Gadget’s Airstream Chronicles

For those of you who have followed along for a while, you’ll remember Bob.  He’s back!  For those of you who’ve only joined in recently, you’ve got some catchup reading to do.

Yesterday afternoon Bob gave a call to let me know he’d pulled into the park, and asked me to come up and give a hand unloading.  Can do!  Glad to say, Bob is still Bob.  He’s got an injured shoulder now, and we’ll have to wait and see how it affects his climbing.  Surgery was advised months ago, but he didn’t want to deal with the recovery time of 6 months.

After visiting for a while Bob got back to organizing and getting his 5th wheel all set up.  He leaves the rig here year round, but spends some time out fishing for the summer.  Pretty nice setup he’s got.

We arranged to head out to the Promised Land late this morning.  First, a stop by the Subway to say hey to Brooke & Andy.  Bob grabbed the usual (tuna sub) and we were off for the long ride to the Promised Land.

Gear was tossed in the back of the truck, so we had stuff to climb with if we wanted to.  Once we arrived we decided a climb or two would be good.  Of course, we started off light on the easiest lead in the canyon.  I led first, and then set up the top rope.  Bob hasn’t climbed in a while.

He enjoyed his first run up.  Nothing too shocking, an easy climb.  On his first ascent though he put too much pressure on the bad shoulder and let out an exclamation.  At first I thought he was about to fall, braced myself, then realized nothing was happening.  Just the shoulder.  Oh no, hope he can work with it some more.

In the end, Bob took a second climb up.  When he found a comfortable ledge he told me to grab the camera.  Document the first climb of the fall season for him.  After he came down I took one more run up, took the quick draws off the rock, clipped into the top bolts, and finally rappelled back down.  Slow paced day.

Happy to say I’m feeling better.  Saturday I felt off, Sunday I felt downright sick, and Monday too.  Seems to have passed or at least settled.

Below you’ll find another gallery.  Some shots from today and Bob’s return.  Also a few night shots from last Thursday.  Enjoy.

[Show as slideshow]

Oh, comments are back on for the time being.  We’ll see if the spam continues.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 1st, 2007 at 5:22 pm and is filed under Arizona, Climbing AZ, Notes from Gadget.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.