Part II – Bad Luck, Good Luck and “Commitment” [See Part 1 here]. Yosemite National Park. Day 2 “I have triple A,” I said. “Do you have your card?” K asked me. “It’s in the car,” I said, “But we don’t need it to call, they can look me up on their computer.” Now we…
Continue ReadingA Trip Report: Yosemite National Park. May 2012 with Flashbacks to April 2011 This was the best Yosemite Valley trip ever. K, Michael and I all agreed when we finally said our goodbyes back home. Seven days in Yosemite are bound to have wonderful moments but even the little mistakes made turned out well, and…
Continue Reading“I think I took the non-Non Drowsy allergy pills,” I said as my husband and I walked along looking for Future Games Rock in Joshua Tree National Park. The fact that I used a double negative should have alerted me at the time that my guess was correct. However, it wasn’t until I nearly fell…
Continue ReadingLast Sunday I went whale watching for the second time in my life, I used a Groupon deal and invited an old roommate of mine out for a bit of adventure. My excuse to get her to come out this way was it was for her birthday (though her birthday was in November). We set…
Continue ReadingI have a 2 year old nephew (his birthday was a few days ago) who loves to climb on things. He scared my brother and my sister-in-law by climbing to the 2nd floor on the outside of the stair railing. Â While this is a rather admirable feat for a then less than 2 year old,…
Continue ReadingI don’t qualify for this but I know at least one of my readers is on a youth competition team and some others have kids who are climbing. The application isn’t due until July of 2012, but you need to list your accomplishments “in the past year” so that’s a little more incentive to enter…
Continue ReadingIn August I got to attend the Outdoor Retail show for the first time. The show is a convention for the Outdoor industry to show off their newest and/or up and coming products, it occurred from August 4-7 this year and attendance was approximately 25,000 retailers, exhibitors and media. The OR Show also happens to…
Continue ReadingIt all started when I got an email from my friend Su: Hey Eileen, If you’re free on August 13-14 and can cook a gourmet meal in the wilderness, you might want to apply for a spot in this trip I’m going to with the Sierra Club… My mind started spinning as she described dishes…
Continue ReadingSo one of my friends on Facebook (who shall remain nameless because I don’t think s/he’d want me to incriminate him/her) was asking about getting rid of climbing shoe funk. I started to reply and realized I was getting rather long winded and also realized others might want to read and share their own solutions…
Continue ReadingIf you’ve seen me outdoors, you’ve undoubtedly seen me with a camera in hand. Combining outdoor sports with photography is sometimes hard, but always rewarding. One thing that makes it hard is handling and securing photography gear. When I first saw an R strap I was pretty excited, they are made by a company called…
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