How to celebrate your Independence

Every year the Tumalo family gathers at Tumalo State Park in Bend, Oregon. This year was no exception. Sara and I joined this gathering last year with a desire to climb at Smith Rock which is 25 minutes away. It is really too hot to climb at Smith during this time of year, but if you are determined and stubborn you can get up super early and climb until the sun melts your shoes. Which is what we did -- up at five AM, climbing by six-thirty, then cleaning up our routes and walking back by eleven. Then we'd hang out at camp or by the river. It was great.

We had a couple of friends join us, both celebrating their independence. One was recently laid-off from her job, and the other had completed a divorce process. So we had fun celebrating with lots of climber talk, lots of teasing eachother, and our divorcee even made her own bouldering problem that we named "Just Divorced" - V0.