hey, hey I'm a MONKEY

ROCK CLIMBING!!

I went indoor rock climbing today on my fabulous day off from work. I was AWESOME. After signing my life away we were given cool climbing gear, well, shoes and a harness. Then we went over to the practice area to learn how to tie a figure 8 knot, mastery of which would be the difference between life and death (or at least a lot of bad bruising). Once we finished the knot tie-ing we were ready to learn belay. The instructor demonstrated the technique first while Vanessa climbed, then it was my turn. I must admit it was a little nerve racking to be the person in charge of the rope, but by the second time I had the hang of it. Then it was my turn to climb! I said "wish me luck" and the instructor asked, "Oh, are you afraid of heights?" "Yes!" I said. so he gave me the advise to just keep focused on where my hands were going. I was shakey at first, but he was right, I stayed focused on going up and made it to the top in no time. He even told me I "looked like a pro". I felt great after my first try and was ready to conquer the rest of the wall. Unfortunately the rest of my climbing endeavors were not so successful, as my lack of upper body strength became a hinderance and my forarms quickly cramped on each of my attempts. So I decided to try out the traversing (no ropes just following the trail of hand and feet holes around the bottom section of the whole climbing area) I was much more successful at this, thanks to my "almost flexible enough to do splits" legs and had lots of fun while the other people tried more climbs. I tried a few more, some with success, some without, but all in all it was an excellent time and I can't wait to do it again. :)