California

On to the next state: California! First stop was Joshua Tree National Park. We met up with our friend Sara as soon as we got here, and we all stayed together throughout CA. You can barely see her and Micah through this cool desert plantCholla Cactus. Sometimes called the teddy bear cactus because it looks soft and fuzzy from far away. Sometimes called the jumping cactus because each section on the plant is just barely held on. If you brush against it, the whole segment will stick to you.
The epitome of JTree scenery! Dr. Suess-esque Joshua Trees, giant boulder piles, mountains, blue skies, and Micah bouldering.
JTree has the best sunsets. The air is so clear, you can see all the pretty pollution-induced sunset colors of LA
Sara again
A true oasis in the desert! A little trickle of water can cause natural palm trees to grow! These weren't planted. That's not an everyday sight
Our sock monkey pal, DanDee, and I love palm trees!
Then we moved on to Bishop. Micah and I have spent lots of time here, so I wasn't really looking forward to it, but it turned out to be my favorite leg of the trip. I was really motivated, so I broke through my climbing barrier (which had been V3 in bishop before). That, in turn, caused me to be even more motivated. Plus we met a whole bunch of awesome people. Here's the white mountains under a faint moon
The Owen's River runs by my favorite bouldering areas. The Owens River provides water for Los Angeles (5 hours away). In fact, to take this picture, we were standing on property of the City of Los Angeles. There's a huge pipe that carries the water there. But apparently they've learned nothing from the Colorado River, because the Owens River Valley used to be a lot more fertile...
Here's where my motivation took me: this problem is called French Press, V6.
Sage dots the landscape of Bishop, permeating the atmosphere with it's slight, ever present scent
Micah was proud to do this problem, the super classic Soul Slinger, V9. In this picture, however, he's getting slung.
my favorite road sign of all time (runner up: "freeway entrance 1/8 mi." Gives you just enough time to wonder if you;ve ever seen the fraction 1/8 on a freeway sign before you've missed it)
we made this one up. Start with both hands and feet on this stalactite and go up. I had to get my butt swinging in order to grab the next hold.
Sara in the beautiful landscape of the Buttermilks
Micah on a long time project of his, Stained Glass V10. Next time.
I swear, March 1st I started noticing more green in my life. Turns out a couple dead-looking desert plants were budding!
Some Pennsylvanian from Micah's gym came out to Bishop, so we met them and climbed with them a few days. It was so fun! Here's Katie trying You've Gotta Be Kidding Me! V5
The PA crew again on Iron Man Traverse, V4. This is Gus, I think
Also from Micah's hometown, we saw Sarah (not to be confused with Sara), her boyfriend Mikey, and their friend Buhne. Here we are hanging out at our campsite. Our neighbors to the right were cool too. They also came over from JTree, and we had met them there. On the other side of them were the Canadians, and across the campground were the Norwegians. The Canadians and Norwegians always had good fires going in the evening. There were always people to hang out with
Sara and Sarah resorted to calling eachother #1 and #2, respectively. This is my #2. Interestingly, also the 2nd husky I've met who share my name.
me and the Sara(h)s (and DanDee)
I'll update again with Nevada, Utah, and Colorado soon!
-Stella
PS favorite conversation overheard in CA:
we are bouldering in JTree along with some other people, and in the background are some boyscouts scrambling dangerously on a giant boulder pile. One slips multiple times near the edge making all of us collectively gasp.
Boulderer (to boy scouts): Hey, do you guys know what your doing? You can die!
Boy Scouts: uh... we're wearing harnesses!
Boulderer: Yeah, but they don't do anything if they're not attached to a rope!

Louisiana through Arizona

We've seeing a lot of new areas lately. We left the snow of WV behind

and ventured south. Our first stop was Chattanooga where we saw a Erich and Emily from this summer at Roger's. But we woke up to rain, so we bailed. We headed south and covered Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi (first time there! Nothing interesting on I-59S. Oh, except, I swear a poultry truck somewhere ahead of us had a hole in it because the over half of the roadkill looked like white chickens), and Louisiana. We checked out a bayou
Early the next morning we decided to check out a scenic route that we hoped would let us see a couple more swamps (and maybe an alligator!?) and a beach! Turns out, the only free way (as in, not a boat tour) to see swamps is driving down the freeway.



The beach road had pretty fields, swamp land, spanish moss, and lots of refineries lining it



We finally found a boardwalk through a swamp
but it still wasn't as amazing as the I-10 corridor


We really thought we might see an alligator in this swamp. We hugged the middle of the wide-enough-for-a-car trail.
Alas, we only saw a couple of these
On to Texas! We crossed 5 states in 1 day, but it took us 5 days to cross this one state. Here's a sunset over Houston. Possibly the biggest city in the world

Austin, Texas is known for it's amazing music scene, and, I learned, for it's food culture of eating food from foodmobile trailers. They were all over! Mexican food, hot dog stands, thai food, diner-on-wheels, etc. Also, their parks are nice. A lot of water for the desert




and some cool limestone formations



but proof that it is, in fact, desert. And proof that the desert loves
we climbed a couple days

This is DanDee the sock monkey. He's coming with us on the trip. And Evan! We stayed with him while we were visiting. We learned that he has a beautiful mullet


Then it was on to El Paso, where we went to Hueco Tanks State Historical Park. We've been here before, and we didn't take a lot of pictures, but here's one of a really brave bird. The other thing in the picture is my leg and foot


Arizona came next.We went to Cochise Stronghold outside of Tucson. It was pretty cold and windy, so we didn't stay long. We'll be back though. Here's some cacti and other nature shots



even though it's a multipitch route climbing area, Micah finds bouldering everywhere


Then we headed off to California (where we are now), but along the way, we checked out the Saguaro National Park. Here's one
and some other Sonoran Desert plants



we've already got some good California shots, but we'll be in this state for almost the whole month. More when we leave the state!
Love,
Stella

PS Favorite conversation overheard in AZ
Cool Guy in Green Shirt: where are you from?
Micah: West Virginia
CGIGS: do you climb at Cooper's? I know some Pennsylvanians who go there to climb
Micah: who do you know in PA?
CGIGS: do you know Chet?
Micah: yeah! I used to climb with him a lot!
CGIGS: do you know Micah?
Micah: ... what?