Busy, Busy, Busy

Instead of getting to play outside this past Saturday (which as sunny and in the 60s), I go to experience the joy of painting my house. Yes, scraping, priming, breathing in lead paint from the 70s--the whole deal. Interestingly, however, I think that using a roller is good PT for shoulders. I'm going to have to tell my Physical Therapist about that. Maybe he can send some people over to do the rest of the house in the coming weeks.

Since I've been so slammed with work and house stuff, I've been too preoccupied to go back into my images from a few weeks ago and get them all processed and uploaded. So I decided I just post a quick pic from a trip to Knoxville from 2 weeks ago, when we went to go visit Melissa's parents. By searching on rockclimbing.com, I found a lead on a bouldering area called Look Rock just 30 minutes from the house. We went and spent all day there and had a pretty good time. There's a good amount of rock there that's reminiscent of Rock Town; the main problem is that much of it is about 30 feet high or so. Kind of tall for bouldering, and almost not worth the trouble for TR-ing. And since the Obed's not far away, this place doesn't see much traffic. Still, it was a good find when I wasn't expecting much in the first place. I took some nice 15 foot falls off one problem, which made me feel like I got my adrenaline fix out of the place. This picture was taken with a cell phone...i forgot my camera that day.

Last weekend I finally got to climb Sitting Bear in Linville Gorge (near Hawksbill). I had never been up there, and it's worth checking out, even if the climbing is limited. It's a really bizarre 45-50 foot pillar sticking out of the ridge line. The original bolted route was once rated 5.8; it's now known to be 5.10 and it felt like a hard 5.10, too. I topped out right at sunset and the view down the gorge was pretty sweet. Too bad I forgot my camera on that day too. I need to get a smaller camera for these quick snapshot moments so I don't always have to carry a full D-SLR.

Check out this link for a pic: flickr.com/photos/99518199@N00/1375758285