Out with the old, in with the old

So April and I have decided to get rid of pertnear everything we own, so I sold my bikes. Since I didn't have a bike anymore I bought a new one today at the thrift store, a 1982 Nishiki Caribou designed by NORCO, I brought it home and so far I've only spent about $30 total since I had so many spare parts laying about. I switched out the wheels for the ones that came with April's bike (FOR SALE!), put a longer seatpost that was slightly to large in diameter (about .2 mm, so I just lubed it up real good), the saddle that came on my road bike went next and I used a derailer from several bikes ago to act as a chain tensioner since the bike has vertical dropouts instead of the more common (for 1982) horizontal. I just got back from a test ride, very stable and fun, wish I could take it to Belize. Here is a pic of my trash turned to treasure:



I haven't been posting lately because I haven't been up to much, mostly just climbing and hanging out by myself because April went to Texass for 10 days. I did finally get on the route i bolted, my friend Brian got on it also, he said it set a new standard for Logan canyon; possibly the worst route in the canyon. The wall is extremely dirty and has no flow from hold to hold, much like the routes in the gym. Well we have approximately a month and a half left in Logan, we are paying our last months rent tomorrow. We might go to California to meet my parents there and have them take a few items to store in Oregon for the next few years. I will hopefully make enough money on my bicycles and the few other items that are worth a few dollars to pay for the cost of living between now and leaving, but at least I still have one bike for now!

One more thing, I just watched the most exciting documentary last week Life in the Undergrowth, it was done by BBC, if you have Netflix you definately need to check it out.

Home from Oregon

April and I went to see my parents in Tillamook Oregon last thursday, we left while it was raining and landed with rain, had a day and a half of good weather and returned to rain. Today is overcast, but not wet so I'm gonna try to get some exercise. April leaves again on saturday to see her sister and family in Texas for ten days.

My Mom and I hiking Cape Lookout, this chunk of land juts into the ocean more than 2 miles, in the 50's a military bomber hit the cape.

Looking down from the cape, it was around 300 feet tall.

We still have a crap load of paperwork to do before going to Belize, but we have a little bit of time to do it. We also have to get rid of almost all of our stuff, some of it has value and will probably go on ebay, the rest will probably go to either our friends or the local thrift store. My dad makes really nice furniture out of wood which means we have a really nice leather chair like the ones seen in men's smoking clubs (on the movies) and a really nice three drawer dresser that is super bomber, it would be nice to get em back after we come back from Belize, but I'm not to sure if we will have a vehicle to move furniture from Logan to Tucson in two years, so I guess I would rather just find a good home for them, one where they won't get overly abused but will see some use. I have some friends that say they will take my tools for me while we are gone, I'm not too sure if we will actually get to come back for them like I said, but I would rather give stuff to good friends than sell it for less than it is worth. I'm planning to take some climbing gear with us, not sure what, but I'll probably sell my cams on Ebay because people pay rediculous prices on there, higher than any of my bum friends will pay. We also have to find a home for our two cats, otherwise I'll have to put them down.

Our Assignment

There was a small misunderstanding, not central South America, but Central or South America. So we have our assignment to Belize, the Toledo District. While searching for Peace Corps Volunteer blogs in Belize I found good friends of mine that I haven't talked to since they graduated from USU named Todd and Ashley, they just returned from Belize hopefully I can find out some cool stuff about their experience. I can't find any info about climbing down there, but there are Mayan ruins everywhere in the southern area, I am very interested in Mayan culture, there are still large parts of the population that speak Mayan. The official language is English, but most speak a form of Creole, Spanish or Mayan.