Well, that didn't go as hoped

Sunday night already. The weekend's passed and I'll I got was this lousy stomach flu. Friday morning Fritz and I drove down to Enchanted Tower for what was to be a weekend full of fun climbing and nice camping. We did get in some fun climbing and some nice climbing but only roughly 50 percent of what we had planned on.

We didn't get out of Los Alamos until late morning on Friday due to a server issue at work that I went in to resolve. But we still arrived at the Tower with plenty of time to get wiped out by the steep climbing and rough rock. The weather was clear and toasty down there with a high in the mid-60s. I was psyched to be outside, lounging in the sun in the remote setting of Enchanted Tower. Later in the day Allison and I got on the route she had been thinking about for a long while, Technowitch, and neither of us sent it that afternoon on account of being pretty pumped from other routes we'd climbed already. No worries, Saturday we'd be recovered and ready to rock. We pulled the rope and left the draws on the route, which would save us some work the next day, and retreated to camp for dinner, beer and a campfire.

Allison on Technowitch, April 2011

To give a sense of how steep the climbing on the tower is...

Well, at 2am that night I woke up feeling really bad. Turns out I came down with the stomach bug that Allison had a week or so ago. The rest of the night was no fun with me sitting around a campfire between trips to the bushes to, well, I'll spare you the details. I was able to sleep a few more hours between 4am and 7am but woke up feeling super weak. I didn't feel like eating anything but managed to down some black coffee before strolling up to the tower again to try to climb. That didn't work out but I did have a good morning belaying Allison for a few routes before she did send Technowitch for the first time. She was stoked and I was psyched for her! It's a route that had been giving her a hard time for a long while due to a pretty reachy-for-her move right before the top but after the normal crux. She looked solid, held it together and punched it through her crux using a smaller hold a few inches below the hold most everyone else can use. It was great watching her figure out something that worked for her and then execute it.
With Allison completely satisfied with the trip and me not being strong enough to get up a 5.10 route, we loaded up and came home later that afternoon making, of course, a number of stops at gas stations along the way so I could use the facilities.
Sunday turned out a nasty weather day around New Mexico so it was a good day for chillin' out at home. We did make a shopping trip to Santa Fe to replace our grind 'n brew coffee machine that died Friday. I know, big news right!? OK, in bigger news, for me at least, I bought tickets to go see A Day To Remember (with Rise Against and Title Fight) in April down in Rio Rancho. My brother, Dylan, and Andy will be going with me and I'm psyched. A guilty pleasure of mine is listening to hard-rockin' "cookie monster" music like ADTR. Sam G. came up with that term, "cookie monster music" to describe music with guttural screaming for vocals.