockey. I only miss a game now when I forget to turn it on! Thanks again to Pete, Natalie, Brent, and CJ! :)

The Desert Towers of Sedona (aka my van is broken)

The wedding in Phoenix was beautiful, but it was time for us to move on. We drove north, to Red Rock Country in the Coconino National Forest. On Tuesday, we went for a nice hike on the Bell Trail through the Arizona backcountry to a swimming hole on Beaver Creek - it was nice to go for a swim and get cooled off as the weather was still quite warm.

Saguaro Cactus Driving North from Phoenix

The Desert Towers of Sedona

Getting back to the van, we noticed that the coolant level was low - there were no drips under the van, so we didn't think much of of it, but thought we should get it topped up. We drive up to the hardware store, but when we got there, found that the coolant was dripping pretty good at this point, so on the advice of a kindly local, we headed just down the road to the village's mechanic shop. As it turned out, the water pump was shot, and needed replacement. The parts wouldn't arrive from Phoenix until Thursday morning, so we were camped out in the Mechanic's parking lot for the next 36 hours or so. One really odd coincidence is that when Meghan's older sister found out where we were, her response was, "The mechanic's shop behind the Chevron? Ya, I've been there..." As it turns out, she had some car troubles a few years ago and ended up there herself. It's a small world.

Wading in Leech-Infested Water for a Photo

Here are the Results - Was it Worth It?

The van needing repairs did give us the opportunity to explore Oak Creek, and all the galleries and whatnot that they have to offer. We also went to a timeshare presentation, partly to pass the time, but mostly for a free helicopter tour of the whole Sedona area. That was awesome. It was a short flight, but it gave us a unique perspective of the area, and gave me a chance to get some cool photos.

After that, we drove a bit further north, to Flagstaff. We did some climbing at "The Pit" (aka "Le Petit Verdon"), which is just outside of town. We met some great people, and ended up going to a screening of Luxury Liner, the First Ascent of Supercrack, which is a climbing movie about the bold, visionary first climb of a famous climb at Indian Creek, a desert climbing area in Utah known for it's parallel-sided "splitter" cracks. It was pretty cool. Today was a rest day, after I gave my arms a huge workout yesterday flailing trying to lead a 5.11a (didn't finish it, even with lots of falls). Tomorrow we're headed out to "The Overlook", a trad climbing area in Oak Creek Canyon just south of Flagstaff. We hiked in today just to check it out, and it looks pretty cool.

It's Saturday evening when I write this post, so that's when I'll date it, but it might be a day or two before we get back into town and hook up with free WiFi.

Cheers,

Ian

Adventures in Phoenix

So Ian and I have been in Phoneix for a week and a couple of days now, and are getting ready to head out shortly. Our first excursion was out to Queen Creek area and we did some rock climbing near the copper mine, but I forgot my camera so we have no pictures from that adventure. We've been to Camelback Mountain in Tempe (suburbia Phoenix) three times now. Our first Ian and I didn't see much, we scouted the climbing, but didn't do anything because it was super windy out and didn't feel like a great plan. Our second day there we hiked the main trail with Jamie, and our third day there we finally got down to some rock climbing.

I should preface this story with there are certain known dangers in the Southwest - I touched on them earlier with the everything pokes and stabs. Cactus, rattle snakes, scorpions, tarantulas, etc. were the dangers that people told us. Most of them are either really rare, or easily avoided - but there are others that I had no idea about. This next threat looks innocent enough, but it was really scary as it buzzed our heads on the top of our climb. I didn't actually get a picture of it (I was too frightened of the pointy protrusion on it's head), so I'm using a stock photo of one Ian took behind the safety of a window on a prior day.
We finished that climb and then next thing we knew "beep beep" this birds running straight at us. Well... the sound effect might be made up, but he looked pretty close to the first and exactly like the second. The road runner was smaller than I thought too.










Yesterday Jamie and James were married in a beautiful ceremony at the Tempe Mission Palms, a resort right in Tempe. I was honoured to be a part of their special day, and enjoyed my time here!








On our way into Phoenix last Friday we did stop in Tombstone, Arizona - the town that never dies. We took pictures, but have temporarily misplaced them on the hard drive - so we'll put those up another time.

Everything Pokes and Stabs in the Southwest

Last night we found a cute little state park (Red Rocks Canyon - different than the one outside Vegas) to have dinner at. There was supposed to be swimming - but apparently we are the only crazies looking to swim and it's not open yet. We did have a lovely dinner and also got free showers - added bonus! We were treated with a lovely sunset as we drove through the rest of Oklahoma.

We slept blissfully last night - in the Portales, NM, Walmart parking lot. This is our second night in a row utilizing the vast and free parking lots box stores provide, and surprisingly we were one of many doing the same. The morning started with me taking out the dog in bare feet - note the title for the lesson I learned. We hit the road and drove through a very windy New Mexico on our way to Roswell. For those of you (like me) who have never heard of this place, apparently a rancher found unique metal scraps on his property and attributed it to a crashed alien spacecraft. There is now an entire museum/ research center dedicated to UFOs and aliens. Hilarious.

From Roswell we headed onto Carlsbad Caverns, still in New Mexico. There we were able to do

a tour of the Kings Room and learn a bit more about the formations from a guide, as well as take a self-guided tour of another room in the cave. Apparently this is the largest and deepest cave in the western hemisphere, and was formed when sulfuric acid formed and carved out the cave system. Since then the cave has drained (all the sulfuric acid was neutralized with the limestone deposits in the cave), and "decorations" have formed in the cave in the thousands and thousands of years since. One of the pictures below is little tiny nubs off a tunnel roof - those are stalactites that have formed in 77 years... the rest of them must be really old. One of the neat things about this national park was that they had a kennel right on site for Piton while we explored the cave.

We are now headed on to El Paso, Texas where we will camp for the night near Hueco Tanks. We may do some climbing in the morning, or we may just hike in Hueco - we'll have to see if we are able to get a climbing pass in the morning. There are only 10 walk-in passes available, so our odds aren't great though.

We are looking forward to seeing my friend Jamie Asti in Phoenix and relaxing in that area for a little more than a week! Life in the van is going well and we really seem to be getting the hang of life on the road. We'd love to hear news about what's going on in your neck of the woods, so drop us an email and keep us in the loop.

Uncovering the Worlds Largest Covered Wagon

Tuesday (yesterday) morning we got up early and started driving. Then  we drove a little longer, then we drove some more - all the way to  Missouri! There were 4 inches of snow on the ground when we left  Kitchener, and it was still snowing. The weather continued to be miserable through much of Michigan, but as we got into Indiana and  Illinois it cleared up turned into a nice day. No offense to anyone  from Illinois, but that is one big flat state - at least the parts of  it we drove through. The only real highlight once we were past  Chicago was the world's largest covered wagon. It was pretty big -  and President Lincoln was driving. Awesome.

We drove across the Mississippi River into Missouri and through St. Louis last night as well, so we stopped to see the Gateway Arch. That thing is huge - it's really cool. We didn't really explore the city at all though - it was around 10pm so most of the cool stuff would have been closed, so we just hit the road again and drove a little longer.

We stopped in Rolla, Missouri for the night around midnight EST. This morning we got up after about 8 hours of sleep, but since we're now in the Central Time Zone, it was only 7am. Hooray for an easy head start. I'm typing this now as Meghan takes a turn behind the wheel. We're currently heading west on I-44 about 100 miles from Tulsa Oklahoma.

We're trying to get to Texas tonight, so we can arrive at Carlsbad Caverns in good time tomorrow. We'll try to get this and the previous blog posts uploaded as soon as we get some free wireless internet.

Back to Toronto

Well, we had a great couple of days in Kentucky. Saturday was another great day for climbing, and we got out and did a few routes. We're still just getting back in shape, but we felt a lot better on Saturday than we did on Thursday even. We also met a bunch of great people from all over, and sat around a nice big campfire on Saturday night after some delicious Miguel's Pizza for dinner. Sunday was pretty uneventful - we just got up and drove back to Toronto. The condo is sold, so we had to go back and move out the last of our stuff. That was our day on Monday - packing and moving the last of our things, and making a quick visit to my parents' place and Meghan's sister.

Here's a couple of photos of the highlights of the last few days in Kentucky and the drive back to Canada - Meghan climbing on some of Kentucky's finest Corbin Sandstone, the water tower at Florence, the giant Jesus who fell in the lake chest deep beside the freeway, and the welcoming weather and traffic we enjoyed in Toronto.

Welcome to Ol' Kentuck

"Welcome to Ol' Kentuck" is the hardest traditional climb east of the Mississippi and it is right here in Kentucky's Red River Gorge - we did not climb it today. Today was our first climbing day in a long time, we did a couple of easy ones (but felt hard for us), but had a blast.  Piton seems to be enjoying herself, perhaps living in a van is starting to make sense to her. The weather was fantastic today, warm but not too hot with not a cloud in the sky. 

We are in the Red River Gorge, in one of the poorer areas we've ever seen. It's hard to understand without being here, but there's people with no safe water supply and derelict trailers as homes. There are a lot of rock climbers and hikers who come for the beautiful scenery and do put a bit of money into the local economy. It's a neat place, which we'll try to show with some of the pictures below. We took a one lane tunnel to get to one of our climbing areas - we were nervous about fitting through, but had room to spare with the big van! We enjoyed some local ginger ale after returning from climbing for the day - the area is dry so the beverage of choice here is Ale 8. It's probably Ian's favourite part of climbing in KY. 

    

We cooked dinner in the van tonight - quesadillas and chicken noodle soup (for my mom quesadillas are the ones with melted cheese inside a folded wrap sprinkled with black beans). This was our first dinner in the van (last night we ate out with Meghan's Mom and Dad before leaving Westerville, OH). We slept in the van last night with all our curtains up for the first time and they were awesome! We have yet to make our bug screen for the van, fortunately the mosquitoes aren't out in force tonight. We're settling well into the van, and enjoying the adventure. 

Our plans are to stay in KY until Sunday, drive to Toronto to move the furniture out of the condo, and move it to Natalie and Brent's house in Waterloo. From there we will be pushing of for Phoenix, AZ with an anticipated arrival in Phoenix next Friday evening or Saturday morning. We are headed there to celebrate Jamie and James wedding, and are really looking forward to the festivities.

  

As a shout out to Uncle Brian, the Mayor of Grey Highlands, here's a photo of Slade Kentucky's (the nearest town to the Red River Gorge) former Mayor, who was allegedly killed in a family dispute (over drugs). It's a lot to live up to Brian, but I think you can do better for Grey Highlands...  ;)