Memorial Day in Joshua Tree

Nice weekend in Josh. Pretty mellow weather for late May, all in all. We launched the weekend by looking at a few houses and actually managed to get out climbing the next day. First time Felicia has been out climbing since she jacked her elbow at the end of last year down in Cochise Stronghold. We stuck to some pretty mellow climbing to save the elbow and because it was pretty windy, cool and even cold at times. We went to a new area (for us) called The Cathouse (or as we ended up calling it, The Catbox). Short climbs, lots of really easy stuff for the most part. Another trio of climbers showed up and took over the middle section of the crag where the interesting looking 5.9's were, then spend the rest of the day doing lap after lap on them. So much for those. Anyways... it was a nice mellow day.


The view out the front of one house we looked at. What's not to like? :-)













Felicia and I gearing up for the first route of the day.












Slabbing it out up our first route, a three bolt 5.7 thing with sparse knobs for holds. We did three routes in this area before moving on to the left side of the crag.















Susan finishing up at the top of the first two climbs we did (they shared a finish). She's sporting a nice elbow tendonitis condition too.















Nice hairy looking prickly peak cactus near the base of the crag.
















Felicia on one of the routes we did on the left side of the crag. Probably the 5.8 shallow finger crack thing.















Russ having a go on the 10c (very bouldery) route on the left side. Think you have to be like 6'8" and look like James Taylor to pull that one!















View walking out at the end of the day.













Russ & Susan put in a pool over the weekend. Bummer it dropped 20 degrees the night after they filled it up! Probably plenty of warm days ahead to be jumping in that puppy.

Home Improvements!

It's been sort of a weekend of ticking things off the list around the house. We did a bunch of cleanup, weeding and sweeping blown crud off the back porch yesterday morning. I also knocked off a couple of critical replacement items that needed to be knocked off.

After we got back from South Carolina, the back door latch stuck. I took it apart, lubed it up good and it seemed to be back in action. Then about three days later, it seized up for good. Time for a new door latch. We've been on a steady replacement of gold fixtures for "oil rubbed bronze", so the new latch and deadbolt are that finish. This was a three-trip fix. Meaning, it took me three trips to Home Depot to pull it off. The last was to go tell them how much I appreciated the new "Smart Key" technology that allows you to rekey the lock to your key yourself. Yeah...whatever. In any case, it's done, and working.








Yesterday, I was laying on the bed thinking about how great it would be to take a nap while Felicia shared with me all the stuff we needed to get done. So I got a wild hair and decided to knock off the replacement of the ceiling fan in our bedroom. Again, with the oil-rubbed bronze. I didn't get a shot of the old fan on the ceiling, but here it is after removal.












What a pile of stuff to put together!!















I got the mounting bracket up just fine, got the motor unit hanging from it and all wired up just fine. Then I hit the first snag in the road...you got all these wires and a remote control receiver unit deal that all have to be packed into that small space at the top of the fan. Normally, the outlet box you're bolting all this too actually has some space recessed up into the ceiling where you can cram all the wires to get them out of the way. Not mine! Mine was essentially a very shallow mounting plate bolted to a cross member in the ceiling. Total space: about 1/4". That caused some issues...








Here's a closeup of the problem... after packing everything in there, I tried to get the motor unit mounted and I was like 1/2" off from getting it done. Not even close. After several tries, a lot of sweat and some profanity, I had to walk away for a while. I came back, looked it over again, then pulled a pin out of the motor unit that was only there for mounting a down rod to and it gave me just enough space to get the thing up onto the mount. What a pain in the butt!!



After I got the motor unit mounted, we kicked the power on and I tried out the remote control to make sure it was working before I put all the rest of the stuff on there. It worked!! I nearly fell over.

Motor unit on the ceiling, fan blades in place! It's all downhill from here!






The ever-present Inspector #25. Inspector #26 was probably in the back yard eating something or digging a giant hole.











Houston, we have lift off!!!












Whew! Thank God that's over with!!!
Can't wait for whatever's next!!


For now, I have a very happy wife!













Took care of the remote this morning... keeping it safe and out of the Inspector #26 chew zone!!

The Overlook

Headed out today for my first climbing since Indian Creek almost a month ago. That's how I roll now... once a month whether I need it or not! I talked to Mr. X on Friday morning. He was going to be in northern AZ on a clandestine mission Saturday, but wanted to get some climbing in Sunday, so he would meet me at The Overlook around noon. I was up fairly early and headed north before 7am. I had my solo gear with me and figured I could get in a bit of climbing before Mr. X showed up.


After doing one route on TR, I pulled out the Soloist and led the next route, Angel's Delight. I never get tired of this one, it's such a great line. After leading, I rigged an anchor, then went back over and went back down on my rap line (different rope) and climbed back up to clean my gear.













The Overlook is full of ghosts... seems like someone craters there every few years. Probably the potent mix of beginners and somewhat dangerous cliff terrain. Taking note of this "memorial"... I'd like to state categorically: PLEASE, if I ever go face first into the talus, DON'T GO WRECK A TREE to memorialize me!!!






After doing a couple more routes, and getting stiffed on Morning's Mourning (the ONLY other people climbing were on it), I decided to see how everything was functioning with a TR lap on Isaiah (5.9). What a classic. After I'd rigged the anchor, chucked the rope, and then rapped the route placing gear to line the rope up along it's somewhat overhanging and curving line, I was at the base of the wall when Mr. X yelled from the top. Noon. Right on time. I still had to go up and clean my stuff, then rap back down.










Mr. X up in the three sided stembox of Ginger Bread. This was the first route I led at the Overlook, twenty years ago. Still enjoy it.















See... ghosts... someone dumped the cremated remains of someone right NEXT to the rappel tree I've been using for the last ten years. I don't begrudge someone spreading their loved ones ashes... but why do it in a spot that receives traffic. And if you don't frequent the clifftop enough to know there are often climbers all over it, then why dump the ashes there? I'm just sayin'...











Finally got on Morning's Mourning. What an awesome corner!! Another Overlook classic.












We finished up the day doing Mint Jam. Although rated an easy 5.7, the finishing move at the top, if you go left, is a bit of a handful. Awkward with not much in the way of good holds, I'm going to say that bit of climbing is harder than 5.7. It was the only time all day, I had a brief moment of "I might just fall off this thing..."












Another shot of Mr. X around 2/3rds of the way up Mint Jam

The Puppies at Bartlett Lake

Since Felicia got back yesterday, today's was family day. So we loaded the puppies in the car and headed out to Bartlett Lake, northeast of Phoenix. Neither of us had been there before, so we weren't sure what we'd find when we got there, but we actually managed to get down to a secluded cove where we could let the dogs off leash and they could play 'til they were blue in the face. We were sort of wondering how Ginny would do with the water, but when we walked down to the beach and took her off leash, she waded right in up to her knees and then laid down in the water. Mystery solved! And when Riley (a giant water chicken) saw her go in there, he went right in after her. They went bananas playing in the water, chasing each other and chasing sticks we threw. Ginny even got into some water deep enough to require swimming, but she returned quickly when that happened. Riley was playing like a big ol' puppy out there and I suspect he's going to be pretty trashed tonight and tomorrow. Maybe sore to boot. But he had a great time!