Ben and Erin in a Bus

When asked if I would be climbing in the Phoenix Rock Gym’s Thrash and Dangle Climbing Competition I almost couldn’t stop myself from laughing before getting my response of “no” out. By nature, I am not competitive (in sporting events anyway). I feel bad if one team beats another by too many points, I hate bad sportsmanship, sore losers, and boasty winners. Oh, and did I mention that the comp costs $30 to enter?

I happily decided that I would just be the world’s best cheerleader. Only, when we got to the comp, and I started thinking about how I am going to be watching people climb for hours while doing no climbing myself, that didn’t seem very fair to me. Then I remembered (with the help of Ben) that I am now 30 which puts me in a new, older bracket of climbers (a not so populated bracket of climbers). Which means that I might have a chance of placing and winning a prize which would make spending $30 worth it, right?

Well, I signed up, did way better than I thought I could,

and won third place!

Oh, not that it really matters, but did I mention yet that there were only three climbers in that age bracket?

“If you stay through the weekend, we could all go canyoneering on Saturday.” Shannon coaxed as we were planning one of my many visits to her and Aaron’s house. To many outdoor enthusiasts this would be all the coaxing you would need. For me, it had me second guessing my trip.

For those of you not familiar with the term, canyoneering is when you follow a canyon (in this case, along a water source) and do a series of rapels, jumps, and slides to make your way through the canyon until you come to an exit where you hike back out to your car. I have only done one canyon in my life and I decided it would be my last. I remember being cold, not too impressed, and a little nervous. This might sound crazy but I am afraid of heights, not while climbing but when I need to jump off something that is higher than two feet, I tend to freak out. Also, canyoneering is full of all sorts of scary sounding terms, for example, the “dead man” is the name of an anchor (which could possibly be a pile of rocks) you are supposed to trust while rapelling through the canyon.

In any case, Shannon and Aaron are, in my opinion, pretty much professional canyoneers (they had just come back from a one month trip exploring canyons in the Grand Canyon) so to say no to such a trip would just be plain crazy. I packed my thick wet suit, my booties, and as much bravery as I could muster and said yes to the trip.

We went to a “beginners canyon” called Parker Canyon and besides a few killer frogs I had a total blast.

There were crazy slides,

amazing views,

and waterfall rapels that were so fun I could see how easily it would be to fall in love with canyoneering.

Thanks for talking me into trying it again you two, I really had a great time!

Yes, it’s true, I am no longer a young 20-something. But I kinda like being 30…at least so far it has treated me pretty darn good.

I was lucky to turn thirty in Young with Ben’s parents. And on my birthday we had a group party for Judy (Ben’s mom), Victoria (a friend of Keith and Judy), and I. Our friends Pete and Diana even came up for the weekend. We celebrated with some of the yummiest pizza I have ever eaten and delicious homemade strawberry shortcake for dessert. After dinner there was some live music and a rip roaring game of Scattergories ended the night with a bang.

We finished the weekend with a little fishing and I actually caught a fish!

Happy Birthday to me, I guess!

While we were staying in Young, Northern Arizona was hit with two pretty big snowstorms! Lucky for us, we didn’t really have anything pressing so we were able to snowboard both times!

At the first hint that snow was coming, Ben abandoned Lily and began preparations for some amazing powder.

The first day was close to unbearably cold (our thermometer in the car read -17) but worth every second of boarding.

The second day we met some friends at Snowbowl and even though the lift lines were horrific, the powder was some of the best I have ever snowboarded in.

This was definitely a welcomed interruption to our repair process…I mean really, how can you not smile in the snow, in the mountains?

We made it back to Young just as Lily’s clutch was enjoying it’s final days on our trip. Ben noticed that it was going awhile back so he ordered the necessary parts to replace it. Once we made it back to his parents house the parts were ready and waiting for him to get down to work and work he did. We were in Young for close to two months and countless days and hours were spent with Ben diligently working on Lily down in the barn. He got Lily all new, and squeaky clean for the next part of our trip.

When I was able to tear Ben away from working on the bus we had fun doing a ton of other activities.

We built snowmen. Well, one…we were pretty tired after building this big mamma!

We went for hikes and did some climbing in Sedona.

Ben’s brother Jason surprised us all with a weekend visit where he showed off his spotting techniques while Ben did some bouldering in Sedona.

We were also visited by more of the Porzios, where everyone had some catching up to do.

We also had a chance to practice our kayaking skills in the Verde River.

Thank you Keith and Judy, you gave us the relaxation that we needed and helped get Lily up and running for the rest of our trip.

As some of you might remember, I started crocheting back in Wyoming. I started in the parking lot of Walmart with a book called I Taught Myself Crochet while Ben was working on the bus…which led to the crocheting of many mystery objects left to the imagination of the receiver.

After a little extra direction from my Aunt Sue I could easily make a recognizable dishcloth and started to branch out to other things. While I still really have no idea how to read and follow a pattern (but I am trying!) I have started to create some pretty fun things.

Here are some pictures of a few of my newest projects (perhaps I will sign up for an Etsy account and these will be the money makers that will keep Ben and I on the road for longer than expected):

A can cozy

Hippie-style headbands

An infinity scarf

Hats,

hats,

and more hats (sorry, super cute baby not included)!

Coming soon…rainbow leg warmers

While we were in Southern Arizona Ben took me to see his old home. His family bought to a pistachio farm when Ben was 15 and he spent about three years living and farming there. When he lived there there was a full pond and bountiful garden.

Sadly, when we came back, things were not quite how he remembered. The pond was dried up and the garden, abandoned.

There were still a few things that hadn’t changed much through all these years. Thanks to amazing craftsmanship, mixed I am sure, with a lot of love was Judy’s wood-fired cob oven and wood-fired bath.

Even though the farm was in need of a little TLC, it was nice to see a piece of Ben’s background and be able to stand in the place where I have heard so many stories.

Ben went to the University of Arizona with Colin so when we made it to Tuscon we made sure to stop at their house for a weekend of fun. The first night we were there we had fun hanging out and eating some delicious barbecue. Also, thanks to Kai and Scarlet, we were caught up on all the latest and greatest toys. Kai beat Ben in a ninja game (repeatedly) and Scarlet brought out her dog that walks and barks…super cool, yo!

Later in the night, Colin and Amanda caught us up on other things we have been missing while living in a bus and we were shown our first episodes of Tosh.0 which I think might have become one of Ben’s new favorite shows.

Colin was also nice enough to take us to a Bikram class…where I was quickly reminded how long it had been since my last class but it was so nice to stretch and get some focus back.

Thank you to the Schmugge Family for taking us in and catching us up. I know Ben loved getting to see you again and it was fun for me to get to know you better.

Since our stay with Colin and Amanda they have welcomed baby number four to their family…welcome to the world baby Gaston; we can’t wait to meet you!

Making it back to Arizona brought us back to familiar territory. Things got easier, we knew where to camp, where to climb, we even had friends that wanted to see us and generously offered beds, washers, driers, and showers!

We took full advantage of this familiarity as soon as we arrived and did some climbing right away.

The first place we went to was an area called Cochise Stronghold. As you can see, I was a little excited to be climbing there (or maybe I was hungry, I really can’t remember).

After Cochise, we made our way over to Tuscon and did a climb called Finger Rock…gold star to the first person to identify it in the picture

We even made our way back to our old stomping ground, Queen Creek, to do some old school climbing. It was there where Ben remembered one of the things he loves most about me…

Though I know there will soon be a new place to call home, for some reason, being in AZ always brings a big smile to my face.

well we made it back to Arizona anyway.

After about seven months on the road we made it back to our home base, good ol’ AZ!