No Translation Possible

"No one chooses to be homeless."

These words are mumbled hurriedly between bites of hot lasagna and fruit salad in the common dining area of the Flagstaff Family Food Center. The speaker is a bearded man somewhere in his late 40s to early 60s... it's hard to tell, under the grime and the weariness and the bright red knit hat he's wearing to complete his ensemble of tweed jacket, blue jeans, and Arizona Diamondbacks sweatshirt. He has entered quietly amid the noise and haste of 150 people chatting, exchanging greetings or farewells in three languages, wringing out wet jackets and clothes and making their way through the food line as volunteers from a local church dish up school lunch trays of nutritious hot food and cups of Gatorade and tea.

I spot Israel in the line and wave a hello to the tall, thin black man, a refugee from Africa, who is in the midst of a two-year vision quest after a decade behind the blue rope, pressing the flesh with the movers and the shakers of California and the nation to start and raise funds for assorted non-profits. A few more familiar faces trickle in out of the still-thundering gloom of the afternoon, as Cindy and I tuck into our meal and listen to our newest encounter.

"A rough night for us all out there." Our guest peers out from under shaggy brows, shaking his head once in a gesture of frustration and sympathy and many, many other emotions that chase each other across his face like storm winds crossing a pond's surface. "Too many of us depended on the wrong things, I guess."

"True," Cindy answers/ "We have to depend on each other."

He nods, but continues as if unaware that she has spoken.

"Jobs, pensions, family, savings plans, religion..." His voice is fading, movement slowing as his eyes fall away through space and time, perhaps back to the edge of the Void into which his own future vanished.

"...tenure..." Silence falls and I exchange a sympathy-filled look with my wife, who squeezes my hand under the table.

I wish I could write to you of what it is to be homeless. Obviously, it is the state of having no fixed address, usually without consent. But there is no possible translation of the concept. Unlike writing about climbing, I'm not covering a topic which some of you may choose to explore or experience on your own. And while most of us know someone who has fallen on hard times, most likely they have a couch to crash on, or a spare room at a relative or friend's house to call their own, even if for just a little while.

But to be truly homeless, to have NO WHERE to go when the storms draw their black curtain across the skies and the lightning seems bent of incinerating every bit of God's Creation and the thunder washes over you like waves in an angry sea, is a concept that many people can only imagine in the same way they imagine elves and unicorns... nothing that is a fact in their own frame of reference. The thought of slowly starving in country with an obesity problem is simply counter to sanity and logic. It is unthinkable that, as churches across the nation send millions in aid and donations to Africa and as millionaires bequeath seven-figure estates for the care and feeding of their pets, families and grandparents and veterans are sleeping in parks and abandoned buildings and run-down cars, going to bed hungry again, tonight, within walking distance of restaurants that throw away hundreds of pounds of food every week and walled communities where the average pet eats better than the homeless in this city.

And yet these are the facts, cold and hard to digest as they may be. This is the reality so many live in and so many more are unable to imagine.

Until three weeks ago, it was my reality.

After spending two weeks at the end of July broke, out of gas, unemployed, living out of a tent and an S10 pickup, slowly starving in southern Colorado, I know the feeling of quiet desperation that is the life of a homeless person. I understand the despair and the anger and the hopeless helplessness, the shame of asking for help from strangers and the humbling of pride that is realizing that you can do nothing to prevent your spouse from sharing your discomfort. I understand these things with my flesh and bones, but there are no colors in my palette to paint them for you, no language that I know capable of translating cold thoughts and prose into intuitive empathy, comprehension and understanding. I can only pound away at ignorance with the blunt instruments of words, hoping against hope that those of you who know me or have come to know me can somehow get a glimpse, through this crack in the wall, of Life on the Other Side.

If only one of you sees, even for the briefest of moments, and if that sight leads you to care, and to act, to ask "What can I do, myself, to help someone DIRECTLY, today?", then the message is not lost.

No one chooses to be sick, or old, or unemployed, or homeless.

But we can choose to make a difference, even a small one, every day.

Last week, I handed a 20 dollar bill out of my first meager paycheck to an angel in an apron, serving dinner and faith and love to the homeless and downtrodden, to alcoholics and junkies, mental patients and families at the Jesus Project Sunday dinner at McKellips School here in Flagstaff. There were any number of things I could have spent that money on... but there was a greater need to pay it back to the people who fed us, who shared hope and joy and a smile when we were down and lost.

This week, Cindy and I volunteered at the same kitchen, spending my one day off working to prepare food for 200, trying to share just a little of our tale and a small measure of hope with so many who hover on the edge of despair and surrender.

Pay it forward. Our government and the leaders of our faith have abandoned us to political expedience and private agendas, big headlines and tax write-offs. All we have is each other, and God. As Gandhi said, "Be the change you wish to see in the world."

Angels, Unaware

There are prophets in our streets.

There are angels in our midst.

We stride a land long bereft of hope and opportunities. A land in which even the Children of God seem to turn a deaf ear to the lessons of his Son, who was homeless and unemployed and advocated socialism as a tenet of Christianity.

Who, when questioned concerning the multitudes of his day, said simply, "Feed them."

Who, when questioned on "What must I do to be saved?" replied "Sell all you have, give it to the poor, leave your home and wife and parents and follow me."

Who told the religious leaders "Even as you have done unto the least of these, so have you done unto me."

Jesus never had a savings account, a resume, a credit score, a 401k, a fixed address, or a political agenda. Every church and church member in the world would do well to remember that. those who ignore those facts are worse than hypocrits, and will no doubt someday hear the words 'depart from me ye workers of iniquity, you generation of vipers... I never knew you."

I stand in a dinner line with vision seekers and homeless families, with licensed psychiatrists and decorated veterans, alcoholics and rape victims and prostitutes and junkies, carpenters and plumbers and truckdrivers and waitresses. The Flagstafff Family Food Center feeds between 100 and 200 people daily using only donations of food from local grocery stores and bakeries and restaurants; a mission of mercy, preaching love and equality among people who are daily led to feel that they are the unwanted refuse of a society that refuses to accept responsibility for the economic and social abyss into which more and more of its citizens are falling. For while there are any number of long-winded defenders of hedge-fund managers and banking, Wall Street and its schools of parahna-like stockbrokers, no one can explain how people could choose to be homeless and poor and lost.

That somehow, somewhere, the homeless are responsible for the collapse of the markets and housing industry, and that the true victims are somehow the huge corporations who walk away from multi-million dollar defaults with a clean slate and a handful of government money; the stockbrokers and hedge-fund managers who erased a nation's savings in speculation, while most of them made money on the deal. These modern-day pirates are welcome at any bank in the nation, with money to spare to start the balloon growing again, while working class Moms and Dads cannot borrow enough for a tank of gas to reach the minimum wage jobs they have had to acccept on the verge of retirement. Parents are waging wars with prayer, but the churches they attend are busy trying to secure commitments from their members to keep tithing regularly, with the promise of overflowing riches from Heaven if they do.

Who would God bribe?

And in the midst of this, we rub shoulders with angels, unaware... feeding the hungry, giving hope and comfort to the lost, doing, even unto the least of these, as they would if the Son Himself had appeared at their door. Stretching shoestring budgets to work a miracle of loaves and fishes every week, week in and week out.

 Walking on water, and turning a storm of tragedy into the wine of human compassion.

River Song

Last days in West Virginia-


Cindy is laughing, watching tiny minks dart out of cover towards her floating line, as dragonflies hunt the shadows and shallows and gannets chase their own reflections over the flat surface of the South Branch. Huge catfish and an assortment of trout, minnows and perch cruise in solitary splendor and swift-moving schools beneath the huge boulders from which a dozen generations of Smoke Hole teens have dived and cannonballed, where more innocence has been lost and experienced gained than the most jaded nightclubs of the city. Broken glass winks like lost gems in the sunshine atop the biggest of these as I clear the dust from the last bolt hole at the top of our latest Entrance Wall route, Cindy's long-awaited River Song.

The last weeks have been a series of revelations and epiphanies; old friends who seem to have forgotten our names and faces, new friends with more gifts and kindness than we deserve or can quite grasp. Long-delayed projects completed or abandoned, explorations of a few places that have always been "somedays", and the not-so-surprising realization that, as expected, many of the most famous climbing spots here in the East have become so infatuated with their own "scene" that they have strangled the essence of what made them magical and rare.

Lessons learned, questions answered, hard truths faced, new opportunities embraced and unfinished business laid to rest.

It is in service of the last concept that I find myself hanging sixty feet above the ground, pounding in the last bolt, after having the previous two attempts on this particular placement fail in a particularly frustrating fashion. I eye the last hole and bolt, my depleted drill battery still arm against my ribs, and murmur to the 3/8" bolt in my hand.

"You screw me this time, and I'll put the damned thing up mixed." I grin and set the bolt in the hole, leashed hammer poised to swing. "I've done it before."

The bolt apparently heeds my warning and, just to be perverse, sets smoothly and cleanly in the hole with a half-dozen sharp blows. I position the hanger and give the nut three complete rotations, continuing to crank to the approximately 30 pounds of torque that is industry standard and is a feeling I know in my bones. I zip the ratchet back into my work pouch and brush drill powder off the nearby holds. With a Elvis-like pump of my hips, I release the Shunt backing up my rappel and slid earthward, as a raucous chorus of ravens fill the canyon with their squabbling croaks.

And the Ants Dig Free Again...

A hard rain and a long afternoon of reflection. Golden sunlight like liquid fire across the tips of scrub oak and blue spruce. Robins and western finches, swallows diving and stalling aginst the blue, blue Colorado sky.

A lot of dismay and anger, lately. I left a state that is (usually correctly) stereotyped for ignorance and destruction, to return to a place that I remembered as somewhat pristine and remote, only to find it had been discovered by the new oil millionaires and "ranchers" of the Lone Star state. To be fair, they are only a part of the problem, but they are such a major part that the rest are only "colateral damage" by comparison.

Felled trees, live and dead, hacked off bushes by the truckload, simply dragged aside and left as fire tinder in a land that has seen far too little rain, despite a recent string of afternoon thunderstorms.

Open pits filled with human feces and toilet paper, swarming with flies, less than a dozen paces from the river's edge. Piles of horse manure, also alight with insects and bearing dozens of species of non-native grains seeds; girdled trees surrounded by pits where thirsty mounts have pawed open the fragile soil to reach water-bearing roots while tethered to soft-skinned saplings. Firepits a-glitter with broken glass that has been strewn across every campsite into which a horse trailer and King Ranch Silverado can be manuevered, and plenty of sawn saplings and taller timber where there wasn't quite enough room. Massive erosion, the loosened soil washing down to smother the rich but fragile carpet of grass that sprouts across the open forest floor.

Trees so carved with initials and "TX" that they are literally bleeding to death. Trees so riddled with bullets that they have broken in half in high winds. Gunfire from huge trucks and Hummers pulled to the shoulder of the road, secure in the knowledge that no NFS lawman has seen this road in the last two months and that cell phone coverage is almost 30 miles away.

In my rage and dismay, I have committed a sin on which I have called too many people; I have generalized. I know that all the residents of the Lone Star State are no irresonsible hooligans and wannabe cowboys with a gun in one hand and a beer in the other, riding their mounts rough-shod across the fragile ecosystems of surrounding states. I klnow that the state of Texas has produced many fine sons and daughters. Indeed, many of the First Texans were first Virginians, who came West to seek a fortune. Some found it, many did not, but all are remembered in the annals of our history, deservedly or not.

But people are only as good as the perception they allow others to perpetuate. And as much destruction as I have withnessed on the East side of the Mississippi River, it does not hold a candle to what I have witnessed in the mountains of the West.

But I did not come here to spread criticism and despair, only to comment on mny apparent blindness. I have friends that I treasure in El Paso and Corpus Christi, and fond memories of Juarez and Laredo, Puerto Penasco and Samalayuca. I think the people of southern Texas, eastern New Mexico and Mexico proper are some of the finest friends I have ever had. I know that they fight the same stereotypes I found prevalent at home and for the same reasons- because good people no longer speak up when they see or hear of their peers acting in a manner which brings disgrace upon their community and region.

It is a fight that I carry in my heart, and too often allow to spill onto the page.

And so this morning, I sat with a cup of steaming coffee, waiting for the sunrise and watching as, after the passing of the storm, the ants dug free again.

We fight our little fights, suffer our tiny tempests in a teacup, make our bold declarations and achieve our little victories and then drown in the first wash of rain. Our carefully constructed castles of sand collapse in on themselves and we are left only with the options to once again laugh at oursleves or shake our fists at a Heaven to whom we must seem small, pathetic, and rather pompous.

I am living a dream, surrounded by beauty and the opportunity for discovery and growth with an amazing woman who is more than I had ever dreamed could enter my life, especially at this late date. I laugh more every day than I have during entire years of my past. I am, in short, blessed, and I am a fool to lose sight of that in debate over which political party is less corrupt (The Whigs, I think...), which politician most inept, which corporation more demonic, and which state the producer of the most destructive rednecks. I know and believe that this world is poised on the brink of a paradigm shift which will render it incomprehensible to all but a small population of dreamers and believers, very few of whom will belong to the dogmatic tribes currently controlling and defining the intellectual and spiritual discourse of human beings and their interactions with the myriad life forms on this planet and in the worlds around us.

I know that my only Path through that Change will be in the light Cindy and I hold between us remaining unsullied by the meaningless debates that swirl in this ephemeral dream that is currently held to be "reality".

So I again foreswear the frenzy of debate and counterattack. There is a wall back there, in the beyond, that we've seen from the top of North Lake's crag; a wall that begs for exploration, and maybe another meaningless flag erected to commemorate a First Ascent. The P.O.W.E.R (Poor Old Worn-out Economic Refugee) Couple will survive; to wander and dream, scrimp and save and maybe even starve a little, but always, in the end, to celebrate the gift of each day.

Storms come, rain falls, conceits collapse.

And the ants dig out again...

Thirty Days On the Road

Bear with me, I'm writing this from a tempemental laptop in an uncomfortable crouch on a wooden chair with a sore old ass and a huge grin on my face.

We've been at it for thirty days now, from the time we locked the apartment door until now; living out of a small truck and a big tent full of backpacks and climbing gear and smelly clothes and assorted gadgets, in a series of National Forest and private campsites, backroad pullouts and friend's houses.

Spent the weekend hiking around some favorite old spots in Germany Valley, pruning back half-forgotten trails, shoring up steps and cleaning up old lines. Getting back in touch with the local store keepers and landowners to confirm access and ownership. Downloaded a vast store of beta on West Virginia countryside marryin's and buryin's, reunions and feuds, slow business, high prices, flash floods, pillbillies, mean young men and fast young women. Sat in camp in the slow-falling shadows of evening watching my wife-to-be organize and artisan and wander peacefully through her own space, the purple air filled with the scent of honeysuckle and green grass and sage and birdsong.

We now have a topper for the S10 affectionately known as Icy Blue, acquired from a kindly, chatty little fellow on the outskirts of the town of Stuart's Draft, Virginia, on Saturday morning of the holiday weekend. The money was a traveling gift from my parents following two days of work in their hundred-foot oak trees. Cindy and I rose early, skipped coffee and crossed the various mountains and rivers and state lines to reach Stuart's Draft, near Waynesboro, where we checked out the goods, paid the man, mounted the new unit and finished a 200 mile round-trip loop, including visits to Doc Goodwack and a few other friends, in time for late lunch back in camp at The Bluffs. Happy hour was declared early in celebration of our new acquisition.

We crashed early and were deep into REM sleep when a familiar voice called out "Hello?" a light shone into the tent and someone asked "Are you guys naked in there?" I confirmed the truth and we were granted a few moments of abuse-filled dimness in which to remedy the situation. We emerged into welcoming arms and there were soon open beers and seats found for everyone.

Plans and introductions were made, amid jokes and smokes and laughter, and an hour or so later the raiders wandered back out into the night. Miss Cindy and I crashed smiling and rose early, determined to beat the heat, spending the day in the river with friends, toproping and doing a bit of rappeling on the private cliffs close to camp. There were big plans elesewhere, but the weather and the humidity seemed determined to thwart first ascent ambitions, with a heat advisory for West Virginia and humidity hovering around 80 or 90 per cent. If nothing else, I knew that Cindy's MS would NOT react to conditions like that in a favorable way. Having dealt with her seizures from heat and dehydration before, I was determined to take it easy and err on the side of caution. Besides, after three seasons of riding herd over the small riot of Eagle Rock Campground on this first major outdoor holiday of the year, it felt nice to have no obligations, no one else's messes to clean up. There were opportunities enough to climb in the future. For now, it was time for the Power Couple.

We're settling into this lifestyle of simplicity, something natural to the heart of what we both really ARE, deep down; gypsies, wanderers, travelers. With the topper to keep our gear dry, safe,and out of the sun, we're thinking of taking a week or two to help out in Joplin, before heading on out to Colorado to see if my friend DeChristo (Tom Reid) is as ornery and ugly as ever, if the cliffs are as fine and tall, the air as sweet and clear. From there, who knows? But make no mistake, we ARE getting married and California IS on the schedule... the schedule is just very, very liquid, right now. If we have promised or threatened to visit, please bear with us. We both lived on other peops schedules for years and we're being a bit irresponsible right now. The vacation will turn into tour soon, I promise.

We have challenges ahead, some known, many not. I am still trying to find work and still finding very little. People who are building are not hiring, and if so they aren't hiring carpenters closing in on 50- those guys know too much about the building code and labor laws. They ask too many questions and bend too few rules and have opinions that are not all about the bottom line. As in the rest of my life, my inability to stay silent regarding stupidity, waste, responsibility and safety costs me a great deal in the search for gainful employment, as well.

Cindy is still fighting the battle with MS, and some days ae better than others. We are living this life a day or a week at a time, accepting what is, trying to change what we can, trying to save our energies for the adventures ahead rather than worrying about the things we have no control over in the puppet theater most folks call day-to-day life.

We lazed in the river until mid afternoon, when I climbed the hill to retrieve Cindy's fishing gear and met our late-night party rolling down the hill to the Hole. Coco the chocolate Lab was in the lead by several hundred feet, tail wagging her whole body, deflated football clenched in her teeth. The others came wandering down the hill, gawking at the soaring, private cliffline over the road and asking me questions about access and privacy and climbing.

We swam and fished and watched eagles soar over the Gorge, waved to the landowners wading downriver from us, tossed sticks and blls and otherwise tried to coax Coco into the water. As shadows fell over the river, we retreated to hang gear from the Sandbagger's Buttress and enjoy some shady rock climbing; Jaynie shooting up the cliff liike a natural and Mike showing the same kind of determination he had on his initial outing the week before, Cindy cranking the thinner line to the left with determination after being spit off the week before.

Evening faded into cold Stella Artois and laughing conversations as we sorted and swapped gear by the cars, bidding them goodnight as we headed for camp and a late dinner. Stars gleamed from the skies overhead as a whipporwill launched into his endless refrain. Honeysuckle blew on the breeze as Cindy turned to me and smiled, her forest eyes dancing, and for just a little while, all was right with the world.

Aborted Rapture

Survived the end of the world and spent the weekend at the crags (surprise! Of course, with the weather we had, if I hadn't been there, the world WOULD have ended, so you are all welcome. I'll look for the checks in the mail. )



Cranked Saturday with Doc Fisher and Cindy B, at an increasingly popular Secret Crag #7. The Stewarts and Randy L, along with amanda and Johnathan showed up and pulled and partied, and several of our D.C. neighbors wandered in as well. The hundreds of feet of new trails and edging constructed since their last visit went unremarked.

Mister Fisher vocalized his way up the steep and still-crumbly 5.10R sport route Grain of Sand, but fell below the anchors. After a prolonged rest, he returned and sent the route then retrieved his anchors. No progress was made on the heinous project just L of Cold Day in Hell.

An early evening turned into late-night pizza fest after several hours of Guiness, pool, humorous commentary on the Apocalypse/Rapture and as designated driver for a friend who called from the bar as we passed through phone coverage.

Back to camp late and crashed hard. Up early to run errands and fetch coffee and see if the world had gotten the day wrong by 1 (no change). Mike D and friend show just after noon, with Coco the chocolate Lab bounding happily through the woods. We wander out through the thick forest covering the private land and private crags near camp and set a top rope/rappel for Mike's first experience at each. He rocks it, and we all have fun on a moderate wall.

Later, while taking a break, we discover a baby copperhead about 9 inches long coiled right in the midst of our set-up. babies, of course, are the worst due to their tendency to completely drain all venom into the victim during a bite. We dispatch our unwelcome guest after a round of photos and more smokes all around are called for to steady jazzed nerves.

Cindy gets on rock, as does the Curmudgeon and Mike D , who aced the first and second rappels like an old hand and proceeds to climb in the same manner, crimping small holds and stepping high in work boots.

An awesome afternoon hike out through a sunlit forest along a rushing stream, dozens of songbirds filling the air with music as butterflies dip and soar through the mountain laurel and rhododendron. We crack cold Stellas and enjoy a few moments of conversation and recounting before the needs of home and pet ownership call our friends away and we head back to camp and dinner.

Another adventure afternoon

Spent yesterday morning clearing trail and pruning around camp while Cindy ran into nearby Petersburg on errands. High broken clouds brought morning sun and soft breezes to our rain-beseiged little camp, a welcome change after a week of daily storms and precipitation. Tiny maples, red and white and chesnut oaks, lady slipper and sassifrass glistened with drops of moisture along the forest floor, spiderwebs spun to diamond in an instant of dewfall, the rich smell of the growing, ancient forest heavy as the mist that swirled in the shafts of sunlight. Stone and concrete foundations peek through leaf and brush derelict ships in a leafy sea, and a shattered length of beam slowly sinks into the earth under a burden of multicolored fungus and moss.

Cindy returns from town with a proud smile and a new inspection sticker, and we grab a quick lunch and head over to the rim in search of the afternoon's latest adventure.

After some wandering and peering, we locate the top of an old trad line of mine, a ground-up indulgence that proved interesting in the short section of crack just above mid-height. A complex anchor and a brief battle with some hanging deadfall and the resultant brush see us in place on a ledge about 20' above the game trail that winds along the bottom of the cliff. The route is partially wet but clean and we set about beating ourselves silly on the steep crack moves up a sharp dihedral (corner) to the awkward exit at the roof, which brings you out of the wetness and onto the shoulder, an easy stemming scramble up a steep slot to the anchors.

Easier said than done.

Cindy makes a mighty effort at the onsight TR, but wet rock and lots of recent weather-related downtime conspire to send her swinging into space. I am impressed by her determination when we trade places and I grunt through the moves more by dint of brute strength and bullheaded stupidity than finesse and superior skill. The line is a sweet bit of coner and crack, but the crack is wide even for my slablike hands, and the face around it is slightly overhanging.

I lower, and Cindy has another go of it, but a banged elbow ona blown chicken-wing jam takes her last reserves and we lower off to make the quick hike back up and around to the anchors. New "No Trespassing" signs remind me of the landowner's story of a recent burglary, and I am again very glad for having acquired and maintained both climbing access and good relations with these folks so many years ago.

Top anchors and gear are soon retrieved, cold adult beverages are soon acquired, and less than an hour later we are settling in to enjoy another fine pasta dinner and an evening of birdsong and forest breezes.

Adventure, Incorporated

Took advantage of the break in showers yesterday morning to run errands and then hit the crag. Cindy and I took light recon packs and rapped down a vegetated 30m cliff in the north end of Germany Valley. The line was composed of a series of ledges, faces, corners and chimneys to reach the steep slope at the bottom, adjacent to a harder climb called "The Fall of Innennin", a technical 5.10 mixed line which I hope to put the First Ascent on someday soon, Lord willin and the rain stops a-fallin'.

GREAT little 3-hour adventure made MUCH harder by climbing in boots and helmets- kudos to the FA parties, who likely did the line wearing combat boots and protected by a loop of hemp line tied around their waists. We only found the one piton, so the line likely wandered off to a different ending, but slung horns and sheer balls were likely the only pro for those brave lads of the U.S. Army. Miss Cindy did magnificently (of course) handling the exposure, the multi-pitch rappels and climbing, and the difficulties of carrying a pack in a vertical environment with the humor and concentration of a pro. We dubbed the line "The Climb of the Unknown Soldier", probably about 5.6, tricky and sparse protection, so PG/R... but lots of holds, many of them jugs, and plenty of rests. HUGE oak tree at the top to belay from, and a ten minute stroll to camp.

Planning a trip to Seneca Rocks for Cindy's first summit in the next two weeks, then back down to Asheville, Shortoff Mountain, Looking Glass, and the Red River Gorge in the first few weeks of June.

Adventure, Incorporated, at your service....

Dispatches from the Road

"Dispatches?

DISPATCHES!?!?

We don' NEED no stinkin' DISPATCHES, caberone'! Ah-ahahahahhahhaah!!"

Just over 1200 miles later, we're home again, home again, hippity-hop. (Actually, we're house and dogsitting, but we've made ourselves at home, as ordered. So, sorta homeagain.. whatever...) Blue Ridge Parkway, Linn Falls, Grandfather Mountain, downtown Asheville, Western North Carolina highways and their charming lack of signs and the incredible beauty of the Smokies. New frinds for me, reunions and lot catching up for Cindy.

Full trip report with pictures to follow.

Asheville, NC

Tuesday night, enjoyed a great evening and chimichanga dinner with our buddy Simon Moore, hiding out from the storms and rain and laughing at the vindictive mess his psycho g/f left when she cleaned out all the domestic goods "which she brought to the relationship" (half of which seemed to actually belong to Simon... go figure). Shared some of our multiple-backup domestic gear with the lad and left him in a much better mood Wednesday morning to begin the drive down the Blue Ridge Parkway to Asheville, NC to visit with some friends of my future bride and see a bit of that great southern climbing.

Loooong drive, and I honestly cannot recommend anyone ever drive the BRP between Roanoke and Asheville... too many houses right beside the Park "boundary", too little info about where you are, no beta on where the intersecting highways lead (like, "can I get OFF this road ahead and get onto an interstate, or just lost?"), and damned few pullouts or rest areas, as well as the fact that, despite the temps being in the 80s a week or two ago, most of the facilities STILL aren't open... so no potties for the girls or boys en route!

Got in late, ate steak and taters and crashed! Woke late and casual, lots of coffee and sorting the mess on the truck and now we're out exploring and planning for a shish kebab dinner tonite and maybe Looking Glass tomorrow... lots and lots of great moderate climbs up on the south end of the formation, according to the beta I snagged in a phone call from the Super Sensei, Ed Begoon.

Cindy has been a trouper; driving, map reading, and generally being good company on the trip.

The day is too gorgeous to spend in here, so we're out and after it!

More tomorrow... or the next day...