Lost

Saturday started off pleasant with a climb up the first flat iron with Brian

 Brian leading the next to last pitch

 Then on Sunday Darren and I got hopelessly lost on our way down from the Rewritten route in Eldorado Canyon.  I had been furiously praying half way up the route because lightning was blowing up the sky.  I climbed those last three fabulous pitches in super speed mode, and thankfully the rain stopped as we made our way down.  But perhaps we were so focused on getting off the summit that we missed the main descent.  We probably took more time picking our way down the cactus and talus laden mountain then climbing the route.  Finally we made it to the backside of town and strolled our way back into the park.

 Amazingly we still had two hours to explore the King Tut exhibit in Denver and then grab a bite before heading home

 This past weekend we, along with my friend Tara from Denver, visited our other pal Joy in Fort Collins. Joy preached at church (and did a wonderful job), we had a big potluck at her house, and then we explored a local park.  We also were able to pack in an International Unity Fair at her university (the Saudi dancers were the best.) and the three of us gals supported Joy's language club at a local pub by paying money to enter a raffle and/or attempting to hit a golfball into a cup.  We also played a few games of pool.  I couldn't remember the rules for cutthroat so we made up our own game of three person pool:  Whoever hits in the most balls wins.  If you scratch after hitting in a ball it doesn't count.  If you hit in the eight ball before another ball you have to subtract one from your score.

Pretty simple right?  Well, Joy's classmates couldn't seem to understand it.  Or they just thought it wasn't a very good game.  Sure it was super easy, but we were entertained.  And like good women that enjoy peace and fairness, each of us happened to win a game of the three we played.

Sunday we left Tara and Joy to their studies and traveled to Golden for some climbing.  It was freezing cold, but we attempted some routes anyways.  For the second weekend in a row, we got terribly lost and I ended up free soloing a sketchy wall in my Uggs to a high plateau.  We then were able to find the climbs we wanted.  However, when it was my turn to climb, every move my hands would go numb, so I just belayed Darren up three routes.  Somehow we managed once again to get lost on the way down, but thankfully a local saved and pointed us the way.

The biggest excitement for Darren of the entire two weeks was my initial usage of the backpack he bought me.  My padre should be proud because it's made in the good 'ole U. S. of A by hard working 'mericans (New Hampshirians to be exact).  Very fitting that I first used my Cold Cold World pack on a very cold, cold day.