It was a beautiful day to be in New York, Saturday.  The weather was absolutely perfect. Reagan and I headed upstate early with some of our friends, to climb at this place that we discovered last year. It was Reagan’s first time climbing outside of a gym. She put on a very impressive display of natural ability.

It is kind of crazy how close we are to the tracks. There was kind of a lot of train traffic today, too. We were only on the wall for a few hours and in that span 3 trains came through. As loud as it was, it made for some cool shots. Hehe.

Additional photos over here.

Well, this weekend I was finally able to justify the masses of camping and climbing gear that I dragged with me when I moved to New York from the Rockies. It is a good thing, too, because Reagan has threatened, on a few occasions to toss it all out. Friday night we went camping with a bunch of our good friends near Bear Mountain. I couldn’t believe how close it was to the city. The camping arrangements were NY, style. It was basically like a campground subdivision, full of various camping lots. It was a great time, though. We all had tin-foil dinners on Friday night, and stayed up late chatting around the fire.

Saturday morning, we went climbing at some routes along the train tracks, on the West Point Academy property. It was one of the hottest days of the summer, so far. I was incredibly rusty, with my climbing abilities, but I still had a blast.

Click here for more photos.

Reagan and I are going camping with some friends, weekend after next. We are totally excited about it. We are going to this place near Bear Mountain, which also happens to have some climbing nearby. Ok, it doesn’t just happen to. My friend Col and I looked for about 2 hours on-line, one afternoon, to find a place not too far away, that we could camp and climb. So, in the spirit of not being totally embarrassed of my diminished climbing abilities, I accepted an offer from Col, Aubrey and Leslie to join them for a bouldering session in Ft. Tryon Park last night. It was a lot of fun. Aubrey had to bail a little bit early because of rowdy kids, and Reagan couldn’t make it because of a hair apt. Leslie and Col were both exhibiting some serious skills. Here are a couple of shots of them.

As pathetic as I was, I still had a lot of fun. I definitely have not used those forearm or back muscles for way too long.

Speaking of getting in shape, I have my first physical therapy session today, for my knee. I will be going to the orthopedic Dr. tomorrow for x-rays and such. I don’t have any races for the entire month of August. So I’m hoping that they can whip me into shape in time for our next race on September 12th (then a half marathon on the 20th). I’m going a bit stir crazy, not being able to run for more than a hand full of miles at a time.

Finally, a funny story about this morning: I parted my hair and combed it over to the side this morning. I don’t know. I just thought I would switch it up, a bit. When I came out of the bathroom, Reagan said “Hey, you look like Don Draper!” I was like “yeeahhh, baby.” I continued getting ready, and was contemplating buying a gray flannel 3 piece suit, when Reagan came walking down the hall and asked if she looked like Don Draper too. I turned around and she had slicked all of the hair on the top of her head over to one side. Hahahahahah. Nice.