oh my goodness, this weekend was incredible! okay that's not completely true because i spent friday night at home by myself alphabetizing our dvd's out of boredom while devin worked BUT. saturday, man. saturday was the best. Oh, but we did go to lunch on Friday! You see, every Friday at work for me is basically Armageddon. It's super stressful and I was having a pretty bad day (ranged from beetles to angry people, so...), so Devin met me for lunch and we ate huge, messy burgers and I felt much better.
burger wasted.
devin had to teach a class at the gym saturday morning so he got up and went to work. i woke up a little later and got together my climbing gear and some lunch, and then met him at the gym and we went up Big Cottonwood Canyon to the Reservoir Wall (side note: i sometimes wonder if people who aren't familiar with climbing know that each different wall or climbing area has it's own name. usually, the person who bolts the routes, which could be anyone who knows how, names it. I've talked a lot about climbing at The Wild and The Zoo that's near, but there are a lot of places. Devin and his Brother just climbed 7 pitches of one called "Cosmic Space Dust Lasers", so there really isn't any rhyme or reason to the names of these places we climb)
i sort of love the empty gym in the morning as they are opening.
I would love to climb with that place to myself!
I had never climbed up Big Cottonwood, and I had never climbed on quartzite rock, either. We were in the sun and it was pretty hot, but we had a nice breeze! I was getting pretty excited and proud of myself for putting a lot of the techniques and movements I had been learning to good use, but on the first route, the mental game won and I came off the wall from about half way up really upset and disappointed. I hate that! I don't understand how/why my mind can control my climbing. That should just be left up to my strength and my body, right?! It can be so frustrating when you let it! I was mad. But I'm also going to blame the heat, because hot climbing shoes hurt and my toes were in a lot of pain!
big cottonwood canyon is absolutely beautiful!
loving my new and much needed chalk bag!
>imagine a picture of a moose right here, because there's supposed to be one, it's just on my other camera and i'm hugely lazy about uploading photos. the point is, this awesome moose grazed by us for awhile and it was pretty cool. moving on...<
After I rested for awhile and got my head cleared, I tried a second route, and it was the same thing. I was so proud of myself for trying things I had been afraid of before. I was using those tiny, tiny footholds (howintheworld do those microscopic lips on the rock hold me up?!) and I was going for moves, even if I wasn't confident I would stick them - except this time, I finished! When I came back down I told Devin that I couldn't even remember the last time I saw the anchors of a long route like that. I was so happy and in the best mood after that! I wanted to end on a good note, so we stopped there, plus it was getting way too hot.
We had been in the sun for awhile and were pretty hot, and neither of us wanted to get back into climbing shoes so we went home and headed straight for the pool! I love that our development has a neighborhood pool! It's not super nice and it's pretty small, but we have been at the pool so much since it opened on Memorial Day, and we will spend pretty much all summer there, I'm sure. We swam and laid in the sun for awhile and then started feeling guilty that we had left cooper at home all day (i'm a little opposed to climbing in big and little cottonwood canyons just because they won't let my dog come along), so when we got home, we took him to the dog park and let him run around for awhile. He is the funniest dog and every time we go, people comment on how much personality he has. I love that! He was even chasing butterflies around just like Riley does.
one abandoned coke can
On our way home, we stopped at the grocery store to grab a few things and then made some dinner and dessert and ended the night a little early because we were so tired! We ended the day with some of the funniest tanlines ever. I had put sunscreen on a few places that I knew I didn't want to get burned, including the tops of my shoulders, that were just recovering from a really bad burn while we were hiking Calf Creek, so I have a ring of sunburn around my shoulder where the sunscreen wasn't all down my arms, dang it! I didn't get any sun on my legs of course. My shoulders look so, so funny though. Devin got a pretty major chaco tanline and some funny lines on his chest and sides from climbing and belaying without a shirt. We are quite the pair!
chicken and pasta with fresh basil and spinach salad with strawberries and feta cheese
this dog makes our lives so. much. fun.
