Andy, climbing Straight Flush
Wendy: The desert - a strange place indeed. Harsh yet beautiful, it has a tendency to attract odd individuals... call them desert dwellers. Today we "conversed" with a good example of one such desert dweller.
We spent the morning chasing shade, with Andy leading one of his harder climbs, Illusion Dweller (10b), a long, stellar crack that relies on every type of crack climbing technique. His goal was to climb it with less then 16 pieces (thanks Ted for putting him up to that challenge). We got to the top, and his first comment was "Count my pieces....how many did I have...did I put in too much protection?..." etc. Fifteen and counting, and he met his goal, and climbed well too, I might add. We moved on to Straight Flush (5.8) and Mt. Watkins (5.10), both had intriguing moves and were climbs we hadn't done before.
And then a momentum killing siesta.
By 5PM we were groggy and lacking motivation, but convinced ourselves that we had one last top-rope in us. Big Moe (5.11a/b). Andy cruised it after a few "practice" attempts. I groveled up to the pod and flailed around, finally giving up before blowing my arms out.
As we were packing up, a man and his 10-year old son returned to their car (parked next to ours). He quickly introduced himself as a local. We named him "F-ing A" man, for obvious reasons:
(Note: this whole conversation was in front of a 10 year old child!)
Man: F-ing-A, that's a big van.
Us: Yeah, thanks. We like it.
Man: I've never seen something so F-ing-A big.
Us: Yeah, it's pretty big.
Man: F-ing-A, can I ask one question?
Us: Uh, sure (glancing at each other).
Man: How the F-ing-A can you afford that?
Us: Uh, well, um, it's not that expensive. We've been working and
saving up.
Man: You could get a huge F-ing-A house around here for the price of that F-ing-A
van.
Us: (glancing at his son) How are the schools and the people around here?
Man: Schools? F-ing-A, he's getting a shitty education. But I
don't care, the houses are cheap.
Son: But the girls are hot!
Man: But you gotta watch out for the locals. If they're not F-ing-A
meth addicts, they're F-ing-A desert wackos.
Us: Really? You don't say.
Yes, this conversation really did happen.
We said our goodbyes, and debated on the drive back about whether he was a meth addict or just a F-ing-A desert wacko. He certainly used the F-word more times that anyone we had ever met, and his son looked to be on the same developmental trajectory.
Andy, climbing Straight Flush |