Hot Wheels

Many People ask me what we do with Indy and Fisher when we are climbing. My usual answer is, "They just play in the dirt." If I were to list all the cool and fun things they do while we climb, I'd end up making them jealous.

Tips and Tricks (Issue 1 of many)

Being homeless and hopping from one base-camp to another every week or two allows for utilizing some nifty tricks to be comfortable and save money.

Firewood:

Note: This trick usually works only at established campgrounds.

Instead of paying $4-$5 for one cubic foot of firewood, wait until Monday evening to collect all the leftover wood that the weekend warriors left at their camp sites. It’s almost like trick or treating; you go from spot to spot and get the king-size logs or maybe a couple of twigs. 

Prime Camp Site:

Never-ever-ever arrive at your destination on a Friday or Saturday. Arrive on Sunday evening or anytime Monday. Plan it so that you arrive to pick out a campsite after the weekend campers have left. If you arrive at a spot that you desire on a Sunday evening and there are still occupants there, don’t be afraid to ask them how long they are staying…it might just be that they are leaving within a few hours. Call dibs on the spot and then go climb a couple pitches till they leave.

Washing Dishes:

Soap/Water/Bleach- Use three large bowls. First bowl has water and soap. Second bowl has just water. Third bowl has water and a bit of bleach. Scrub off the remains of your meal in the first bowl, rinse the floaters off in the second bowl, then dip it in the bleach bowl to seal the deal. This method really makes you feel clean and peppy.

Rain- If it looks like its going to rain that night, just scatter the dishes out on the table for a nice rinse/soak.

Dirt- For a dry rinse, just toss a handful of dirt in our dish and rub it around with our hand. The dirt will dry out the remnants of the food and scrap them off. Dump the dirt and you have a dusty dish that just needs a rinse.

FareShare Mugs- Eat everything you can in a FareShare Mug by GSI. To rinse, put some water in the mug, screw the lid on and shake. Dump the nasty water. Now put some fresh water in, squirt some soap, screw on the lid, and shake. Dump the water and quickly rinse. However, if you can’t do all that this instant, just screw the lid on to prevent all the food remnants from getting all crusty.

Opposite Ends of the Spectrum

I am currently sitting in our hotel room at the Circus Circus Hotel/Casino in Las Vegan, NV. For $26 we get to sleep in bed for one night, shower, look in a mirror, watch TV, flush our human waste, control the temperature, access to the internet, dip in the pool, watch all the free circus acts, and more. Granted, we could have just camped this night for free...but this is well worth it.

We've had to purchase showers when we camped at the City of Rocks for two weeks. I handed over $9 for all four of us to take a hot shower. We've also had to pay $13 a night to camp at the City of Rocks. During our stay in southwest Utah from Oct 17 till Oct 26, we've been camping for free, digging our own poop-holes, and dodging the rain. It's nice to treat yourself to the comforts of life every so often. So yes, a $26 room at Circus Circus is definitely a treat.

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We are on our way to Upland, CA to party hard for Halloween. We wanted to let our boys have a little fun and see some of the rad sights here in Las Vegas. We checked into our hotel, and then took them to see the M&M World.

Before we could do anything, we had to take our bikes off our the roof of our van to be able to fit in any of the parking garages. With our bikes on our van, we are just past 9 feet high. These parking garages have a clearance of 7 to 8 feet.

Indy and Fisher experienced culture shock. They went from one whole week of very primitive camping. Indy learned to dig a whole, poop in it, and cover it up this week. The only walls the boys saw were the walls of the tent or the rock walls that we climbed. The only electronic lights that they experienced was the third-eye that glowed on our foreheads when it was night-time (headlamps). They went from all that to big signs, lots of cars, plenty of people, flashing lights, chimes and jingles, and huge buildings. They were so excited. Their faces glowed like they had landed on an alien planet. Fisher didn't walk, we danced down the sidewalk. Indy made sure we knew about everything that he saw. "Hey daddy...I see this." "Hey mommy...I see that." The boys were in heaven. They must have forgotten what city life was like.

Tomorrow, we'll let the boys check out the free circus acts here in our hotel and then we'll wander along the strip before it's time to jump back in our van to head south to California.

The Van

Our 2005 Toyota Sienna...completely empty with the van-bed.

Our Toyota Sienna with all our possessions ready for packing.

4 month on the road? Yea...you need to be comfortable.

Packed like sardines.

One Month and Counting

Well, we've been on the road for one month and 3 days now. It has been so great. We've been climbing a lot of fun and hard stuff. The boys have been enjoying themselves and learning a lot of new knowledge and skills.

After we spent a week visiting Jennilyn's family in Boise, Logan, and Kaysville, we headed south of Moab, UT to Indian Creek. Indian Creek (IC) is a heaven of beautiful sandstone splitter cracks. We hoped to live there for two weeks, but a 5 month old sprained ankle and a "flapper" on the palm of the hand inspired us to leave after 3 nights. Yea, we could have tried to wait it out and climb more, but we didn't want to leave IC because we were bored and forced not to climb. So we decided to call it while we were ahead and still liking our stay there. So we packed up and headed down to St. George, UT.

Our awesome friends, Mary and B-rad, let us stay at their place for 3 nights while we climbed at Turtle Wall and Prophecy Wall. Now we have basecamp set up at the base of the Woodbury Road Crags. (25 miles southwest of St George) These crags are sharp limestone that is either wicked slabby or nicely overhung. It is so nice to be on some sick sport climbs on some hard and dependable rock. I love sandstone, but it keeps my feathers all ruffled because of how unpredictable it is.

One awesome addition to our homeless family is Sam Perkins. Sam came all the way down from Rexburg, ID to stay a whole week with us in the St. George area. Climbing in general as a threesome is usually not preferred, it's too slow and someone is always doing nothing. However, the threesome method with kids is so nice. It allows for better climbing since there is always a supervisor over the boys.  Also, climbing with Sam is always a blast. "Radsauce!" "Funky-Rad!" These are a few of the moral-boosters heard when climbing with this maturing man. I've also liked having Sam here because now I get to experience more of the luxury of lead climbing with pre-hung quickdraws. I really like that commodity.

At the end of every day, this boy's face looks like this. 

Fisher is starting to hike by himself. He just needed his own backpack.

Jennilyn hiking up a beautiful route in Mill Creek. (Moab, UT)

Indy about to flash the scramble inside the cave at Turtle Wall. (Moab, UT)

Indy topping out.

Fisher doesn't like it when daddy tries to stuff him in small caves.

Meet Veronica. She is our babysitter.

Our home in Indian Creek. (Moab, UT)

Basecamp in Indian Creek.

Sam Perkins- working the crux on Zealot - 5.12c. (Kelly's Rock at Woodbury Road Crags)

Sam Perkins...Rad-Sauce!

Ben Eaton below the crux on Zealot - 5.12c. (Kelly's Rock at Woodbury Road Crags)

Hiking With Two Kids

My 4 year old is what I like to call a “Super Duper Hiker-Boy.”

With all the climbing that we are doing on this trip, there is a lot of hiking for us to do along with it. Some of the approaches to the crags are short and some are long.  Some are flat and some are steep. Because we have two kids with us, we try to keep the approaches within their ability. The length and steepness are the two main factors that we have to consider. Indy can only hike for so far and my shoulders can only handle Fisher on them for so long

Whatever the approach may be, Indy (age 4) has done an amazing job at doing it all himself. With his “Lightning McQueen” snow boots, he will insist that he leads the way on the trail. Indy has been getting better at following or finding the trail. Sometime, however, we’ll find Indy trying to scramble over a big rock because he didn’t see the trial loop around the rock.

While at the City of Rocks, we desired to hike to a crag called Beef Jello. This crag is one of the farthest locations for climbing in the City of Rocks. On our last full day in the City, we departed from the Flaming Rock trailhead. Jennilyn had her big pack on her back with the rope, harnesses, climbing shoes, food/snack bag, and other stuff. I had the kid carrier backpack with Fisher strapped inside, along with all the cams, quickdraws, and water. Jennilyn and I would trade off on who had to sling the over-the-shoulder bag full of trains and train tracks around their shoulder. Indy was decked out with his winter boots (out of the 4 different options of footware, he insisted on his boots.), his mom’s trekking pole, and a pocket full of candy corn.

With Indy upfront, Jennilyn would play games or sing songs with him to keep up his spirit. Once he started hunching over and slowing down, Jennilyn would ask if he needed a “hiking treat.” Indy would turn around, with a sigh of relief, and say, “Yes…and a drink of water.” He would then dig his hand into his little pocket and grab two pieces of candy corn. Popping them into his mouth at the same time, we would then take a swig of water, like we was taking his pills. 30 seconds later, he straightens his back and motions for all of us to hit the trail again.

As much as I’d like to say that we actually made it all the way out to Beef Jello, we didn’t. It wasn’t because of the boys. It was because of me and Jennilyn. We were tired of being pack mules, so we went as far as the Tahitian Wall. But Indy hiked all the way in and all the way out all by himself. The hike in took 1.5 hours of straight hiking. He is such a champ.