Down Day at the Tower

I am going to try and summarize my travels so far so the next post can be a more detailed and current account of what I am up to and maybe some better pictures:

My travel plans focused around rock climbing and the funny thing about rock climbing is that unless you have a lot of skills and a big rack of "nuts" you don't climb by yourself and have a regular partner; insert Dan. I met Dan through a partner search on a climbing website and we discussed how to make this happen. Dan decided he was about due for a change in lifestyle and quite similarly to me, quit his job and sold all his possessions to hit the road in Bertha. Dan and I met for the first time the day before I was discharged from the Army. The following day after receiving my discharge, we packed up and headed East for a week in the Red River Gorge, Kentucky to determine if this trip was actually plausible for us. We met up with my old friends Alex, Katie and a newer friend Nick. We ended up having a killer time and Dan and I determined that we worked as partners and were full speed ahead on our travel plans. Dan had some obligations to take care of and we would meet up again a little down the road.

Next stop would be home in New Jersey for two weeks to say hello and goodbye, like I had many times before for Army obligations, prior to hitting the road. I had been kicking around the idea of trying to hit the four corners of the lower 48 so I made an executive decision that my first destination on my journey would be the very tip of Nova Scotia, Canada. After lots of driving and a few pit stops to see friends in New York City and Boston, I could check the tip of Nova Scotia off the list. As quickly as I had arrived at the tip, I turned around and cut through Maine to New Hampshire. I saw my first and only "swamp donkey" in Maine even if it was only for a split second while driving on the highway. I met back up with Dan and we topped out White Horse Ledges in North Conway NH. Next stop was Rumney NH where I met a few lovely and beautiful people who convinced us to stay a little longer than we had planned (it wasn't too hard to convince us). After Rumney was a few more lovely days in the Adirondacks of New York. Here is where Dan and I would split paths again until meeting up permanently in his home town in South Dakota. I then hit the road for a long drive to Chicago to meet the third in our party, Charles, who will be joining our shenanigans until the end of June. Together we trucked up to Wisconsin for a week of "The best climbing in Wisconsin". We put in some work at Devil's Lake and Petenwell Bluffs then hit the road due West.
This takes us up to just about a week ago where we met back up with Dan for the last time. We got our last good home cooked meal in and spent a day doing maintenance on Bertha and figuring out how to fit three grown men, all of our climbing/camping gear, and a dog in the van. After a serious game of gear tetris, we were on the road again heading west. The first real climbing stop for the three of us would be the Black Hills of North Dakota to Custer State Park and the Needles Highway...

Did You See Aliens Up There?

Caving In

“The summit is for the ego, the journey is for the soul.”