Spider Monkey

Last Friday night, I joined up with some of the friends that I had made at last week's party. They are all climbers and encouraged me to join the belay class. We met at the Rock Gym where I was fitted with the most uncomfortable rental harness ever with shoes funkier than bowling rentals. Nevertheless, I loved the class, worked on my technique, and then moved onto the walls to join my new friends. Some were climbing via harness, and others were bouldering. The climbing wall was super busy, so I joined the other group at bouldering, where I learned the levels, color coding, and cheered on some friends who were trying to overcome a difficult obstacle.

I immediately jumped onto a couple of the simple routes and had so much fun. At one point, they were all cheering me on as I attacked a new path. I found myself hanging upside down, not sure how to move onto the next grip. We all started to laugh as I asked for advice, hanging upside down. And of course, I start laughing at myself and with them; thus, throwing off my core balance and BOOM-- I lost my balance and fell onto the cushy mats below. Climbing is not a laughing matter--you'll fall if you chuckle too hard.

Noticing that we burned off a lot of calories on the wall and in laughing (ahem, with) me, we decided to fuel up-- on beer and pizza. We finished by heading to Mooses Tooth where a dozen of us dined on humus, salads, and Oktoberfest pizza.