life has been very laid back

Hello everyone! Here's a brief overview of what's happened since PA:
1. Drove to Chatt. and spent 2 days apartment hunting. The first day led to such great un-success that we all went to bed feeling entirely hopeless (also we were under a pavilion and it was thunderstorming). The second day looked brighter when a landlord called us to report that a lady who had claimed one of his apts. still hadn't contacted him. He said that if she didn't call by 1pm today, we could have it. We went and looked at it, and it was awesome! A split level, where each level was a different room (1st floor: living room. 2nd floor: kitchen. 3rd floor: bedroom, bathroom, closet). 1pm rolled around, and the apt. (well, duplex, actually) became ours. On top of that, we met a guy from the New named Kirk, and he moved in with us, thus lowering the price of our new home. Our neighbor (other half of duplex) is cool too. He's a musician and followed the Grateful Dead for a bit.
2. we spent the first 4 days w/out water
3. As soon as we moved in, it became cold. Not as cold as OH, but highs have been in the 40s mostly, with some days in the 30s. I have been to Rocktown twice, and LRC (Little Rock City) 3 or 4 times. I've actually climbed about twice. Oh, and the gym once. Today, Micah and I are going to hike up to T-Wall to check out the cracks. I've got some projects planned for LRC, but they're all V7 and I still haven't sent a V4 there.
4. I applied to work as a stockboy in an organic foods store, but haven't heard back yet. My next plan is to apply to the TN Aquarium. It's $20 a person to see it, which I'm not paying, so hopefully I can see it for free this way.
5. We haven't taken a single picture yet. I'm not sure why.
6. We now have a library card. It was difficult to obtain, and it still costs money to borrow most items.

That's the overall story. Oh, my friend from Kendall Cliffs, Jared came to visit. He moved to CO then NC, and came down. It was really nice to see someone from OH (originally).

I love and miss you all.
-Stella
PS: HAPPY BIRTHDAY CATHERINE!!

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

life in... Ohio?

Hello friends, family, and friends of my family!
Since the last post, I've been in Ohio. It's not very exciting here, but it was nice to come home and be able to sleep indoors again! Micah and I visited Wooster, also. It was really nice to see all my friends from school again. We even got taken out for dinner and breakfast while we were there (not to mention tons of stolen food from the cafeteria)!
After being at home again for a while (and watching at least one movie a day due to boredom), we decided to face the cold and head down to good ol' West Virginee. We spent 5 days there (the temps only breaking 50 one day, and the low being 16 one night), and despite the cold, had a great time. It was great to see Roger, the campground host, again, and all the guys from the Pies & Pints kitchen, and we did some fantastic bouldering. Unfortunately, this was a spur of the moment post, so I'm not using the computer with the pictures or video on it, but Micah already posted them at www.chetroy.com/home/blog.html. The video's really just a trailer for our full video that we'll make later when we add more footage in early January.

Peace out homies. I love you all!
-Stella!

Hueco!

These previous pictures are of the miracle we saw. If you look close enough, you can see the beams of light converging onto the location of the miracle.


Next are some of the extremely few Hueco pictures we took. The first is on the Donkey Show boulder of East Mountain.

The second is this V9 in the Maze on the East Spur. No, I didn't send, but I could get my fingers to go way further back in these holds than most people can.

Here's the beta on Hueco for anyone that's interested:
Only 170 (I think) people are let into the park each day. North Mountain is the only place you can go without a guide, but it's HUGE, so it's not too bad. I think a total of 70 people can be on North Mountain at one time. East Mountain, West Mountain, and East Spur require guides. You can take a free tour with volunteer guides offered by the park, or a $20-a-person tour offered by the campground (Hueco Rock Ranch). 10 tours can be out per day (100 people). Depending on the time of year, it can be super easy or impossible to get into the park without waking up at 5:30am each day. When we were there, it was super easy. One way to ensure you get into the park, is to make reservations at least 3 months in advance. You pay the park money for these reservations, then get the money back each day you show up for your reservation. As far as I know, you can reserve volunteer and commercial tours too, but we never did that.
Reason to pay for commercial tours instead of just doing volunteer tours: both are good, but the commercial tourguides know where everything is, and the easiest way to get you there, whereas a volunteer tourguide may not. **don't forget that it's customary to tip your tourguide**

Okay, Micah put up our sweet Hueco video, so go to Chetroy.com to see it. It's one of my favorite movies so far.

I love you all!
-Stella

after Joe's

well, here's some pictures:

those were of Indian Creek. The last picture doesn't look real, but the green ball was just an airsoft pellet that was hanging out there. The things are everywhere!



These were a bunch from Arches National Park. We did the sweet hike that almost all the arches were in, than a small hike to see Delicate Arch from afar.

We saw lots of wildflowers too!


Then it was off to Bryce Canyon National Park - the scenery was amazing!:


Zion National Park came next. It was so out of place in the desert with all it's trees and water (Ross, I think even YOU'd like it. Also, some of these geology pictures were taken with Sophie in mind):


After Zion, Red Rocks, NV is still cool, but not nearly as beautiful (in other words, we didn't take very many pictures). Micah wasn't looking forward to going there, but soon he was asking to stay longer! We were there over Thanksgiving and we got to meet some awesome people! Danny Rider (has been putting up FAs in Red Rocks for 25 years) and Aaron (hie daughter's boyfriend) were bouldering the day before Thanksgiving near us. When they found out we'd been on the road for 3 months, they invited us right over for Thanksgiving dinner the next night!! It was amazing to have good, homecooked food for the holiday. Anyway, here's some Red Rocks pictures:


And the drive down to Hueco: Also, we saw some beams of light (like sunlight breaking through clouds) coming from the ground (to the east... in the evening). My guess is that Jesus was reborn at that spot. We forgot to add the picture to the computer, but it probably didn't look like much anyway.

Well, this is our last stop: Hueco. We'll be home within 10 days! But the adventure isn't over yet. We've got some visiting to do in Columbus, Wooster, Cleveland, Central Pennsylvania, the New, then onto Chattanooga for the winter. Spring break with WOODS, then a climbing tour of the Northwest USA next summer! I'll try to write again soon!
I love you all,
Stella
PS: Micah made an awesome movie of Red Rocks and our quick trip to Oak Flat (bouldering area at Queen Creek and home of the old Phoenix Bouldering Comp. You'll be happy to note that nothing got stolen out of our car, even though I have had previous problems with the area).

You can find the movie at chetroy.com in the blog section. Also, I added a permanent link to chetroy.com so you can always find it.