Framily Vacation to the Mountains

What started as a trip out west (western North Carolina that is) for a climbing comp, quickly became a framily birthday celebration when Laura suggested renting a cabin and bringing the whole framily.  I’d say the vacation really began Thursday night with some Bub’s karaoke…

REDISCOVERING THE RATING CARDS: 10!  When Rate Your World first began, I made my very own, color coded, rating cards that were conveniently clipped on a ring for easy transport.  Almost all my ratings involved them, and the colors prevented any sort of skewing of ratings later.  I whipped out an old purse on Thursday night, and what did I find inside but the original rating cards.  THANK GOD!  I didn’t realize how much I’d missed them until I rediscovered them.

SUMMER NIGHTS: 8.  While Snooky rated Paul and my duet a 10 (both for performance and vocals), I had to average that out to get an 8 (cause let’s be honest, Paul didn’t hit the high note at the end and I didn’t hit a lot of notes).  But I will say, we knew almost all the words by heart so there was little use of the monitor and a whole lot of stage presence.  Well done us.

The next day we all packed up the cars and headed up to Black Mountain, an old favorite of mine from high school days of Youth & Government and the Conference on National Affairs, and one of Laura and Snooky’s favorite places.  We lucked out with a pretty incredible cabin.

OUR LOG CABIN: 9.  Set up with three bedrooms (two with big beds and one with bunk beds), a sweet kitchen with everything you need to cook/eat, a beautiful living room, game room downstairs (with foosball and air hockey), a hot tub and outdoor fire pit.  It is virtually brand new, beautiful and very ‘log cabiny’.  I’d say we lucked out.

-.5 for the hardwood floors.  It’s only .5 because I actually award .5 for the entertainment of chasing Murphy and watching him slide everywhere.  However, when Dakota got worked up by a dog he saw out the window, he started to rush down the stairs, quickly slipped (they were hardwood after all), and slid the entire way down the stairs, then faceplanted right into the wall.  I was super worried, and he looked scared out of his mind, but eventually got up and walked away with little damage (we found half of a toenail later which couldn’t have felt too good).  I tried to keep him on the rug in the living room the rest of the time.

LAURA’S PINK SNUGGIE: 7.  Warm and cozy, and pink, however I just can’t get over the fact that they’re basically just backwards robes.

LAURA’S PINK SNUGGIE ON JAY: 10.  A picture is worth a thousand words.

MY SICKNESS: 2

Doesn’t it always seem that the body allows you to get sick at the time when it knows you can most afford it?  I don’t find myself sick very often, but sure enough I woke up Saturday morning with a sore throat.  This quickly turned into a really sore throat, some serious stabbing headaches, and a fever.  Not ideal considering I’ve been looking forward to this vacation for awhile, but I did have some homemade soup, a hot tub, a snuggie and a comfy bed to help me heal.  Woke up the next day feeling 10 times better.

HOT TUB: 9.

I must say, while hot tubs sound good in theory, they’re INCREDIBLE in actuality.  Everything I imagined was true, and it was brilliant to arrive Friday night only to immediately all jump in the tub.  The next day after the comp, while suffering from some pretty serious headaches, it felt even better.  Right on the large porch of the cabin, it almost fit everyone (minus 1 since it was only a 4 seater technically, but we managed to get 6 in), and you could even see some stars.  If we were there in the winter and could play snow games like when I was a kid (who can jump out and run around the house the most times, or lay in the snow the longest) it might have been even more fun   There’s always next time!

LAURA’S BIRTHDAY CAKE: 7.

You can hardly go wrong with a funfetti cake topped with funfetti icing, however my decorations were somehow wrecked along the way.  The taste was delish (I’m not biased at all), but I wish the appearance were a little more beautiful.  However the ‘Birthday’ on the cake led to a pretty interesting singing of ‘Happy Birthday’ later that day…

REUNION WITH THE BLUE RIDGE CONFERENCE CENTER: 8

When I was in high school I was involved with a pretty awesome program called Youth & Government.  Similiar to Model UN, but simulating state governments instead, we convened once a year at the state capitol for a conference with students from all over Pennsylvania.  At the state conference, you then had an opportunity to apply to attend the National conference, where each state sends a select delegation.  That conference is called the Conference on National Affairs, and is held at an incredible conference center in the mountains of North Carolina.  I attended CONA my junior and senior years, and found it to be a truly incredible, life-changing experience for me as I was figuring out what I wanted to do with my life.  In fact, when I applied to Teach For America, a large reason I chose the Eastern North Carolina region was due to my fond memories of North Carolina at that conference.

So when I realized the conference center was about 10 minutes from where we were staying, I had to check it out.  The framily headed over on Sunday morning before rolling out, and I’m so glad I got a chance to see it again.  While not quite the same as while I was there before, the view was still beautiful, and it was great to share it with important people in my life.

The famous green rocking chairs.

MAGGIE THE MAGNET: 9.

During our stay in Asheville we happened to discover the strongest little magnet of all time, under Jay’s chair at the Woolworth’s diner counter.  Way too much fun was had with a magnet… that is until Jay started cutting her off from the camera (-1).

Where we found Maggie…

Jay using Maggie to hold his keys…

Maggie at Lee Hall…

Getting creative with Maggie…

Maggie slowing it down a little…

From there we hit the road home, stopping at Cracker Barrel for a delicious dinner on the way.

DINNER AT CRACKER BARREL: 9.

While never the healthiest option, there’s something about the incredible rocking chairs, the oversized meals, and the plethora of comfort foods that keep you coming back.  I enjoyed grilled chicken with mac ‘n cheese, mashed potatoes and corn.  Exactly what I was hoping for!

After we arrived back home, we ate some of the delicious leftovers (we came back with a cooler of food remaining) and enjoyed the Amazing Race as we began backwards planning our application video.  Stay tuned for the team of Laura and Janice taking on the race…

Until then, just living for the tens

Fall Flash Fest, Asheville Climbing Comp

So those who know me, and hopefully those who read this blog, know, I am most definitely an optimist.  I don’t like to rate things low, but I also have to be realistic.  So please keep that in mind as I review this past weekend’s climbing competition at ClimbMax Climbing Gym in Asheville, NC.

MORNING REGISTRATION: 2

So according to the directions if we had registered early (online) we should arrive at 10, and if not at 9.  I registered early while Paul and Ben hadn’t, so we figured 9:30 was a safe compromise.  When we showed up, there were only about 3 people in line, so we figured we were right on.  I got in line, only needing to pick up my t-shirt and scorecard, and waited literally for about 35-45 minutes.  It was so ridiculous you could only laugh at the absurdity.

There was only one girl working the table and she was incredibly slow.  When I finally got to pick up my things, Ben offered to help her out because the line was now about 15-20 people deep (one can only imagine how long this would take).  She looked confused, and gave him a ‘why would I need help look?’ and turned down his offer.  Oh well.  We did what we could.  Not a great start to they day considering I was already feeling sick and it was cold outside at that point.

We were then told to meet at 10:45 for an information meeting, so we headed to a coffee place down the street (a very cute Asheville street I might add) and got some caffeine in our systems before heading back.  Once there, we waited about another 30 minutes or so for them to actually get started.

When they did, it involved a man with a handlebar mustache (the owner), who Scott affectionately referred to as ‘Funsucker’, talking to us for about 45 minutes about all the rules.  I completely understand there are rules in a climbing comp, but at every other comp I’ve been to they’ve managed to go through them in about 10 minutes.  I’m not entirely sure why it took 45 here.

From there he finally allowed us in the gym (yes, all this was outside) to get our stuff settled, put our shoes on, etc. before beginning speech number two.  I skipped out on this one as the gym was incredibly crowded, and that combined with my headache and approaching fever was not good.

FINALLY we were allowed to begin climbing.

GYM/CROWDS: 4.

The first hour of the comp was craziness.  The gym is tiny, at some spots with about 8-10 feet between two walls that people are climbing on, and the number of climbers plus spectators made it virtually impossible to move from route to route to check them out, and incredibly difficult to spot.  Imagine this picture below with about 5 times as many people.  That was the first hour of the comp.

BAREFOOT WALK AROUND DOWNTOWN ASHEVILLE: 10!

I got so frustrated with the crowds and my climbing that eventually Ben suggested we talk a walk around downtown to escape, and I rate this decision a 10.  I was feeling pretty crappy at this point (everything above my collarbone was in pretty intense amounts of pain), climbing only easy routes, and the barefoot walk around on a beautiful day was exactly what I needed.

Luckily the spectators got bored and died off, and when we returned we had a lot more room and got in some solid climbing.

ROUTES: 4.

That’s the number of good routes I found.  At the end of the day I didn’t feel pumped or tired at all, and it wasn’t because I didn’t climb hard.  I got every route that I think I could have gotten, they just weren’t that long or super challenging at all.  Plus, the walls are plywood as opposed to the nice textured ones at TRC, and compared to the awesome routes we found there a couple weeks ago I was super disappointed.  Plus, there were spinning holds EVERYWHERE.  In the first 15 minutes of the comp I saw them fixing at least three, and I encountered my own shortly after (see below).

INJURIES: 8

Overall we did great on the injuries front, and we all made it out ready to climb again.  However, at the top of one of the hardest routes I got, I had grabbed the top and was preparing to downclimb when all of a sudden the foot hold with all my weight on it spun.  I was pretty high up so immediately clung to the top for dear life, and the texturing on the top scraped up the inside of my right arm, my left forearm and my left shin.  I also bruised my knee and hip in the process.  I totally survived, and am thankful I didn’t fall and hurt something worse, but still frustrating when it comes from something that could have been avoided if their holds were tighter.

TEAM PERFORMANCE: 9

Overall I think we all climbed hard, and worked through some hard routes which is always exciting.  Results haven’t been posted yet so we don’t know team success, but I did place 4th in the Intermediate division, which was a bump up from Rec. in the last two.  I’ll have to take at least one point off because fourth came with no prizes   Only one spot away…

I hate to rate something this low, but honestly there was a ton of room for improvement in this comp.  Makes me even more appreciative for the quality of the comps our local gym, Triangle Rock Club, puts on (see previous ratings).  Their gym is nice, their routes awesome, and the folks who run it are friendly, organized and efficient.  They come HIGHLY recommended, and I now appreciate them even more