Plans, Plans, Plans

So now that the day to leave Durango is fast approaching (sunday) I figured I would update y'all with my tentative plans for the upcoming year.

So boom blog plans first.
I'm going to try and do two post per month, one an update on my travels and adventures  and another on how to dirt bag like the best of 'em (like me).

Travel plans:
Sunday I leave Durango to head to the Las Vegas area to climb at Red Rocks, a sandstone area home to routes up to 1500' long where I'll kick it with the school climbing club and other friends for the duration of their spring break.

After that I'll head out to Moab/Indian Creek for a month or two with a visit, hopefully, to Zion with the goal to onsight/free Moonlight Buttress.

Post satisfying my crack addiction I'll head up to Glenwood Springs for the summer to work at Colorado Mountain College to work with corporate programs on challenge courses. Hopefully I'll get lots of climbing in at Rifle and Vedawoo also!

This fall I think I'll be back in SoCal to work for Boojum, leading trips and having a grand ole time as usual. Perhaps even sneaking in a trip or two to Yosemite.

Winter time will hopefully see me to Patagonia/ Cochamo and perhaps Argentina too. This part is largely speculation as that's a long way away.

As for this dirtbaggin' nonsense...
Urban Dictionary says:

dirtbag

A person who is committed to a given (usually extreme) lifestyle to the point of abandoning employment and other societal norms in order to pursue said lifestyle. Dirtbags can be distinguished from hippies by the fact that dirtbags have a specific reason for their living communaly and generally non-hygenically; dirtbags are seeking to spend all of their moments pursuing their lifestyle The best examles of dirtbags and dirtbagging are the communities of climbers that can be found in any of the major climbing areas of North America--Squamish, BC; Yosemite, CA; Joshua Tree, CA; etc.

I guess I'll try and explain the best ways to be ^ and perhaps share some delightful stories and anecdotes about this stuff over the next year.

Oh I almost forgot to mention what I've been up to, this is easy as 90% of my time has been devoted to working and saving up money for the aforementioned adventures. The rest of my time has been spent fixing up the van, getting it outfitted with solar and more dandy set ups to make life more luxurious, and well climbing. The weekend before last I made it out to the desert for the first crack adventures of the year providing me with lots of warm and fuzzies as the year has been kicked off with new friends an 5.12 onsight on the first day back and a sunburn from climbing with out a shirt in the middle of February. 

First sunset in the desert of the year.

Just expanding my psyche for the SW in everyway possible.

Ginger Ale

In the past few weeks a number of folks have inquired about my ginger ale so I figured I'd write up the recipe that has been deemed the tastiest.

Ingredients:
8lbs white sugar
1.75lbs ginger root sliced/pureed
1/4 cup Lime juice

1 packet of safale 05

Do boil with first three ingredients for 1 hour with three gallons of water.

After boil add two gal. to drop temps down to ~75-80 and pitch yeast.

Leave in primary for 3 weeks and  rack to secondary for 7-10 days

I bottled with 1 cup of corn sugar and they were a bit over carbonated, 3/4 of a cup might be better.

Enjoy, if you do this let me know how it goes.

Buy experiences not stuff.

These past few weeks have been almost overwhelmingly full of work and recovery from work (usually climbing and beer). As you guys may or may not know I'm working at the local rec. center lifeguarding and teaching swim lessons; unfortunately it is more of the former and less of the latter. As a result I'm left with excessive amounts of time to think about oh...just about anything that pops into my head. After several weeks of sitting for about 30 hours a week I've started to think about what I think about. You may be asking yourself right now what the heck is Sam talking about?! Well don't worry, I'm just developing back story in a roundabout fashion and I'm getting to the point now.

I have realized that what I have been thinking about this past month while life guarding has been remarkably similar to what I was thinking about while life guarding a year ago. I have been planning what to do with this next year (I'll try and post up a tentative plan for those of you that are curious). I have been planning on what to spend my recently earned pay checks on and what to spend my upcoming pay checks on. I have been planning what to eat and drink after work. I have been day dreaming about the Creek, Patagonia and Ice climbing (probably more of this than all of those planning things). I have been thinking about how awesome my friends are to tolerate me parking in front of their houses, bum interwebz and a cooking setup and how much I appreciate their generosity.

After mulling over these thoughts I've recently realized that I was feeling pretty amped on buying a new down  sleeping bag, solar panels and batteries for the van, a stereo system, extravagant food, a full gas tank and well the list goes on. Then I began to think, not in terms of cash amounts but amounts of experience. For instance instead of a new sleeping bag when my present one will do just fine I could take a trip to Zion, instead of a ticket to a concert I could spend a week at the Creek. Instead of a full gas tank...well I suppose eventually some of these purchase ideas will come to fruition. However, my take home point is that while I and almost everyone else gets sucked up into the spend spend spend and get more and more stuff I say spend spend spend on experiences that are gratifying, that can be spent with those that you value, that will provide memories, on experiences that will provide rather than consume space, leaving you wanting the next best thing when what you have does just fine. I suppose it's all just a matter of needs v. wants and not getting the two mixed up which is certainly not an original idea.

On that note I'm going to go earn a bottle of whiskey to pass around a campfire with a bunch of friends and strangers. Or maybe it will be a pass to Rifle Mountain Park for this summer.