When it rains it pours...

Well this has been an interesting past week.  Mike and I both went home to visit friends and family.  We both enjoyed it but the difference in daily routines from home and bus-life are very noticeable.   I went to Ouray again and had a blast, although sitting in the hot-springs rapidly deteriorates the hard tips I have built up over the trip.

My buddy Matt Moskal came out to hang with us in Joe's for a few days as part of road trip out to the west coast.  I had a lot of fun learning (and being the best) at fishing.  We spent a few afternoons at Joe's Valley reservoir fishing for the rumored 40 inch + tiger musky, only managing to catch their food source of small lake trout.  It was a nice break from climbing every day.

We also drove out to Salt Lake City to pick Mike up from the airport.  On our way we drove through BYU campus in Provo blasting Slim Shady.  We received some strange looks to say the least.  Salt Lake was impressive.  The Mormon temple is a gothic style cathedral with an office building (the largest building in the city) right next door.  It was interesting to see how large the Mormon influence is on such a large city.  Of all the cities in Utah it has the lowest Mormon population, but it is still the first thing we noticed about the city, especially after listening to John Krakauer's "Under the Banner of Heaven" on tape.

I also found out the hard way that leaving your bus parked for over a week might be somewhat hard on the alternator, and after having having the bus jumped a dozen times we finally made it to the local mechanic and were told it would be a $350 repair.  Bummer especially considering it needed to be kept in the shop over night and that is my home.  Luckily we spent the night in a motel in Salt Lake.  That was the beginning of a series of unfortunate events.  Yesterday we went out to New Joe's and worked a bunch of fun problems.  One of them is a V6 highball called "Nerve Damage" which is described best  by the name.  On my first go I fell with one foot off the pad.  Then we went to another wall with some fun V7's and a finger intensive V9.  I was working the 9 and tweeked my finger/arm pulling off of a 2 finger pocket.  I'll have to take at least a few days off to let it recover, and hopefully nothing more.  Last night we made a huge pot of chili (a little of everything we had).  Of course we let Juno be the dishwasher again without really thinking about the implications it may have on her stomach.  I was up 4 times in the night to clean up her vomit...Poor Juno.  She seems to be feeling better today.

Mike and I will stay in Joe's till the 31'st and then head back to Colorado for summer climbing, making a pit stop in Rifle for a few days.  Alex Vidal is coming to visit today and I am psyched to see him but bummed I wont be able to climb much while he is here.  Climbing in Joe's is the best...Cant wait to come back another time.

Oh ya, for those of you that didn't see the video I made of Joe's.  I pay $10 a month to use Vimeo Plus so you should watch it and let me know what you think.  Joe's Movie

Cheers,
Thomas