Friday, January 4, 2008

Pennsylvania

Hey all! I'm not sure if anyone's reading this anymore, but I'm going to keep updating it anyway. Now we're in PA at Micah's house. Things are really different here than they are in OH. First off, due to not being my parents, Micah's family isn't as good at cooking my favorite meals (but they still do a fantastic job). Second, there's babies around all the time! Micah's mom runs a daycare, so during the day there's 6 month olds - 5 year olds running (or, in the 6 month old's case, laying) around. It's kind of fantastic, especially when Micah wakes me up in the mornings with a baby to play with. :) There's a lot more hiking and climbing around here, so we're outside a lot (except the past couple days have been too cold for me, so Micah and Toby have gone out without me).

As for hiking, I've already been on the AT tons of times! We hiked up to Hawk Rock - a sweet overlook - and that was on the AT, then we met up with Tony D - who I first met in Flagstaff, but he's here visiting - at a climbing area. Toby showed me a cool boulder problem that had a huge white paint splotch on it. It didn't take me to long to realize we were on the AT again! And, of course, the AT goes right through Micah's town, so we drive on the AT almost everyday.

Micah's stepmom took some Hawk Rock pictures of us, but we don't have them yet.

The climbing here is pretty amazing. Obviously you can see more by visiting chetroy.com, but here's some pics we took in the last week:
Isn't this rock cool? And there's so many different kinds of rock! Besides this conglomerate, there's Gniess, Schist, Diabase (technically granite-like, but doesn't climb anything like granite. Also, note that 3 or 4 places around Harrisburg are Diabase, as well as a place in NJ. Those are the only two known outcroppings of it in the climbing world), sandstone, just plain white quartz like you see in people's yards, except big enough to climb on, and tons of rock that no one knows what kind of rock it is!Micah's toproping! Ahaha! Make sure to laugh at him when you see him. Sorry the picture's sideways! But this is still Boxcar Rocks, the conglomerate rock.
This is Savannah. She's Micah's niece. She's a freaking cool 5 year old. She came out to climb with us that day. It was cool, because she made up and sent her own boulder problem. I sent it too. I put my foot on top, and stepped up. It's nice to be so much taller than someone. This rock, we think, was gneiss with quartz veins running through it. Cool!

Okay, that's all for now. We'll hopfully be leaving within a week for Chattanooga! Wish us luck finding an apartment!
Love,
Stella

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Stella,

I bet you were good with the daycare children. I hope you helped out. Hopefully you would have made Mrs Meadows proud.

I wanted to call today to see what was happening - but I decided to check your blog.

Mom

Unknown said...

hey, i'm still reading. it's good to hear what you've been up to. children, eh? i bet you love to wake up to those small smiling faces! bet you love being able to play wit people your own height and all.

sounds like some nice climbing out there. hope you are having fun and best of luck finding an apartment as sweet and cheap as fayetteville.

i'm on my way to chicago tomorrow to visit catherine, then on to minneapolis to see colin and crew. i wish the whole family could be there.

\m/ + <3

Anonymous said...

I'm still reading as well, though obviously not as often. I wish you hadn't apologized for Micah's toproping picture being sideways--I legitimately thought he was pulling some totally sweet traverse move.