Downtown Atlanta Restaurant Week

Just a heads up for those that like to go out to eat, Restaurant Week for various downtown eateries is taking place now through August 8th.  Basically, each restaurant has a three course prix fixe menu for either $25 or $35, depending on the place.  We had mixed results when trying the Virginia Highlands Restaurant Week but it was still a nice night out.

A full list of the restaurants and their menus can be found here.

An Interesting Video

I've been back home for a couple of weeks and things have pretty much returned to normal.  Theresa and I had a really nice day on Sunday trekking to Decatur for lunch at the Corner Pub and then the Dekalb Farmers Market.  If you've never been, the DFM is really cool, filled with lots of produce, meat, seafood, beer and wine, and some things that are hard to find at other local stores.  They also have some house made items that are quite good.  Last time we went we bought a couple of their fresh salsas that were great.  This time we bought some very flavorful shrimp and some housemade pasta and marinara sauce.  The shrimp I boiled and served cold with a baked potato while last night we had the leftover shrimp on top of the pasta with some grated gruyere cheese.  Both were very good and relatively cheap.

On the climbing side of things, I've become a gym rat.  The heat has killed all motivation to climb outside so I've been training at Stone Summit, Atlanta's new gym.  I'll give a full review in some later post but in short, it's a pretty amazing place.

On the safety side of things, a friend emailed this video to me and I wanted to share it with anyone who might be reading this.  It's work friendly, comparing the properties of nylon and dyneema slings (remember, spectra is chemically the same as dyneema so the same applies to it).

The take home messages for me were:
1.  Don't tie knots in spectra/dyneema runners
2.  Be vigilant in controlling the slack in multipitch anchors.
3.  Short falls can generate big forces!

Be careful out there!

Back Home

I'm now back in Atlanta, hanging with the dogs on the couch.  Some brief updates and thoughts.

The highlight of the trip was definitely when Theresa came over.  Our time in Paris was great and Mallorca was everything we hoped it would be.  I can think of nothing negative whatsoever that happened while she was in Europe.  The climbing part of the trip was nice but seemingly a bit snakebit with lots of annoyances popping up.  Even the trip home had a few with the flight from Barcelona being on a very old plane with no in-flight entertainment and delays resulting in getting in to Atlanta 6 hours late.

Back in Atlanta I've just about adjusted to the time change and gotten most of my food cravings taken care of.  We ate at Waffle House, Jim N Nicks (BBQ), had tacos with seared tuna, and Theresa made pizza.  Everything was good but now the fun is over and it's time to get back to eating healthy.

I also watched the finals of the Youth Nationals at Atlanta's new mega-gym, Stone Summit.  I had never seen an indoor climbing competition like this before and it was pretty cool, a little different than I would have expected.  The energy was high, the kids super strong, and (surprising to me) very supportive of each other.  While they were all trying super hard and wanted to win, everyone seemed to be cheering for each other, which was very cool.  On a side note, the gym looked fantastic.  I heard many people saying extremely positive things so good job Daniel and Darren!

Now it's time to get ready for the next semester and work on some grant applications.  On the climbing side, with the heat fully here I think a lot of indoor training is on the agenda.

Happy Independence Day, America

Happy 4th of July, everybody.  Not so many Americans here (none at the moment?) so I'll drink a beer for all us tonight.  Wonder if I can get a Budweiser around here?

Just a few days left on my European trip, a fact that elicits positive and negative reactions from me.  Climbing wise I feel that I'm finally starting to get back in shape but I'm also ready to go home.  Tent living has gotten old, I miss Theresa and the girls, etc.  So I'll try to make the most of my last few days and then run for the border.

The arrival of a new calendar month has brought warmer temperatures and lots of people.  My formerly quiet campground (El Puente) is now quite crowded, mostly with Canyoners.  School holidays are in full effect now so there's no shortage of kids from very young to teenagers.  Things aren't so bad but people stay up late here with the Spanish schedule in full effect.  Two nights ago there was a family firing up the barbecue grill for dinner at 1230A, a not so rare occurrence.

My Once Quiet Abode

Two days ago I went on a long hike in the afternoon that climbs the ridge above the Mascun and Andrebot gorges.  Some pictures:

The church spire in the Village of Rodellar is visible in the middle left of the picture.

These yellow blooms flowers only seem to bloom at a certain height, about 2000 feet above the gorge floor.

A view down into the Andrebot gorge.  The deserted village of Otin can barely be seen following the path in the center of the image.  Fields of the yellow flowers are also present.

Finally a few climbing pictures.  These are of Meghan ? from Canada on and off her project.  She sent in style next try.