Tying Up Loose Ends

Well, here it is, the end of the year, heck, the end of the decade. What? I know! How did that happen? Wouldn't it be ironic if all of our computers conked out when they rolled over to 2010?

Anyway, I have a few things that I've thought about blogging over the course of the year that I never quite got to, so this will sort of be a wrap-up post of miscellaneous stuff to close out the year.

Miscellaneous Thing #1:

This might be my favorite picture of the year. In May I flew home to surprise my dad for his 60th birthday. My sister picked me up at the airport in Denver, and we drove down to my dad's house. My sister's friend, Big A, came along with us and brought her son, Little A, who is four. Like many four-year-olds, Little A has his security blanket, and he keeps a pretty tight leash on it. We got in late that night, and my dad's party was the next evening. Before the party, Dad decided to take a nap in his chair. Little A decided that my Dad might be cold, so he went to his bed, got his blanket, and covered up my dad. Then he went downstairs where there are various stuffed animals and brought several of them upstairs for my dad to sleep with. After this picture was taken, he topped it all off with a Hacky Sack on my dad's chest. 'Cause you never know when you might wake up and need a Hacky Sack.

Miscellaneous Thing #2:

We went to Oregon this summer for more tree climbing lessons, and I kind of surprised myself by not blogging about it; although I did post a couple of random pictures from our trip. I won't give you as much detail as I did about last year's lessons, but I did want to at least put in one or two pictures! I know, you're thinking, How much can there be to learn about tree climbing? Well, last year, we just learned the basics; this year we learned how to facilitate other people up into the trees and how to do rescues. We also got to play with saws in the trees, learning proper pruning techniques. I'll tell you what, there's nothing like hanging from a rope with a sharp cutting device in your hand to make you pay really close attention to where all your gear is at any given time! Here is a tree all set up for facilitation:

The rescues were hard work, and I really impressed myself by being able to get a line into a tree, get my rope up and tied, get my gear on, climb up, get over to my "victim," attach myself to my victim and get him lowered to the ground and unattached from me in under 17 minutes. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of that, but I do have a picture of me relaxing in a tree boat, which was a lot nicer!

I'm not much of a morning person, but see how smiley I am? That's because this was the first time in about a week that I had gotten a decent night's sleep. Seriously. Hotel room=slept like crap. Tree boat=Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

After our class was over, our instructor took my husband climbing in a big Douglas fir. He would have taken me too, but I chickened out. Since it was such a high climb (about 200-250 feet) they were climbing single rope which involves a lot of gear compared to double rope, which is how I am more comfortable climbing. I hadn't done much single rope work, and the few times I had, I always had trouble switching over from ascending to descending devices, and I didn't want to get stuck 200-feet up, so I stayed on the ground and acted like I wasn't bummed about missing out on this climb. That's OK though, tree climbing really gives you a new appreciation for listening to your instincts, and my instincts were telling me not to go that day. So, some other day. Hubby had a great time though-here's a picture of him on the way up.

Miscellaneous Thing #3:

Missing book reviews-I've read a few books that I never got around to reviewing here, so I will do some quick summaries so that they're not hanging over my head come the new year.

The Gardella Vampire Chronicles by Colleen Gleason-I believe it was Chris's review of When Twilight Burns, the fourth book in the Gardella Vampire Chrinocles that piqued my interest in this series. I picked up the first one, The Rest Falls Away, and, if my Kindle history is anything to go by, quickly devoured the next three books in the series. That's the problem with the Kindle, when you get to the end of one book in a series it's so easy to just click, click and get the next book! It's not that the writing is that great, in fact I remember some of the dialogue being pretty bad, but it is quick fun reading with some fairly steamy love scenes, and I just might have to pick up a copy of the last book in the series, As Shadows Fade, now that I'm thinking about it.

Children of God by Mary Doria Russell-I finished reading this a few weeks ago, and I hate to admit it, but I didn't like it as much as The Sparrow. I knew this was a risk-The Sparrow is a hard act to follow. I've been agonizing over reviewing it because I'm actually thinking I might need to read it again to give it a fair review. For right now, I'll leave it at that, but I will come back and do a full review later...so much for tying up loose ends!

Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fictions and Illusions by Neil Gaiman-This is the first Gaiman book that I have read and finished (couldn't make it through American Gods) and I really liked it. I'm not normally a short-story gal, but I did enjoy most of the stories in here. There were a couple I didn't really care for and one that I didn't even finish because I just had no idea what was going on. A lot of short stories leave me feeling like the author didn't quite have it in him to write a whole novel, so he just sort of wrote down the ideas that he had for a story and then left it to the reader to fill in the missing parts; but with Gaiman I (mostly) felt like his stories were fully-realized stories, crafted with the end reader in mind. Be sure to read the Introduction, which itself includes a story as well as some background on the rest of the stories.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy-It was stark and desolate and depressing and beautiful and concise and I think I hated the ending. I'm not sure; I can't decide. I do think McCarthy did a wonderful job of capturing the minimal survivalist relationship between father and son-there's never much said, but there wouldn't be, would there, if you've been wandering a burned out planet for months? years? It's not like there's much to talk about other than how to stay alive for another day. And you know how much love is there and your heart breaks for the man who's trying to save his son and for the boy who has to live in this world and see the things that he sees. I haven't seen the movie, but I think Viggo Mortensen might be perfect in this role, and the fact that Robert Duvall is in it makes me want to cry! I love Robert Duvall!

The Gunslinger (Dark Tower #1) by Stephen King-I read this on the plane on the way home from my Dad's house, and it was good enough to keep me interested, but not great. It's sort of a western/alternate world/good vs. evil/horror, so I was curious to see where everything was going. I started reading book #2 in the series, The Drawing of the Three, but I just never really got into it. It was taking place more in this world than in the gunslinger world, and I just didn't really care. I feel bad about this because this is one of my husband's favorite series ever, and I'm sure it probably gets better as it goes, but for right now, I'm not ready to delve back in.

Miscellaneous Thing #4

Molokai Day 3-See, I told you I could give you a whole month of Molokai! This is another one that I will have to follow-up on in the new year. For now, suffice it to say that we had a glorious day hiking in the Kamakou Preserve with our guide, Bill, from The Nature Conservancy.

If you can think of any other miscellaneous things for me, let me know. I know 2009 was rough for a lot of people, and if you're one of those people, I hope 2010 is better. If you had a great 2009, well, I still hope 2010 is better for you!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Flying through the trees in Thailand

Well, now that you all know about my exciting journey to Thailand, let me tell you about some of the things we did while we were in Thailand. As you may recall, the main focus of our visit was my brother-in-law's wedding, but we had about a week before and a week after during which to do other stuff. One of the week-before items ended up being the Flight of the GibbonTM zip-line adventure. There are two locations, Chiang Mai and Bangkok-Pattaya. We visited the Bangkok-Pattaya one which is in Chonburi, about halfway between Bangkok and Pattaya, and it was amazing. There are 26 platforms set up, and most of them involve zip-lines to get from one to the other, but there are a couple of bridges to walk across, and/or ropes to descend. The longest zip-line is over 300 meters, and, if I remember correctly, about 180 feet up. Having a hard time envisioning that? Picture about three football fields. Now imagine a zip line strung across those. Still having a hard time. Let me see if I can find something to help you out.

There we all are on one platform getting ready to come over to the next platform. See us? Waaaay over there? Don't worry, this was toward the end of the run. They don't throw you up into that stuff right away. You start with a light hike through the forest to the first station, and they start you off on low platforms and short zip-lines. Because at first everyone is hanging on like this:

But by about halfway through, they convince you that it's OK to hang on like this as they lower you down to the platform below:

Eventually you work your way up onto platforms overlooking the entire forest with views for miles and zip-line rides lasting 15-20 seconds. And the views weren't just of the trees. There were huge, colorful butterflies and flowers, and we heard lots of birds. We just missed seeing gibbons moving around in the trees on several occasions-we'd hear something big rustling about in the canopy and then see where something big had just moved through, but I was never quick enough to actually spot anything. Others in our party did though.

Here's a shot from an earlier station. We zipped down to the bottom platform, climbed up the spiral staircase, and then zipped from the upper platform to our next station, like I am demonstrating for you here. =) (I just realized that the amount of helmet-wearing I do on this blog seems to be out of proportion to the actual amount of helmet-wearing I do in real life. Just so you know, I don't run around in helmets, waiting for adventure to strike).

We had a great time doing this, and it is something I would highly recommend. This was a great break from the noise and pollution and general stress that is the city. The facility is very new, and the work that was put into building this is amazing. Take a look at that first picture again. Now think about stringing that cable. Or building that spiral staircase in the last picture. Impressive.

I felt totally safe the entire time; from the moment we stepped up to the first platform until we touched ground at the last, there was not a moment that we weren't latched into something secure, and our guides were great. We had two, one to send us off at each platform and one to catch us on the other end. The guide who was on the other end waiting to catch all of us also had all of our cameras around his neck and managed to get pictures of everyone at each station (there were 8 of us) as we were hurtling toward him...in a safe and controlled manner.

From arrival on-site to departure was almost 5 hours, refreshments were provided for us before our adventure began, lunch was provided after, admission to the neighboring Khao Kheo Open Safari was included, AND we essentially had our own personal photographer with us for the duration of the trip. All of this for about $70/person-I think that's a pretty good deal!

I realize that this doesn't answer any of the pressing questions from my "Coming soon!" post, but that's only because I forgot to throw one of these pictures in there as a teaser! I'll get around to the rest, I promise!

Latest tree climbing outing

Until I can get my act together and get a "real" post up, here are some pictures from this weekend.  Scale is a difficult thing to capture in photos, but I've tried to get some perspective for you.  We were back up in The Sentinel (which I just realized I've been spelling wrong this whole time), which is sort of our default climbing tree because it's close.

This is a shot of the branch I was sitting on at the end of my climb, looking straight out into the surrounding forest.

Here is a shot from that same branch looking down at our gear on the ground.  For anyone who knows what they're looking for, I DID have safety knots in my rope.  You just can't see them in this picture.  I had one about every 8 feet-I wasn't taking any chances here!  The trees with the tops that look like stars are Cook pines.   


I took this picture on the way back down.  My back was actually to the trunk, so I was twisting around trying to get a good shot of the root system, which covers a huge amount ground.  I kind of like the swirly effect I got as my rope was swinging me back around.


Here is a little better shot of the root system.  

Go climb a tree!

No, seriously.  Remember how I told you about my tree climbing adventure back in September?  Well, the weather is turning nice again, and if you've been thinking about checking out tree climbing but weren't really sure if it was something you wanted to commit to, this might be the perfect opportunity.  

When:  

June 6, 2009

9AM-9PM

Where:

Oregon City, OR

What:

Tree Climbing Northwest Work Party-Help prepare the climbing site by spreading mulch, setting climbing lines, and other care-taking activities and then enjoy a guided climb, try out gear, and play some games.  This is the location where we did our class, and it's a beautiful area. 

For more information or to reserve your spot in the work party, contact Tim "Tengu" Kovar at treekster@mac.com 

R.I.P. Big Coconut Tree

Before

We are having some landscaping done, and I am taking pictures of the process. I am excited about the landscaping-our yard right now mostly consists of California grass (read: really tall weeds)-but I am sad about one thing. We have (had) a beautiful palm tree in our yard that had to be removed. It was leaning toward the house, and if it ever came down, it would have taken out the entire front portion of our house, not to mention the possibility of our cars and anyone or anything which might have been in the yard at the time. We wouldn't have been so worried about the lean, but the ground looked like it was coming up around the base of the tree, and we get massive wind storms in December/January which could easily topple the tree right over onto our house.

This is what our tree looked like when they started.  See the man in the tree?

Now do you see him?  I think this picture provides a great perspective on just how huge these palm fronds are.  You can see how damaging just one of these could be coming down on your house or your car, now imagine the whole tree coming down!

Here is what our tree looked like after about half the leaves had been removed.

This picture makes me want to cry.  I feel terrible about having done this to our magnificent tree, but we just couldn't risk not having it removed.  It's hard to tell, but the man is standing against the tree and working on the top with a chain saw.  The picture sort of looks like he is kneeling with his feet sticking out behind him, but the part that looks like his feet is actually a piece of debris falling down from the tree.

After

You can see how much other stuff we had removed too because you can actually see our house in this picture vs. the first picture, where you could not.  I kept trying to do side-by-side comparisons of the two pictures and I couldn't figure out whey they didn't seem quite right.  It took me a while, but I finally realized that it was because one was horizontal and the other was vertical.  Duh!  I was trying to show the house without the tree, but I didn't think to take the picture vertically to show all the space that the tree was no longer occupying.  On the "Before" picture I didn't think about which way to take it; I shot it vertically because that was the only way to get the tree in the picture.  Once again, there is a reason I am not a professional photographer!  BTW, I did photoshop most of these pictures, but only to adjust for lighting so you could see the details better.  I didn't make the tree taller or the man smaller or anything! 

I'm being quoted internationally!

I'm not sure what I said, exactly, since this article was written in Portuguese and the translations via both Google and Yahoo are a bit wonky, but I think it was pretty good!  Check out the article if you get a chance, especially if you can read Portuguese.  If you don't speak the language, just do what I did and copy and paste into a translation device of your choice.  It won't be great, but you'll get the general idea.   

**11/5/08 update:  Wow, check out the comments on this post!  Heather J. was kind enough to forward this article to a coworker of hers who is studying Portuguese, and he, in turn, was kind enough to translate the whole article for me!  How cool is that??  Thanks so much to Heather and her anonymous coworker!

 

Climbing The Sentinal or David vs. Goliath

After our Tree Week adventure, we couldn't wait for all of our tree climbing gear from New Tribe to arrive so that we could start climbing trees in Hawaii.  Well, it finally arrived, and last weekend we made it out to The Sentinal.  The Sentinal is a tree that we have been admiring since we moved here, 7 years ago.  As you can see from this picture, it's huge and sprawling, but it's off trail, so it's very easy to miss if you're not paying attention and looking around.  We call it The Sentinal because he has such a commanding presence and seems to be standing guard in the forest, making sure everything is as it should be. 

The Sentinal provides some challenges.  For one thing, he's a lot taller than we thought!   The lowest living branch is probably about 55' up.  We each have 120' of rope, and if we climb DRT that means we can anchor to a branch that is up to...oh, about 55' high! (DRT-double rope technique-one end of the rope is on the ground, the other is thrown over a branch and fed back down to the ground, and that loose end gets tied to the rope that is going from the ground up into the tree.  These knots are what you clip onto your harness and what you use to ascend and descend.  This is also where you lose about 5 feet of length off your rope.)  Once we are in the tree, we can throw our rope up to a higher branch, but the trick is being able to get back down.  If you're not being careful, The Sentinal also has a propensity to swing you around to the opposite side of the tree, where the ground drops off and you can easily find yourself in a situation where you don't have enough rope to get all the way back down to the ground. 

You can see my husband in the bottom right corner of the picture (gives you some perspective on the tree, doesn't it!)-he is anchored to the branch directly above him.  We would have used the other branch that is directly across from it but the ground is lower on that side and, also, that branch that is right underneath it is completely dead, and you don't want to be climbing up under something like that.  The one that looks like it is sticking straight out, toward the camera, is also dead, and it's just a nubbin, where a previous branch broke off.  So, only one of us was able to climb at a time, which was a bummer, but we still had a great time getting up into the tree and checking it out.  It is seriously cool!  We are definitely planning a return trip, and we will try some single rope techniques which should allow us to get up into some higher branches and move around a little bit.  This also looks like it will be a great place to hang some treeboats!  I'll keep you updated.         

Tree Week!

Ok, here it is, finally!  I've been mentioning this since April, and we've been back now for about 3 weeks.  What's been the hold up,  you ask?  I think I've been putting this off because I've been worried that I might not do it justice.  I'm still worried, but I figure if I never write it, then I'll definitely never do it justice, so here goes.  This is a long post, but I will try to make it more fun with lots of pictures!

As I mentioned in my April post, this all began when I read The Wild Trees by Richard Preston.  He writes about scientists spending hours, days even, hanging out in the coastal redwoods measuring trees, documenting the flora and fauna that they were discovering up there, that sort of thing.  Also, sometimes they would sleep in the trees.  This is the part where I would announce loudly to an empty room, "THAT WOULD BE SO COOL!"  I didn't care that nobody was around, I just needed to say it out loud.  Because it's that exciting!  My husband read the book too and agreed that it would, indeed, be cool to hang out in the redwoods.  I don't think it made him holler like a crazy person though.  

How do you sleep in a tree?  Wouldn't you just roll right off the branches?  Do you just strap yourself to the trunk and hope you don't slide down to the ground in the middle of the night?  

Since neither of those options seems very appealing, the folks in the book used these things called treeboat hammocks, which are made by a company in Grant's Pass, Oregon, called New Tribe.  (How many can you find in this picture?  I'll give you a hint...it's 3).  The whole time I was reading the book, I couldn't quite envision how this all worked, so one day I decided to go visit the New Tribe web site, which is where I found out that not only do they sell treeboats along with all kinds of other tree gear, but they also offer a whole bunch of tree climbing adventures and courses through Tree Climbing Northwest, some of which involve SLEEPING IN TREES!!  "OH MY GOD!  THAT WOULD BE SO MUCH FUN!!" (Again, to an empty room).  

One of the activities offered is the Tree Week course, which runs a full week and combines the Basic Tree Climbing Course, the Rigging Course, and the Introduction to Single Rope Technique.  After the Rigging Course, about half-way through the week, you get to set up treeboats and sleep in a tree.  Yay!  Sign me up!

We signed up for the August 31-September 6 class.  I felt like a little kid waiting for summer vacation-it was NEVER going to get here!  The day finally did arrive, and we left Honolulu for Vegas, where we spent a couple of long hot days wishing we hadn't tacked the Vegas portion on to our trip.  After that we drove over to L.A. because we have friends who live there, and we don't make it over to that neck of the woods very often, so we figured we would stop in and see them.  After that, it was on to Oregon!  Driving through the redwoods helped put us in the right frame of mind for this trip.  (You can read some more about that here.)  They are so amazing, and we kept thinking about how cool it would be to be moving around in the canopy of one of these giants.  We knew we wouldn't be climbing redwoods, but it was still cool to think about.  

On our way, we stopped in Grant's Pass to visit the New Tribe store.  When we walked in and explained that we were enrolled in the Tree Week course and just wanted to stop by and check out the store, Barbara, who had been our sole contact up to this point said, "You must be the people from Hawaii!" and ran over to give us both big hugs!  What a great reception!  

The main thing we wanted to buy was a book called The Tree Climber's Companion by Jeff Jepson.  This is recommended reading for the course, and if you try to find it on Amazon.com, you will find people trying to sell it for upwards of $70.  Do not pay $70 for this book!  For one thing, it is only about 1/4" thick.  For another, New Tribe sells it for around $20.  Also, I have an extra copy if anyone needs it.    

Our "classroom" was located in Oregon City, outside of Portland, on 150 acres of privately-owned pasture land surrounded by forest, and consisted mostly of an oak tree named Pagoda.  Our first day, Sunday, was a half day, sort of an orientation day consisting of some general tree climbing info, familiarizing ourselves with the gear that we would be using and then actually getting up into a tree.  When we arrived, our instructor, Tim, already had ropes in the tree, and all we had to do was hook ourselves up and climb.  This was a great way to get everyone excited about what we were going to be learning. 

Monday we tied a lot of knots.  I am not even kidding.  Double rope technique (DRT), which is what we would be using during our first 4 days of class, consists of tying a bunch of knots on which to hang your life, and then hooking yourself confidently into those knots for all of your tree climbing activities.  You have to be able to tie all the knots with your eyes closed, literally, and Tim makes sure that you can do it.  We also learned how to choose a good, safe tree to climb, how to get our ropes up into the trees, how to ascend the rope, how to move around once you are in the tree, how to safely get back down out of the tree, and proper rope inspection and storage.  You can see the complete Tree Week syllabus here.  Even now, having gone through and successfully completed all of this stuff, it looks intimidating!  I can't quite believe we got through all the stuff that we did each day, but Tim was a fabulous teacher and covered everything thoroughly.

The thing that I found to be most anxiety-inducing was switching over from one anchor to another.  This is how you move around in a tree, either laterally or vertically, from one branch to another.  You have to set your rope on the new branch, tie all your knots again on that rope, and then clip onto your new set of knots.  When you are convinced that your new anchor is secure and not going to release you to an untimely death, then you can unclip from your old anchor.  This is the part that is nerve-wracking!  Tim teaches you all the things to check before you do this, and he is always right there watching you to make sure that you are not going to do something stupid and plummet to your death, but it's still scary.  

I also had a difficult time with this because you are doing this all on one rope-you do not have two separate ropes in the tree with you.  You are using the end of the rope that you just climbed up on and throwing it over the new branch and then tying all of your knots in that end of the rope.  When you hook into your new anchor, you undo most of the knots on your old anchor, and that now becomes the "end" of your rope.  Confused?  So was I.  I just couldn't get it in my head how all the pieces fit together, and so I was having a hard time convincing myself that I knew what the heck I was doing.  That night for homework, Tim told us to write down, step by step, the process of switching over from one anchor to another.  That, accompanied with a lot of diagrams of stick figures climbing trees, helped me a lot.  Once I got over my mental block of not understanding all the moving parts, I was able to move the parts a lot better.

On Tuesday we talked about the different gear that is available for tree climbing-the pros and cons of various options-and spent a lot more time moving around in the trees.  This time we got to practice throwing our ropes directly onto a branch vs. using a throw line to get our rope set, like we had been doing previously.  This is much more expedient if you just have a short distance to throw.  All this tree time made me much more comfortable with my switch-over techniques as well. 

Wednesday found us learning about more gear and tying new knots.  We learned how to haul gear up into a tree and how to set up a treeboat.  We had been working in Pagoda most of the time, and we decided to try to set our treeboats in a different tree, another oak which Hubby ended up naming Kokopelli.Tim had never set treeboats in this tree before and was game to give it a shot.  Kokopelli turned out to be a fitting name!  She (He?) had quite a few tricks up her sleeve-for me moving around turned out to be a lot trickier than it looked, and finding a good treeboat spot was also tricky.  You need about 8-10 feet between the two ends where your treeboat is tied off, and the first location we tried had about 7', 11"!  It just wasn't going to work.  So close!  We eventually got all our treeboats up, and then we went into town to buy supplies to barbecue that night.

We returned to the campsite that night, barbecued some burgers and watched the moon set behind Kokopelli.  (Incidentally, Kokopelli was also located right on the edge of the pasture, almost as if it were watching over the field and its animals, so in that sense the name seemed appropriate too).  Around 9:00 we all headed up into our tree, sleeping bags in tow, ready to spend the night in a tree!

Important note:  If you plan on sleeping in a tree, I would advise you to do everything within your power to avoid having to get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom.  Nothing interrupts a nice peaceful sleep in the trees like having to get up for a "quick" bathroom trip.  Believe me, there is nothing quick about getting out of a tree to go to the bathroom.  I hardly ever wake up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, except when I'm 40' up in a tree, apparently.  

There was something kind of cool that came out of this though.  When I was coming back up, I was dreading this one part of the tree where I had gotten absolutely stuck earlier in the day, I mean I really had to fight to get past this one spot.  This time, as I was ascending in the dark, I was like, "Oh, look, there's a nice branch that I can stand on while I hook up my lanyard."  ( I was hooked into my main rope, which is the red one in the picture below, the whole time, but my treeboat was off to the side about 4 or 5 feet away from where I was ascending so I needed the lanyard-the green line-to maneuver over to where my treeboat was.)  Turns out that branch that I was standing on made it totally easy to get past my problem spot, and I hadn't even been aware of it earlier in the day.  Just sort of letting go and looking around me and using what made itself available turned out to be a much better strategy than thinking my way up the tree. 

(Yeah, I know, I'm sexy in a helmet!) Anyway, back to the tree sleeping.  After we got ourselves and all of our gear tucked into our sleeping bags, we all chatted for a while and eventually everyone calmed down to experience being in the tree and started drifting off to sleep.  As I was studying the tree and the sky I noticed a group of leaves that made a perfect square, just like a picture frame, and right in the middle was a single star.  I watched the star move through the frame, and as I lay there I was finally able to start taking everything in, and then I started to smile; and eventually, I was lying there with a huge smile on my face, laughing quietly with tears running down my face.  For me, this is what it was all about.  I did it.  I was sleeping in a tree!  This is what I had wanted.  The fact that I had to learn how to do all the other stuff to get to this point was just a bonus.  

The next morning, we came down out of the tree around 9:00.  We left our treeboats up in case we wanted to hang out in them later, but we never really got to.  We spent part of the day just hanging out, relaxing, giving our brains a rest from all the stuff we'd been learning all week.  Tim also took us around Portland to visit a couple of places that had some tree climbing gear available.  We knew we would be buying most of our gear through New Tribe, but we wanted to buy some of the heavier, bulkier items like rope and helmets while we were there so we could just carry them back on the plane with us and not have to pay to ship them later.  All the traveling Hubby does pays off-we can carry on 70 lbs. of luggage instead of 50!  

Friday it was back to work on our Introduction to Single Rope Technique (SRT)!  This technique utilizes a lot of gadgets, which makes it quicker and easier to ascend and descend...unless you're me and you keep getting yourself stuck on the descent.  This was the part of the class that we were all looking forward to because we thought it would be so much easier than the DRT stuff that we had been doing.  While it was easier in some ways, I think we all agreed that we were much more comfortable putting our faith in our knots than in these little metal devices that could (theoretically) break or melt your rope or be threaded wrong and send you plummeting to your death in an uncontrolled descent.  Part of it was our lack of familiarity with the devices, and part of it was the fact that we had a lot of information thrown at us that day.  The course is just meant to be introductory, and that's exactly what it was, just enough to give you an idea of what it's all about and what your options are if you want to explore it further.  I have to say, even though Thursday was basically a down day, by Friday I was pretty done, mentally and physically.  I didn't have much left when it came time to learn about the 83 new ways of getting into and out of a tree!                           

Saturday was a fun day.  We could pick any tree we wanted to (preferably a wild tree, meaning one that hadn't been climbed before) and climb it.  We were responsible for inspecting our tree to make sure it was safe, and then it was all up to us, whatever we wanted to do.  Tim was there to make sure everything was safe or in case we had any questions, but other than that we were on our own.  Hubby picked another oak, which he named Esmerelda, and I picked a maple because I wanted to try something different, and this tree had a really cool feel to it as soon as you walked under its umbrella, like walking into a whole separate world.  I semi-named her Mabel, but I'm not sure if that's because she really felt like a Mabel or if it's just because it sounded like maple...so, if the name sticks, fine, but if someone else comes up with something better, that's fine too.  I found a route up and moved around a little bit from one anchor to another and then I found a good spot where I could just lie across 3 of her branches and watch the sky.  Sounds uncomfortable, but if you get just the right spot, it's actually quite comfortable.    

And that, my friends, was the official end of our Tree Week class!  Since we were in town for a few more days, we actually got a chance to go climbing outside of class with Tim and his girlfriend later in the week.  Hubby hung out with them in a Douglas fir where they were about 130 feet up and got to experience some tree surfing, which is when the wind blows and the tree starts swaying from side to side-very exciting!  I climbed Esmerelda, and after some difficulties, we finally came to an understanding and I was able to find another very comfortable place to just lie down and hang out in a tree.  

Tim's girlfriend is a journalist (you can check out her blog here(it's in Portuguese)), and after our climb, she was asking us about our experience.  I was trying to find a good, eloquent way of expressing how much fun we had and why tree climbing isn't just for kids.  I failed miserably.  The best I could come up with was to tell her that it makes you go, "Heehee!"  This was a little easier to do in person because I could insert the appropriate inflection and make the accompanying happy face and hands-covering-my-mouth movements, but it's still not a lot for a journalist to work with.  Yeah, I'm a great interview.  Katie Couric, call me!    

So, in case it still needs saying, I loved our Tree Week!  I seriously can't say enough good things about this experience.  I would recommend this to anyone!  I think it would be a great family vacation or an executive retreat/teambuilding exercise.  If a week is too large of a commitment, there are several other shorter courses or one-day activities that might suit your needs.  There are many organizations world-wide that also facilitate tree climbing activities, so check this link to see if you can find something that is closer to your neck of the woods.  Also, don't rule this out if you have some sort of physical disability or any other issue that you think might prevent you from getting into a tree.  Tim and others have found many ways to get many people with special needs up into trees-these guys truly believe where there's a will there's a way.   

The Tree Week class is limited to 4 people, so everyone has plenty of attention and Tim can keep an eye on everyone.  (If you have a group larger than 4, contact Tim or New Tribe and talk to them.  They may be able to bring somebody else in to help facilitate a class.)  As I mentioned earlier, Tim is a wonderful teacher.  He is very good at reading the mood of the class and being able to tell if people are ready to move on or if they need more time with something, whether it's practicing knots or downtime in the tree.  He also has the rare ability to inspire complete confidence in his knowledge-the man knows his stuff!-without being intimidating or making you feel dumb.  While the syllabus is intimidating, Tim does a great job of breaking it down into manageable pieces and teaching it in an order that is logical, so that you are constantly building on your skills.  Also, he is one of the nicest people I have ever met!  He is a rare example of somebody who clearly loves what he is doing, and that is so uncommon these days.  To actually see someone who has found that is very cool!

Thanks for staying with me so long!  I hope you liked the pictures.  If you want to see more from our Tree Week class, you can check out my album, here.  Thanks to Tim for all the photography there (and most of it here)-as if he wasn't doing enough already!

(When I was looking up some information on the redwoods the other day, I came across this blog, which I thought was kind of cool:  Ten Thousand Trees )

Live Like You Were Dying

For those of you not familiar with country music, Tim McGraw has a song entitled "Live Like You Were Dying." It makes me cry. (This isn't saying a whole lot in and of itself since almost everything has the ability to make me cry.) The narrator is talking to a guy who is telling him about the day he discovered he had cancer and the question posed to him is, "man, what'd you do?" His answer is:

I went sky diving
I went Rocky Mountain climbing
I went 2.7 seconds on a bull named Fumanchu
and I loved deeper and I spoke sweeter
and I gave forgiveness I'd been denying
and he said someday I hope you get the chance
to live like you were dying.

The final chorus substitutes "watched an eagle as it was flying" for "gave forgiveness I'd been denying."

The reason this particular song makes me cry is that I've actually DONE some of these things. I've been skydiving. I've been Rocky Mountain climbing. I've watched an eagle as it was flying. I've done things that other people only dream of. That realization is at once humbling and inspiring.

When I was in college, I spent a month in London studying drama. I've swum with dolphins, slept in hammocks in the Mexican jungle, taken trapeze lessons, and owned my own business (more of a nightmare than a dream, but that's another story! The point is we took the chance and did it.). I own a house in Hawaii, and later this year, my husband and I are going to take a tree climbing course inspired by the stories of the scientists who spend their time exploring the upper canopies of the redwood forests in The Wild Trees: A Story of Passion and Daring.
So, I have 2 questions for you:

1) What have you done that others only dream of?
2) What would you put on your list to do to live like you were dying?