Climbing Again (maybe)

I feel like I need to post something even though I don't really have time. I had hoped to have a digital camera this week and start posting pictures. I bought it on Ebay and it came on monday. Annoyingly, after 13 photos it stopped working. So I have to send it to Minolta for repairs already. I do have some pictures that I developed at Target for only $10.

Thanks for all the advice on bradley and sunny's surname. He liked Bloom best. Last time I talked to him they were thinking of Koala. So it seems to be between Boots, Bloom and Koala.

Chelsea's visit was fun. I hadn't seen her since we climbed Mt Evans last fall. It was nice to have her visit and show her some of Southern California. It was also a good excuse for me to get out to see Southern California. We climbed at BoxSprings and Joshua Tree. It made me want to start climbing again and be active and healthy. We'll see if I can keep it up. Here are the places we climbed while she was here.

BoxSprings is in Riverside, CA. - Wednesday


Not a destination climbing spot, but it's only 15 minutes from Loma Linda so it's fun for a couple hours on an afternoon to get away from studying. There are a lot of bolted routes 5.9, 5.10 and 5.11.

Randomness of the day: Today I ran into a guy at the coffee shop that had a route guide in pdf, so I had him email it to me.



The rock is sharp and after 5 months without climbing it was a good place to break in my fingers. I let Chelsea lead the routes while I wimpered and babied my red, raw, blistered fingertips. This week my fingertips are all callused and numb. I went back here on wednesday with some classmates and the climbing was easier.

The University of California - Riverside is just to the left of this photo.

Joshua Tree National Park - Friday

This picture is Chelsea on Gunsmoke. A V3 in the Barker Dam area which is a classic.

Here I am pretending I'm as cool as Chelsea.

We also did some rope climbing at Joshua Tree but I guess I didn't get any pictures. Joshua Tree is hard. A 5.6 there is a 5.10 at other places.


Saturday
We wanted to climb Tahquitz but it didn't work out. If anyone wants to buy a guide book to Tahquitz and Suicide peaks let me know. Tahquitz was were a lot of famous climbers started before going to Yosemite. The first 5.8 and 5.9 were done there.

Sunday
We also went to Pirates Cove/The Beach at Newport Beach but I don't have any pictures and we mostly just played in the sand. We saw the aftermath of the most impressive car accident I've seen since I've been here. The car was so far off the road on it's top but still holding up traffic on both sides of a 10 lane highway. I can't imagine how the car got over there.

Chelsea's friends live in Newport Beach and they were her ride to the airport the next day. We couldn't get a hold of them but we went there hopeing that they would call back. I guess they are notorious for not answering their phones or returning calls, even to eachother. At the end of the day we hadn't heard anything from them so I was beginning to think I would need to drive to the airport the next day. I decided I wanted some sushi and was prepared to drive to San Clamente to get it because that was the only place I knew of. So we were driving down the PCH and Chels was about to make some comment about See's Candy being for rich people when she saw her friends in the candy store. We zipped down the alley back to the store then snuck in and hide behind some candy display. They never noticed us even with our giggling so we had to just walk up behind them. I guess they were going have sushi as well at a half price place on Bilboa Island. The sushi was very reasonably priced. I recomend it. Just take the fairy across to the peninsula, drive one block and park by the Wells Fargo ATM. It's in the alley across the steet.

After sushi I left Chels with them and drove back home.


Now I'm trying to catch up with school and research. I think it's coming together and I'll probably be going to the Bahamas in the next couple months to get recordings of parrots. I'm will be attempting to finish my proposal and get a committee together before then end of the month.