Danger & Adventure Around Every Corner: Back to Kentucky

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Back to Kentucky

Despite the long drive, everyone was on board, once Lucas was cleared to miss another day of school. The boys were such troopers and really understood how important making these trips was to Daddy. Daddy was quickly reminded just how awesome his family is too. :)

Dirty crag boy!

He decided he needed a bath so collecting water was his plan.

He lasted about 5 minutes until he realized that collecting bath water drip by drip was going to take a week!

Back at the cabin, Ed made Bananas Foster for dessert and it was delicious. Here he is lighting it on fire!

Lena (on the shorter side) + Noah (on the taller side) = smiles for all

Too fun and nice to have great people to share the cabin with.

My weekend climbing became focused on redpointing Jesus Wept a 5.12c/d route which I fell in love with. This was no easy climb for me and became a wonderful learning experience. In the end, I almost broke up with it but I'll let you read to see what really happened.

This is a view of the climbing area called "The Sanctuary" and you can barely see Daddy in the blue shirt below my route.

Lucas made some climbing movies of me on Jesus Wept. Here is a view from his perspective.

The boys stayed very busy in their rhododendron forts.


This is in the living room. They each had their own fort and visited each other for various occasions...birthdays, meals, etc. They get along so well and kept each other occupied for hours. Well, they get along for the most part. There was one incident when Lucas was supposed to help open Axel's Kit Kat but took a bite of it after telling Axel to look away. It didn't take long to figure out what happened. After denying everything, Lucas got a quick lesson in being honest and telling the truth. :) Love those learning experiences. The hardest part is keeping a straight face...

This is Mommy and Daddy's fort!

Lucas climbing.

Lucas freezing.

This deceiving smile does not show any hint of the sad face we saw because of the cold rock. He was one unhappy camper and I guess very relieved to be done with climbing that morning.

Axel giving it a try.

He too learned that the rock was very cold and decided to call it a day early on.

As for the adults, we thought the cold rock was perfect!

Shaun planning out his next moves.

Look for the blue shirt...another huge cliff (Midnight Surf) with beautiful routes.

Daddy had a blast and did great....look for the red shirt!


Nope, he's not falling but his feet cut loose for this exciting photo. It's a weird perspective because I'm looking straight up and left to get the photo.

It was then Mommy's turn to finish up her project...or so that was the plan!

I made it through the steep hard start.

Found a decent rest.

Made it through another hard section...

Found an even better rest spot. If you look closely, I'm showing Daddy my bloody finger.

A little more easy climbing then a rest before the last hard section. You can see how close my hips have to be to the wall. I do this and then straighten my arms out so my muscles can get a little rest. The last moves are on tiny little pockets.

And I get the pocket...

Go to make the last hard move...

And FALL! Yep, this happened to me about 4 times that weekend. I fell at 4 different spots all at the top of a long route.

Discussing what went wrong and how to prevent it next time.


There was time to try again and guess what?! I DID IT!!! WHOOT!

Mommy did a "chocolate cake" climb so the boys were just as excited. Anytime anyone in our family does a hard climb, the family celebrates with yummy dessert...it's usually chocolate cake! However, sometimes it's coconut cake or berry pie which are two of Mommy's favorites!