Dry, Dry Desert

So it does rain here in the desert, just a little. I saw about 15 or so cars dead on the sides of the road and a few , such as the white car, dead in the road. Apparently a lot of people don't realize that their cars are not submarines, including about 4 cops that I saw - 3 Crown Vics and a Durango.


Whats cool is that everyone brings out their big off-road trucks, so there are a lot of really big, nice trucks driving around.This car was getting flooded just sitting outside its house.
This is the intersection where my street comes out to the main street that runs North-South.
The stalled white car mentioned above:
Driving on Downs St.

House sitting

So I was house sitting this weekend with Magnus:

Hes a good dog, and a big dog, and he dreams a lot apparently. The other morning he was under the bed growling and boofing lightly. And then he was next to the coffee table the next night and kicked it in his sleep and almost knocked all the stuff off of it.

Engagement Photos

I went back to ABQ for a weekend for engagement photos and to see the family since they were in town. We also went and changed my tux around (I'm not sure what we changed, but something is different).

Ah, and I was also stuck in the airports for so long (both ways) that I could have driven there and back quicker (and for almost the same price) in the truck!

Mountaineering 2

Time to play catch up. I’ll start with the mountaineering class since this is our last week. We have been rock climbing, repelling, and rock climbing again. And this week for the class party we will be going out to rock climb again.

This is climbing one of the rocks, I have no idea which one it was since the picture is so close up. I love doing this , I would do it all day if I didn't think my fingertips would fall off. This was repelling at Fossil Falls, this was the "hard one", I think because of the small opening just off the top. It was pretty nice, almost straight down with some free fall at the end.

Riding finally, Woohoo!

I finally got to go riding for the first time since I got here, I got the Pred registered on Friday and took it out Sunday. It was pretty hot so I only rode for about 2 hours.
It was a lot clearer than I had expected with the fires...to bad I didn't bring the good camera with me.Turns out I sliced a tire on the ride, guess I'll be fixing that on my day off.

Bouldering

This class was basically on techniques for climbing. It was in an area much like the city of rocks near Silver. The class after this was navigation with a compass (in the same area) and belaying techniques (signals, knots, etc).Bouldering - going up small rocks with no ropes:
Found this guy in the house the other night, I set him free outside. While looking on the internet to see what they eat, I found out they also have these guys in Iraq, but they can grow to be 5 inches long.
Oh, and I got the truck back so I can finally go riding.

Mountaineering

Tuesday was the first day of the mountaineering class that I am taking over the summer and Wednesday was the first hike. It was a rough one too. It was a steep trail/road, steep enough that I would think twice before riding the Predator up it, and it was sandy like a lot of the washes in NM which made it harder to go up. Then near the top it got twice as steep and sandy - I wouldn't take a 4x4 ATV up this, but the view at the top was really good. Today I was pretty sore when I got up, but I have pretty much loosened back up. Here are the pictures:

That white stripe is the LA aquaduct.Way out there you can see the airstrip for the Inyokern airport. Some time I will go back up there on a clear day and get a better picture.
Ok, the info was about a mile hike with about 1700 ft in elevation gain.