Phil's fall update

Red Rocks, Las Vegas NV, Thanksgiving

The fall has been quite busy between work and various climbing trips. However the latest trip was something else completely. My friend Jesse had been talking for some time of bicycle touring down the California coast from Santa Barbara home to Escondido. Of course I volunteered to go along on this adventure, people come from around the world for adventures like this and we could do it on a weekend! However 230 miles of cycling is no joke (even for climbers accustomed to marching around in the mountains) so when the dates were set I started training, a little. Some mountain biking here and there. Another obvious hurdle was finding a touring bike. After some craiglisting I decided to turn my old GT MTB into a touring machine. New grip shifts, a new ultra comfy saddle, a rear rack, and street tires and I was ready to roll.

Santa Barbara Pier

We set off on Wednesday morning, riding from Jesse's place near Jesmondene down to the Sprinter station in Escondido in the dark at 5:30 in the morning to then catch the 7AM Amtrack train to Santa Barbara. Luckily I had grabbed an LED flashlight and my headlamp to equip my bike because we did end up riding in the dark more than I would have liked. We cruised Santa Barbara a bit and then headed down the coast. Our route followed a bike map put out by Adventure Cycling. The route for the most part is a designated state bike route. Coming out of Santa Barbara we were on surface streets and a sections of designated bike path mostly on the inland side of the 101 freeway. Later we were forced to ride the shoulder of the 101 freeway for 3 or 4 miles as there was just no other way, but then it was back on the coast for some nice stretches coming down to Ventura. We ended up at about 35 miles the first 1/2 day ghost camping on a beach as McArthur camp ground was closed.

The next day Jesse was feeling the effects of his all leather, rock hard, Brooks saddle so we settled on a short day positioning us for a death ride day through L.A. This was a good day with scenic, peaceful roads for the most part and put us in the last campground before L.A., a private RV park in Malibu, approximately a 40 mile day, jacuzzi at the campground and an English couple on Walmart bikes cruising from San Francisco down to Baja on a multi month tour.Path through Marina Del Rey

Friday's objective was to leave early and ride to Dana Point (there aren't any tent campgrounds in between). The ride down along the coast was pretty good. Morning rush hour along the 1 in Malibu didn't make for the most pleasant air quality but the coast was quite nice with a nice stop in Santa Monica to play on the Olympic rings. At Redondo Beach our route took us inland through Torrance and Carson and over to the LA river where we picked up a bike path taking us into the cold thick fog in Long Beach. The fog dissipated and soon, but not too soon we were in Huntington Beach and then Newport beach, but it was dark already and Dana Point out of reach, this had been in the neighborhood of 70 miles. We found ourselves eating subway sandwiches in a Starbucks and out came Jesse's smartphone and facebook to find us a friend in HB to stay with, so we backtracked...

Saturday took us down to San Clemente on a pretty mellow day although we were both tired and Saturday traffic in the OC was not real nice. The rolling pacific coast highway was however more enjoyable to me than just flat road. About 35 miles.

Sunday it was up early to go meet with God at the Oceanside URC. We rode through the Marine base and avoided the 5 freeway. Although we had originally planned to ride back to Escondido we settle on the Sprinter and it was enough to ride back to Jesse's house. About 30 miles. All in all a good journey. One of my knees bothered me pedaling quite a bit so unfortunately I will not find myself on the bike anytime soon rather I will be undergoing intense vertical rehab on the rocks with the ropes for the next several months.

Grandma´s Apartment

Welcome to our house! Well, it´s got some work to do and we won´t be living there until after we get married but here it is. It is a large apartment on the second floor (that would be 3rd in the US) right next to where Gabriel lives now, with his mom. It used to be his grandma´s apartment but since she died (when Gabriel was in his early teens) it has been used as a rental. For the past year or two it has been empty now. Within the next year we will be doing some work and buying new furniture. . . so here are the ´before´pictures. Please enter: Here´s our front door with the stairway to the left and on the right you can just see Tomasa´s front door.

The first room on your left when you enter is the kitchen which opens up a large enclosed patio. Right now the kitchen does not look anything like this. This past Sat., with the help of Jose (bro.in.law) Gabriel took out all the cabinets etc. and tore down all the tiles. We are planning on re-doing the pipes and tiles, probably going to tear down a wall were the table is, taking out the pantry to have a bigger room. Then we will make a u-shaped kitchen. We are currently playing with the kitchen-planner on ikea seeing what we like.

Here is the enclosed patio. The table you see here we hope to refurbish (Rosa, Gabriel´s sis, is pro at this kind of stuff) and use for our ¨formal¨dining room which will be in our living room.

Here is our spacious living room. We will be living in central Valdepeñas. Those two windows open up to the corner of the two main streets here, Calle 6 de Junio and Avnda 1 de Julio. We kind of rearranged the furniture that´s here to form what we hope to buy. The table will go where the table is, a couch with seperable foot stool will go where Gabriel is lounging, and the t.v. and cabinetes will go on the wall in front.

Turning the corner from the hallway you first enter into the aptment we have a real long hallway with four bedrooms and two baths. You can see the small bathroom at the end of the hall.

First bedroom: this will be made into a study/office type room. That means basically we´ll put the computer there. :)

This is the main bathroom. As you can see some tiles already started to fall when Gabriel was doing some work here. So we are going to re-do the pipes and tiles here too. Plus, change some fixtures which the nice discount Gabriel gets at his work.

This will be the master bedroom. We will buy new furniture for this room.

This room will be our "antique" guest room. The chairs plus a dresser with wash basin plus some other antique furniture will be put here. Most of the furniture in the house is like this: really old.

Here is the 4th room which is currently being used as a storage room for junk. . . that will have to be cleaned out :) So, as you can see if you plan to visit us we will have plenty of space for you to crash.

The end of the hall: a small bathroom. This will also be torn apart. The glass "shower curtain" (mampara in Spanish, I´m leaning words I don´t even know in english;) Gabriel just put in before we decide it best to redo the walls and pipes on all the bathrooms and kitchen, so he´ll have to take that down again.

Well, there you have it. I´ll have to take a picture from the outside and I have some kitchen in destruction pics too. :) I´ll keep you all updated on our work and the progress of our house!

Birthday Weekend

The weekend of my birthday (Oct. 22) Gabriel, his mom, and I drove down to Almería to visit his sister and family and to celebrate with Rosa who turned 2 on the 23rd. We had a great time. Thanks family and friends for all the birthday wishes, cards, and gifts! They were very appreciated.

These were the options we had so the 2 is for Rosa and the 24 plus 1 is for me :) It is a soy cake made for the both of us who share the same allergy to milk. How nice that we have close birthdays, huh?!

Then, in the afternoon we went to Monsel a beach in the Cabo de Gato. Gabriel and I enjoyed some bouldering.

Even, Marta got into and wanted to climb!

Tomasa, MariCarmen, and Rosa

Jose and MariCarmen bringing the girls up the rock.

On top! It´s a beautiful beach with lots of crazy rock formations due to the lava rock and winds

At the house looking at the family pet, whose name is Spider. They feed it small crickets. We tried to feed it some flies but it wasn´t at all interested. . . try giving dog food to a dog after you´ve been feeding it steak. . . I suppose it´s the same reason. :)

Montanejos, One Wedding, and Let the Count Down Begin!!

Two and a half more weeks and Gabriel and I fly out!! We are so looking forward to seeing everybody!! Here´s some recent pics. For the long weekend 6 of us went to Montanejos to climb. We enjoyed the beautiful scenary and wonderful places to swim. I didn´t take many fotos cause I was busy climbing so you´ll have to do with these:

We went swimming here in the river right below the little waterfall. The water was very cold and we had fun swimming across the current. Then we climbed on the walls on the right. Moises and Antonio forgot to mention they were going to hike out after topping out of a 4 pitch climb. They showed up later that night in town at 11:30. There girlfriends were kinda mad:) The first day we hiked far up this canyon (a dry riverbed) until we found some water we could swim in, then we climbed all afternoon.
This is the place were all the people go. There are thermal pools and it is absolutely beautiful. We went here the last day before we headed back to Valdepeñas.

Last weekend we went to a wedding of friends of Gabriel. Sorry Heather, no shoe shot :(

The weather this week has been strange. I tried to capture it in this shot here in the middle of the day yesterday. It looks really gloomy but it actually is dust from the deserts of Africa (called calima) that come with hot winds.

And this one is for Heather and Lisa ;) Andrea all dressed up as a fairy princess. She loves dressing up and looking at herself in the mirror. As you can see by her tan we aren´t related. . . I´m just her nanny. =)

summer shots

I love the summer! We can take advantage of the nice weather to see and enjoy God´s wonderful creation. Not saying that you can´t do this the rest of the year. . . it´s just more enjoyable for me in the summer :) Here are some snapshots or highlights of the summer so far:

La Cimbarra. Usually we just go to the waterfall or to the climbing zones but Gabriel´s sister, her husband, their two girls, plus her husband´s two brothers were in Valdepeñas for a visit. We took a short but hot hike to see these prehistoric cave paintings and enjoy the beautiful area.

Gabriel´s brother-in-law´s brothers with his two nieces, Marta and Rosa.

Cave Paintings. What do you see?

Here we are in front of the rock with the paintings, trying to decipher what they were trying to communicate

One weekday after work we visited the Tablas de Damiel and enjoyed a quite walk looking at all the birds settling down for the night. Very humid though and we were eaten alive by clouds of mosquitos. . . no wonder it´s paradise for so many birds. . .

And just yesterday we went to the lovely pueblo of Ayna surrounded by rock walls. We had a great time climbing. Aaaand. . . . Here we come! In a month we will be making our visit to the U.S. first to Escondido and then on to Chicago for a few days. We´re really looking forward to seeing you all!

End of the School Year

How do you feel about the beginning of summer??

Are you HAPPY?

Are you ANGRY??

or maybe, you feel CRaZy!!

These are some of my students that I had throughout the school year. The first class is of my 4 year olds. They were always full of energy. I had two sets of twins (brother sister pairs) and am missing a few kids in this picture. They also asked or told me interesting things like many 4 yr olds tend to do. Some of the more interesting comments were as follows, translated of course to english, "Amy, I was sick yesterday with liquid poo" to which the girls brother responded scolding her, "It´s not called liquid poo, it´s diahrea." Another day playing a board game to learn the names of different means of transportation, the start being a planet and the finish being the earth, one child asked me why the spaceship took you back to the start (the planet) and he wanted to know why we the planet was "bad" and why we couldn´t stay there. This lead us to a long discussion (if it can be called that when conversing with a 4 year old) of outerspace, whether aliens existed, why we can´t breathe on other planets, what´s it like not to breathe, etc. Very interesting. This class was always interesting as you can see. One of the last days one asked me why I spoke in english. Hah! I suppose that should have been clear at the beginning of the course!

My other class pictured here is a group that has been coming for two years now. They are 5 and 6 and I loved teaching them this year as I could really see the progress and we could learn and play much more complex things.

The summer program we have begins this Tuesday. I will be in charge of the class of 5-7 year olds although I will be doing the rounds for all the other age groups for english classes. We will work only in the morning now, from 9-2. In the afternoon I have off but will continue with some of my adult students with private classes and of course with Andrea a few days a week.

Besides work, I have been back to climbing a lot this spring. Gabriel and I have been heading down to Granada often to stay with our friends and go climbing with them down there. Otherwise we hit up the local crags on the weekends.

On the schedule for this summer: Gabriel´s baptism next Sunday! :) Two weddings, friends of Gabriel, and a climbing trip to some cool place (details yet to be determined)

Oh, and how do I feel about the summer??

I´m pretty excited!

Water, rain, cold, and a lil sunshine

Finally this last week we are seeing and feeling the sun here in La Mancha. Although today it is cloudy and supposed to rain. Gabriel and I are looking forward to this spring. Nature is at its maximim. Rivers, lakes, even whole grape fields full of water.

hiking around the shores of the Peñarroya reservoir

kinda cold

This is at the Tablas de Daimel. We are inside a lookout tower.

Hope you guys enjoy the pics. Funny thing, after putting all these photos up I am having problems with the camera. When I turn it off, the zoom doesn´t want to go back inside. Looks like it´s kinda torqued to one side. Hmmm, I wonder if this has to do with dropping it. . . Well, I hope it works this weekend cause tomorrow is Father´s day in Spain and we have a three day weekend. Gabriel too! No concrete plans yet but. . . we are climbing again, it´s sunny, not so cold. So maybe Espiel, maybe Cahorros, maybe Sierra de Segura. We´ll see cause the weather predictions are rain for the weekend :/ Oh well, we´ll enjoy our time off. Later,

Amy