Sunday, August 28, 2011

Day 52: The Turtles Go Rock Climbing

Almost four years ago to the day some of my friends took me to a rock gym in Tempe, AZ for my bachelor party. Some of you might be thinking, "That's lame! It's a bachelor party! Where are the strippers and the coke and the guns?!" Well, you're wrong. I don't like strippers, I don't do drugs and I don't trust my friends with a gun. It was actually really awesome. I guess they figured since I'm such a Spider-Man fan I would enjoy pretending I could climb walls by letting me... really climb some walls.

I've been wanting to do it again, but never seemed to find the time and my wife was, let's just say, less than enthusiastic about the idea. In an effort to do more active things outside the house she suggested that we go check out a rock gym in Austin today. Shaun came along to relive the fun of my bachelor party.

The rock gym here is a little smaller than the one we went to in Tempe and about half of it is for bouldering. The training course we took on how to properly set-up, climb and belay was much more in depth than what I remember of the one in Tempe, but I felt pretty confident about being able to both climb and belay safely afterward, so I guess that's what counts.

I would say I enjoy climbing more than my wife or Shaun, but I think we all had a pretty good time. My wife was very nervous going into it and wasn't sure how much she would enjoy it. She doesn't have much upper-body strength (which is not unusual in women), but once I convinced her she wouldn't fall if she slipped and she got more comfortable using her leg strength to push herself up instead of only relying on her arm strength to pull she made it to the top of several sections of wall. I think she surprised herself with how well she did.

I really enjoy it a lot and maybe it's something we can do more often in the future; we'll just have to see. I'll definitely have to get some better shorts if we do. That harness is really good at accentuating your crotch and gym shorts aren't the best idea if you're looking for discretion.

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