My Friday Night

[pegkerr]

I fled the chaos of my house for the Seven Corners area, near the University. I had dinner at Noodles & Co. (a virtuous dinner, heavy on the vegetables, under 400 calories). Then (Kij will be pleased to hear this) I tried the climbing cave at Midwest Mountaineering. Advantage: it's free to climb, and you can rent shoes for three bucks. Cheap! I wasn't interested in rope-climbing; I just wanted to do bouldering.

However . . .

I realized how spoiled I got by climbing with Kij at Stone Gardens. That gym was big, with clearly defined routes. The climbing isn't really marked at Midwest Moutaineering, and practically none of it is just straight up and down a wall, which was what I'd like to try as a beginner. It is just about all overhang and around-the-corner stuff. There was only one other guy there, but I still felt intimidated by having someone else there who obviously knew what the hell he was doing (unlike me). I was only good for about twenty minutes or so, and then my lack of upper arm strength, combined with my frustration that I couldn't seem to get started on any route very efficiently, made me stop. Oh well, I tried it. I may go back--they do offer some clinics. I could try Vertical Endeavors, which seems to be equivalent to Stone Gardens, but that's a helluva lot more expensive, of course.

Then I went to Tillie's Bean, where I pulled out my Jane Austen tarot deck and tried a couple readings, as I watched a music-and-magic show. The first reading was garbage, but the second was spot on.

Came home. The house reeks of paint. The girls will be sleeping down in the living room for the next few days.

Comments

[jbru.livejournal.com]

There's the climbing at the REI in Bloomington as well. I believe it's free as well (at least to members, but I think to everyone). Their set-up is more vertically oriented and includes some beginner routes, I believe. The only problem there is the timing; every time I've had the inkling and stopped by, the climbing was closed. It's something I'd like to try, though.

[kijjohnson.livejournal.com]

Go you! A free climbing place is awesome.

There's a big difference between top-rope and TR-style routes (which is what we did when you were out here) -- and what most bouldering is, lots of evil crimping and that overhang and around-corners stuff. The nice thing about SG is that we're big enough to have =lots= of walls.

I think half of climbing at the beginning is not getting intimidated by the other climbers.

[bohemianspirit.livejournal.com]

This made me very happy reading it, especially after reading your earlier rant of frustration. ;-) I'm glad you had a good time... and I'm glad to see you're still making use of your tarot. I was wondering about that, because I don't recall seeing anything about it for a while.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

I'll probably post the second reading soon. But it has some stuff to do with what's going on with karate, which I also want to post about, but I have to talk with sensei, first. But I'm going to have some good news to post about karate soon, early next week probably.