I guess we're not very good at this updating thing

Just a quick little update in case anyone is still checking this.

We are back in St. Louis- came back to the midwest for my sisters highschool graduation

We found a house for sale in St. Louis that we really liked, and was pretty darn cheap cause it was a "handymans special"

We bought the house in St. Louis, and are currently fixing it up- just replaced the garage roof

And we're getting married at the end of August!

So there's the update- I'll post more pictures from the rest of the trip when I get a chance, but right now we have been a little wrapped up in other things.

By the way if anyone knows of jobs that are hiring in the St. Louis area, please send them our way-

It's weird to be back in the real world- but don't worry we plan on it being a temporary stay. Hopefully we'll fix up the house sell it or rent it in a couple of years, make a whole big bunch of money and be able to travel all over again. Hopefully...

Our new house!

Up and up and up Las Cruces 3/27- 4/1

After leaving white sands we headed west through New Mexico and stopped in the city of Las Cruces. There we did the normal boring city things; laundry, library, and food buying- which is where we found out that this city contains a supermarket, and the supermarket contains some tortillas, that were probably some of the best I've ever eaten. After gorging ourselves on warm tortillas we were on our way again and stopped at a climbing area just outside of town called the rough and ready hills. The climbs were pretty fun, so we stuck around for a couple days.

Goonie had something he wanted to show me

Good climbing, quiet camping, and pretty sunset

what more could you ask for?

After talking with a group of people from the area, we found out that there was a relatively easy multi-pitch sport climbing area nearby. We decided it was time we gave it a try. Multi-pitch climbing is when you climb up and then belay from a set of anchors on the wall to get your second person up, and then they belay you from those anchors and so on...

On the way up to checkerboard mountain

A very serious moment

This is looking back at the car from where we started the climb after the hike up- you can just barely see the van in the middle of the picture

Mary about to start and lead the first pitch

Where are they going? and why can't I come too?

The first set of anchors- Mary and Michael went up and I stayed down with the dogs

Sometimes you forget how spiky and dangerous the desert can be

and then you get a reminder

Making there way up, both Mike and Mary are about in the center of the picture, it was a big hunk of rock- probably 400-500 feet tall, and we climbed to the top of it. It was a pretty cool feeling

When Mike and I went up we left Goonie with Mary; neither of them were too happy about this since Goonie kept running around trying to climb up the rock and barking continuously and very shrilly...awww say the parents, rotten brat says the babysitter

Looking down from the 3rd pitch, Michael was belaying me and that dark dot is Mary

Michael at the top

Looking at the other side from the top of the mountain

We made it

Looking down from whence we had come

As you may notice, those shadows are pretty long, we had about 45 minutes before dark, and a long way to repel, and a really long walk back to the car

Stepping off the end of the world

Almost down...

We managed to get off the rock before it got dark, but had to pick our way back to the car without flashlights with only that sliver of moon to guide us. We lost the trail practically immediately and there were cacti everywhere, and of course I was wearing sandals. Luckily after a couple of minutes of simply heading down the hill, over boulders and hoping we weren't about to stab ourselves on anything too painful, we met back up with the trail, and made it back to camp; cold and hungry, but safe.

White Sands March 25th-26th

Finally we had arrived. It is such a beautiful surreal place, and the dogs absolutely loved it. We took tons of pictures, so enjoy...

Dunes and mountains

Wind swept gypsum white sand, so soft and cool to the touch, and doesn't even grit in the teeth

Baxter was ready to go wandering

There isn't a campground in white sands. The only way you're allowed to spend the night is if you backpack in. Our site was 0.9 miles in, but the dogs probably went more like 5 miles going up and down and all over the dunes.

Silhouette of Goonie-pie (just a word of warning at least half of the pictures are of the dogs)

and Bax "lone-ranger" max wanders on...

sunset

The dogs were a little excited, even grandpa Baxter, who can get a little grumpy when it's close to bed time

Mary, Michael, and Goonie enjoying a sunset dune jump

Good Morning, sunrise from the tent. Goonie did great in our little 2 person tent. I think it was a good thing he had worn himself out so much.

Morning Dunes

Long shadowed dogs

The view of camp from our dune

Pretty dunes- the early morning was one of the best times, before the wind picked up. The wind blowing all that sand around hurt, and we all had to wear sunglasses just to keep the sand out of our eyes.

and on...

The dogs playing in the sand

Us playing in the sand

Michael takes credit for getting the picture, I take credit for being the only one brave enough to try a flip

It's a love pounce right?

Hi-ya

awwww

Little Emilie, big shadow

Clever comments...? Anyone?

It was a little on the windy side for ol' gramps

Siblings

Frisbee in the dunes

Did the lone ranger finally find a place to settle down? Tune in next tim to see if Bax Max wanders on


Bird...plane...mighty ninja Emilie

and thats all I have to say about that

White Mesa and Box Canyon March 15th - 20th

After an uneventful drive from St. Louis, Baxter and I made it safely to White Mesa, NM.

Baxter wasted no time getting down to business, as he hopped right out of the driver’s window when he saw Michael. He hardly had any time to greet him, though, as Goonie came bounding over, too.

After lots of sniffs, tail wags, and a few snarls, they were officially introduced and Baxter took to wandering. Bax-“Lone Ranger”-Max took it upon himself to round up the horses before heading out on a hike with his new, sometimes annoying, little brother Goonie.

Emilie and Goonie

Neat tree on a hike

Brothers on their morning hike

We stayed there just one night before a morning hike and heading out to The Box Canyon near Socorro, NM.

We got into The Box late on the 16^th and started climbing the following morning.

A group of 6^thgraders were climbing on the closest area, so we hiked a few minutes to a nice wall and climbed there for the afternoon. We met a local climber who told us about all the other climbs in the area, so we spent the next afternoon at Major Wall climbing.

On the 19th we climbed on the top rope wall and finished up the morning of the 20^th. After meeting lots of friendly climbers who suggested places to go, we decided on the Enchanted Tower next and we were off...

Enchanted Tower March 20th-24th

The Enchanted Tower area, was about 60 miles west of Box Canyon, and not really on the way to anywhere. But we were really glad we decided to check it out. It is definitely one of the top climbing places we have been to, and I think might be the most scenic one yet. Great scenery, free camping, good people, and really fun climbing.

The Tower from camp

Bax "lone ranger" Max wanders on...

Michael climbing on mother goose wall

Mary doing her first clean- it's really scary to untie yourself up there

Goonie is wondering what she is up to

I'm about to head up the tower on a 5.11, the hardest climb we've tried so far

Goonie taking himself for a walk

A dog's eye view- that's little Emilie on the top

It was a really fun climb, definitely challenging, but very rewarding too.


Mary on top of the tower

She survived, and apparently is rather excited

Michael on his way up

Michael on his way down

I got to go up one more time to get all our gear back, I was pretty darn tired by the end

On the way down- I was trying to be cool like Michael, but didn't quite have the courage to flip all the way upside down.

Goonie being a cutie-pie

On a climb called ooey-gooey, it was hard to hang on because it was so overhung

Back at camp

After 3 hard days of climbing we decided to move on. Our decision was made even easier to when we woke up on the 4th day and it was barely over 30 degrees. Mary's poor hands nearly fell off taking down her tent.

We headed back into Socorro for some library time and spent the night in Box Canyon again. This time we were not the only campers. There was another very friendly talkative older lady named Vicki who was camping out of her van with her 12 year old dog. She told us that she would keep an eye out for any problems, and if she saw anything she would honk the horn 3 times, if it was once, she just bumped it.

Thankfully no honks awoke us, and after a long discussion with Vicki about...well just about everything the next morning, we were headed towards white sands.

Goonie: Monster, and Cutie Pie all in a 4-legged package

We had decided it was time. Mary was coming out to visit soon, and she was going to be bringing a dog, and once you have one around, you might as well have two. Not to mention mountain biking is a whole lot more fun when you have a third party to share it with. So we got Goonie. We picked him up at an Albuquerque animal shelter. It was soooo hard to chose just one, but this guy was for us. He's about 7 or 8 months old with never-ending energy and a rather tiresome habit of trying to gnaw off your arm. But he'll grow out of that right?

My new home

We stopped at the store to get some dog provisions- the frisbee was his water bowl. That's about the 7th time he had knocked it over in the last half hour.

mmm rawhide!

We took him to White Mesa to see how he was going to do off the leash and on the trails and everything. We were pretty excited that he seemed pretty excited to be with us.

Mighty Goonie

The moon rising over the mountains. White Mesa is definitely still one of our favorite places. Both for riding and great scenery.

He's a fast little bugger

awwwww

Goonie's first mountain bike ride

He did great. We decided it was best to keep him between the two of us so we could keep an eye on him, and he really seemed to like it. However, if he gets in front of the front rider there is a little bit of trouble, cause he then stops to check on how everyone is coming along...right in front of your tire. But we'll work on that too.

Unfortunately it will have to be a while before we can work on more mountain bike training. The day after this ride, we were out hiking with the Goon, came back and our bikes were gone! They had been locked to the rack on the van, and both bikes and locks had entirely disappeared. We couldn't believe it. It felt like a bad dream, but they were no where to be found.

Luckily, we do have insurance, and after a lot of discussion with the insurance folks it looks like both bikes are going to be fully covered. But it still really stinks, I would much rather have my old bike back then get a new one- but at least we're not completely out.

And then the next day it snowed. Goonie loved it- but it made driving out on the soup of a road a real chore. Mike wasn't sure if he was steering or not the whole time, but finally we made it the 4 miles out back to the highway.

Snow! snow snow snow snow

After talking to the police we were lucky enough to hook up with someone we had met at the trail. He put us up for the night in Albuquerque. And Goonie and his dog Chiquita had a blast together.

Moab and beyond March 2nd-9th

Finally we had arrived in warm weather. Moab was perfect. Great weather, and empty, there were so few people there. Our first few days we rode a trail called Klondike bluffs and baby steps. At the end you could hike into Arches national park. Great views and fun riding.

This is looking into Arches

The clouds were showing off to compete with all the cool rocks

The baby steps trail was mostly singletrack. With all sorts of narrow, curvy technical fun stuff.

This was one of our favorite parts, the trail was very cleverly constructed to go right under this giant mushroom rock.

And there were dino prints too, just right along the trail.

After a few days of riding we decided to let ourselves heal a little bit. We went to a place called wallstreet, where there are these giant cliffs right along the road, and did some rock climbing instead. There wasn't too much in our ability level that we could climb, but what was there was lots of fun.

Hanging out on wallstreet

Big cliff and beautiful blue sky

Itty bitty Emilie

We spent the week camping about 12 miles outside of Moab, on Willow Springs Road. We had a nice pull-off to ourselves and had some great sunset views.

While we were climbing, we noticed another couple there with a very cute dog, and they had mountain bikes on top of there car. We got to talking and decided to go riding together the next day. We did Porcupine Rim, the mountain bike ride of all mountain bike rides, and had a blast.

On the way up

The spectacular view from the top

Everybody at the top: us, Matt and Leigh, and Troy a guy who hooked up with us from Salt lake City (we left Tucker-the dog-in the car)

On the way down

and down...

Matt doing a crazy cool jump

We thought we'd be all full of sunshine and hot weather, but I guess they get storms in the desert too. The scenery was beautiful in a whole new way.

The day after the storm Matt, Leigh, Tucker, and the two of us decided to do slickrock; the other quintessential mountain bike ride of Moab.

One of the many ups- that dog is fast

Tucker and Mike cresting the slickrock

Once again, fantastic scenery

After a great week in Moab, we decided it was time to move on. We decided to do a quick trip through Arches National Park on our way to Albuquerque. Which of course was beautiful.

For all the geologists out there: the Moab fault

I believe this is called Wilson arch, just right along the highway

We also stopped by Mesa Verde National Park, but we didn't get too far up the road. It's 20 miles one way to get to the top and the cliff dwellings, and we were tired of driving all day into the wind, so we didn't make it all the way to the top. The scenery was pretty anyway.

Great clouds as we travelled through New Mexico

Shiprock in the distance

Now the main reason we had up and decided to drive off to Albuquerque was that we had decided it was time for us to get a dog. He is an absolutely adorable fuzzy crazy critter...more (lots more, we can't stop taking pictures of the beast) to come soon.