Make no mistake, we'll live while we're young, we'll chase down the sun

Hello again!  Since backpacking we have been doing some rock climbing at Deer Leap.  There is a wonderful Irish Pub that runs along the Long Trail and has rock climbing behind it. We stopped there for dinner after backpacking...

I had a Guinness with Guinness Stew and both were fantastic.  While we waited for our food Matthew destroyed me in darts.  Somehow the Guinness didn't improve my aim.  We spent the next day scoping out the rocks, it was too rainy to actually climb.  The following day it was beautiful and sunny, we pulled out our gear and it was wet!  So spent a day at a campsite drying our things.  We made the most of it, it was a pretty place.  We took the opportunity to drink.  I told you about our new friend in the last post.  He gave us a small sample of this Cranberry pear vinegar.  We mixed it with Jack Daniels and Seltzer.  They were wonderful!

We climbed the next day doing two trad climbs that were really fun.  I didn't get us climbing because that would not be safe, but here are a few shots of us repelling!

 And the view 

In this last shot you can see across the street there is a dirt parking lot, we were allowed to stay there overnight which was very convenient!  After climbing that day we debated staying in the parking lot or camping somewhere.  Matthew convinced me to do a short hike to a shelter.  We started the hike around 6pm.  Along the trail we saw a sign that said tent site but didn't have the name posted of the shelter we were looking for so we kept going.  We did a 6 mile hike out to a random campsite.  This was not ideal and we didn't finish hiking until 9pm.  I was very tired and a bit cranky by the end.  We were only supposed to hike 1.6 miles but missed the site and kept going in search of it.  Oops.  We slept in, read our kindles and drank some tea with whiskey until noon.  We hiked back to the truck, hung out and planned to climb the next day.  Since we did 2 Trad climbs we decided this next climb day we would top rope so we could concentrate just on climbing.  Here are a few shots from that day...

 Best Pano shot I've ever taken!  This is the top of Deer Leap

 Taking photos are a bit dangerous with only two people, I was on a secure ledge so this was the only safe shot we could take

And here's Matthew on the same ledge

Chalked and bleeding!  The casualties of climbing.  

Here's a shot from the dirt parking lot across the street.  The building is the pub/Inn, the rock above is where we climbed.  The Pano shot I took is beyond the trees on the top, not visible from the ground (obviously).

Yesterday was an off day.  This means we stayed at a camp and did a bunch of random things. We found a beautiful site near a river 

We took this beautiful warm day to do our laundry and bath in the cool waters.  We set up a hammock,

took care of odds and ends and discussed some more safety things for climbing.  I enjoyed reading in the hammock for a while.  I'm currently reading the Revenant.  I haven't seen the movie but the book is fantastic!  

This morning I made Bannock.  I was looking for a bread I could easily make in or over a fire.  I came across this recipe on Pinterest https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/d2/22/61/d22261356607c9d0274668b47e1ab86f.jpg  I tried it and it was really easy and tasty!  When I looked up the history it has origins in Scotland, it was made on a Bannock Stane - a flat sandstone placed on a fire for cooking.  We like to make tripods for cooking over the fire.  Here's the bannock cooking.. 

It ended up being too much to eat in one sitting but I'm excited about this recipe.  I can half it and since it's bread we have a lot of uses for it.  We are now in Hanover, VT at Dirt Cowboy Cafe sipping on Italian Sodas and blogging.  We are next headed to the White Mountains in New Hampshire.  Our Wilderness First Responder Course starts in two days.  I'll report again in about a week and half.  

Oops I did it again... (minimal photos)

I have not taken any photos in the past week.  To back track a little before leaving Massachusetts we went rock climbing at Rose Ledge.  I do have a few photos of that.  Matthew actually did a blog post on it http://www.blog.smalladventures.net/2016/06/my-first-trad-climb.html  It was a really fun climb and a gorgeous day.  We were the only ones out there and did our first attempt at Trad climbing.  He went up the route first and then I 'cleaned'.  He goes into detail about it on his blog if you are interested.  What he doesn't mention is on the hike out I twisted my left ankle again.  It was worse than last time.  We left the next day for the Green Mountains in Vermont, found a nice private dispersed camping site and hung out for 2 days.  I rested my foot for a day, it felt ok but iffy so I did some of the physical therapy exercises I'd been neglecting to do.  We went for a run, unsure of the distance but somewhere between 4-6 miles.  I massaged it and it felt OK.  We then decided to do a 4 day backpacking trip and this is where I failed you.  I have NO photos from the whole trip.  We expected rain storms so neither of us took a camera aka our cell phones.  It was an amazing trip, and I'm really sad we didn't think to just take a phone in a zip lock bag.  We stopped at 3 ponds and they kept getting more beautiful!  The weather was too cool for a swim but I still wanted to get in really bad.  I'm sad to report I was too much of a chicken to swim.  I got waist deep on the warmest day... which was not that warm.  I did get in more than Matthew, so that's a small victory.  The trails in Vermont are quite muddy.  Apparently it is lovingly called Vermud.  I had wet shoes and socks from day one, it was unavoidable.  Especially when you come across a sign on the trail that says "Trail closed due to flooding, follow yellow path" and your adventurous boyfriend says "Nah, we got this" and stays on the trail anyway.  I was not thrilled but part of this journey is to push past my comfort zones.  They were getting pushed daily.  I have to say, it was worth it. We found a nice camping area and had the whole place to ourselves, also a bonus of backpacking in the middle of the week.  I do have a photo of the map to show where we hiked.

We started at the bottom middle, Stratton Pond Parking.  We only hiked to Stratton pond the first day, about a 4 mile hike.  I wanted to start with low miles and gradually work up.  The next day we went from Stratton pond (to the right of the center) to the left on Lye brook trail then left at Branch pond trail, we stopped for lunch at Branch pond, then went back north to Bourne pond for the night.  Maybe a total of 6 miles that day?  The third day we kept going north to the William B Douglas shelter at the top of the photo, had lunch there, then took the Long Trail/Appalachian trail South back to Stratton pond, about 8 miles that day.  We stayed near the shelter that night and met a few AT through hikers and had some good laughs.  We got lucky, even though it rained that day it didn't rain that night.  On the fourth day we took it easy and did about 4 miles out the way we went in.  We spent that rest of that day in Manchester.  We shared a pizza, did laundry, checked emails and walked the town.  It was a really nice day.  We met an interesting guy named Greg who was working at an Olive and Ives, they have a wonderful selection of oils and vinegar's which we tried a lot of.  We were walking by the store and he just happened to be out smoking a cigarette and started chatting.  It's pretty quiet in the area so he only had 2 customers all day until we showed up around 3pm.  So we shared stories, had delicious samples and made a new friend.  We left the area and headed to the northern part of the Green Mountains in search of rock climbing.  It's rainy today but we scouted out the area with a little hike this morning and are looking forward to climbing tomorrow.  Here's a random photo of me outside a gift shop in Manchester... 

My ankle did well during the hikes, but did ache towards the end of the 8 mile day.  I think the hiking helped strengthen it and I will be more diligent to do my PT exercises.  Anyway, the weather gods claim it will be warm and sunny for the next few days, I'll be good and take photos.

A head full of dreams...

We have been in Massachusetts for about three weeks now.  It is a bit longer than we anticipated due to some hiccups, such is life!  We have been busying ourselves here by exploring, hiking, running, reading, working on projects, and the truck, getting health insurance (Thank you affordable care act aka Obamacare!), did a 1,000 piece puzzle, got injured while running, eating amazing home cooked meals(Thank you Judy Brewer!!) and showering regularly lol.  My projects have included curtains for being stealthy in the truck, a quiver for my arrows and an archer arm guard.  I've taken some photos along the way to share.  First up is a shot of my left leg, upper and lower that got scraped up pretty good from a fall.  I was trail running, got distracted looking at a bird I was trying to identify and tripped on both a root and a large rock.  Essentially I tripped twice and fell funny on my left leg scrapping my upper thigh and side of my shin.

Used this lovely salve thanks to Judy Brewer on my injuries and they healed a lot faster.

The next set of photos are from an outing to chesterfield gorge.  I didn't really get a great shot but it was a fun place to explore.  We found a blood root plant (trying to learn plants).  It was cool to see but I found it a little creepy too. 

Blood root plant

root of the plant, where it gets its name

The next set are from the curtains I made.  We needed curtains for the cap so we can have the lights on but it's not visible from outside the truck.  For this we went to Goodwill and found some opaque green and brown material.  After much deliberation we went with magnets to use for attaching the curtains.  It was a time consuming project mainly at the start to figure out how to do it.  We discovered that magnetic strips don't actually hold magnets, we had to get a steel sheet.  I had to cut the sheet into strips the those strips into 3 inch pieces.  I then filed the edges so we couldn't cut ourselves on them.  Once that was done I glued them to the frame of the windows.  I then had to sew little magnets onto the would-be curtains, attached the top first then made an outline of the edges, cut the material to size, sewed a hem, then added more magnets.  I did 4 curtains and it took me almost a week to complete.

The next project was a quiver for my arrows.  I bought some arrows and have been practicing.  It's a lot of fun and great for stress reduction!  Oh yea, that's something else we've been doing.  So I found a DIY quiver tutorial online here.. http://woodandfaulk.com/blogs/journal/15785153-archers-quiver-diy  We had some canvas and leather so I got to work.  It was fairly easy to make and for my first time making one I'm pretty happy with the final result.  The design is simple and functional with a pocket for my archery glove and bow stringer.

 I also made an arm guard.  My left arm is sore right now from drawing wrong and hitting my forearm.  I can also see a little bruising.  I thought at first it was motivation to shoot better... but it hurts and I don't want the dark bruises.  Again I searched online and found a simple design I liked.  It required buttons, which I did not have.  Matthew showed me how to make wood toggles, so much cooler than silly buttons!

We also went to an art festival over memorial day weekend that was really neat.  Sorry, no photos of that.  It was really cool to see what people can do, the most interesting to me was the wood work and the clothes (I still love clothes even though I don't own much anymore).  Everything was way too expensive for my budget or to fit in the truck anyway lol but it was fun to walk around and think of the possibilities.  I'm sure I've missed some things but those are the big ones.

I've been researching rock climbing in the area and in the White Mountains.  We are planning to do some climbing in 2 days about an hour from here.  We haven't climbed since Seneca so I'm really excited about it. After that once we head out we will be exploring the White Mountains for a couple weeks.  We are signed up for a WFR (Wilderness First Responder) course in 3 weeks. It's a week long course that I am really looking forward to.  I will feel a lot more comfortable wandering in the wilderness when I know what to do if something goes wrong.

Shout out goes to my big brother graduating this weekend, he has been working hard and I'm very proud of him, Love you Robert!

West Virginia, Country mama, take me home, country roads...

After saying goodbye to our apartment we traveled back to PA, to spend the weekend with two of my favorite people in the world!  Rachael and Andrew live in Camp Hill, they just bought a house and have done an amazing job making it their own.  We spent the weekend enjoying wonderful home cooked meals, playing scrabble (I won, woot!), exploring the area, catching up, drinking proper tea, watched the Jungle Book, discussing politics (very interesting since our views differ..except on the topic of Trump, no one likes what is happening there - Anyway!).  I was good this time and took photos!  Here are a few from the hike we did, it was really beautiful.  Did I mention this beautiful couple is expecting?  SO happy and excited that these two phenomenal human beings are creating another.

It was hard to leave them but the time came Monday morning and we drove out to Seneca Rocks, WV.  We both knew there was good rock climbing to be had but that was it.  We didn't know about the area, where we could camp or what kind of climbs to expect.  Matthew has a climbing book we used to do a little reading on it.  It mentioned a lot of Trad climbing options (setting anchors while you climb, as opposed to top roping like you would in a climbing gym).  We only know how to top rope but headed out anyway with hopes of getting lucky.  It took 3.5 hours to get there, once we arrived we decided to hike to the rocks and have a look around.

 There were two ways to get to each side of the rocks, we did one side and I took a few shots of that.  We did a little rock scramble for fun... it was a little scary to do without rope so I didn't go too far up.

Funky bug friend that landed on my leg.

He was braver than me... or dumber, you be the judge.

The other side took longer to get to.  It's a 1.5 mile trek and felt like the longest and hardest 1.5 miles!  It was a lot of switchbacks and fairly steep and steady uphill, the view was great.  We did about 5 miles of hiking that day.

Another shot of the rocks, we were told that we could top rope off the back of the rocks.  The next few days we spent patiently waiting in the cold and rain for a day to climb.  We found free camping about 30 min away and settled in.  

This first day turned out to be gorgeous and would have been great for climbing.  We ended up just hanging out around camp all day.  The weather was wildly variable here.  It would be sunny, then rain, then sun, then rain.  The wind constantly changed direction so we were dancing around the fire in the 'avoid smoke' dance to the fire gods.  The next day we decided to hike, there was a 3.2 mile hike about 1/2 mile away.  We had to ford the river on this trail about 6 times.  To help you appreciate this, it was in the 40's, the river was colder than that and in order to cross we had to take off our shoes or get them completely drenched.  Not one to back down from a challenge we pushed forward.  After the 6th ford we started thinking we might extend this hike to a loop so we could avoid going back the way we came.  Luckily that was an option... an option that ended up extending our initial 6 mile out and back hike to about a 9.5 mile loop.  We were pretty tired towards the end. In the past on long hard hikes Matthew has sung to me.  To keep our spirits high he started to sing.  He did one song, then I did a song.  I started with Sir mix-a-lot, Baby Got Back, a personal favorite lol  We ended up singing a lot of show tunes, I started dancing and had a blast.  Towards the end of the hike I did happen to twist my left ankle ( I have a history of this), it hurt at the time but didn't last and was fine by the time we got back to camp.  The following day we went to town to sit somewhere warm and get some wifi service.  This ended up being a 1 hour drive to the closest place with wifi.  The day after that was another hike day, but shorter this time.  We spent part of the day practicing belay techniques and going over some basics of Trad climbing.  I am now pretty good at starting and keeping fires going in the rain.  I acquired a few burns and my iphone doesn't recognize my print anymore.. but I kept warm by tending the fire!  Oh... I also managed to singe my hair thanks to the crazy changing winds.  It was minor, I need a trim anyway.

The sun came out Saturday and we were so excited to get going on the rocks!  We did the grueling 1.5 mile trek to the rocks, made more enjoyable by the gear and food we had to take with us.  We found two spots to top rope climb and each did 4 climbs.  We also repelled down for fun.

Oh and this happened...

That's my nail separating from my body.  It already had a new nail growing under it so Matthew suspects this is an old injury that finally came off from wearing my climbing shoes.  For those that may not be aware, climbing shoes are smaller than normal shoes and are pointy like heels, mine are curved as well.  They are like ballet slippers with a pointy toe to stick in small crevices.  They hurt, but it's worth the pain to climb.  It also gets easier with time, you get used to them and build up pretty calluses.  I don't have any more photos of climbing.  We tried climbing Sunday as well but the previous days climbs made it hard.  We did climb but not for as long as we'd like.  Ended up doing one climb, that we couldn't finish but attempted twice.  It made us sad, but we can't control the weather or the rate of our recovery.  It was still fun and a gorgeous day.  Looking forward to more climbing and building up my strength.  The next few days called for more rain, so we left.  Next is heading to Massachusetts to drop off some of Matthews things and visit his parents.  

Side note - We found where Chipotle gets their Tortillas... These big beauties were in a general store across from Seneca Rocks.

Enjoying the journey and missing the people I love.  Time to make some phone calls...