Gimulation
–noun
Ex: We played with the screen door, we did the bellybutton game, we read The Little Firefly…I need some new gimulation or she’s gonna blow!
beckie coming and going from the hotel room has gotten G very angst-ridden. nothing will take her mind off of pounding on the door. not even strawberry cheesecake. not even strawberry cheesecake…
sometimes you wonder if they didn’t switch her at the hospital?
I’m saying it, here, now: this kid will teach herself to swim before summer is out.
After a busy morning of dirt exploration, we slipped into a pair of swimming pants and headed to the hotel pool. Best part, pool lets me skate on a bath. we started by walking around the pool, to tire her out a bit and make her a little more compliant. at first G headed right for the edge of the 9 ft section, of course, the most dangerous section. She had no idea about the drop-off; our pool may have given her false confidence. Then she moved to the ladder, which i figured was an acceptable risk and opportunity for continuing education. She started by putting her feet on the top rung and kickity kicking and stomppity stompping, with much delight. some back, some forth, some running out of the pool and back to the first rung…it was pretty amazing watching her get it down better with each repetition. Then she tried to go past the first rung and I grabbed her harder and said “NO”. and she tried it again and heard my command, and she got it. Its just like the dog, as long as you give her really clear signals.
but she was having too much fun playing in the water, so it was time to go in! She cautiously approached the top step, figured out she was safe, and then the fun began! First step, 2nd step, she knew what she was doing. I didnt know if she’d be scared in a new pool but she was totally cool with me taking her around. She was having much more fun then she ever had with me before…her increasing comfort with the water is just incredible. Back on the steps, she was trying each time to get the water closer and closer to her mouth. It shouldn’t surpise me but its just like her with everything else — she just keeps pushing her limits. jumping off the 2nd stair for me to catch her, flopping her way back to the 1st stair, each time getting more comfortable. She laughed when I went underwater, and it was only like a month ago that move got her crying. I kept thinking it was too much, cause after awhile her face got and stayed real serious. But each time I moved to get out she kept going “no no”. must have just been the water in her eyes. she just kept splashing and putting her face in. finally, she miscalculated a jump and a landing and wound up going underwater by herself on the 2nd step. I figured that would trigger a meltdown, and she ran to the top of the steps, but then changed her mind and came storming back for more.
a brief nap, then back outside for more!
finally had time to finish this entry…
my parents were coming to visit. So we were abandoning the Monster for the high country.
We wanted to do the Canyon down and up since we first hiked it a few years ago. So the idea was born, and i decided we needed to paddle for the first time since pre-G. with some help from mtbr posts, the plan was made.
Left home about 3 and arranged to pick up Beckie and her new fabulous north-side office, so we got out of Phoenix by 4, and made Grand Canyon National Park with daylight still.
we would up camping at Mathers in the park for $18 and the convenience of being close to the first shuttle. we took a little while to arrange our gear, eat some cantalope, read a bit, and then to bed at a relatively early 10. up at 4:15, workmanlike breakdown of camp and personal needs, bustop at 4:55 and on Kaibab at 5:30. Fun fun fun. We knew what to expect, and wanted to keep moving to not get blasted by the heat as the day wore on. We saw almost no one, kept rolling down the hill good times and great views.
Got to the bottom at just past 8am. Chilled for a bit in Bright Angel creek, and got ourselves focused for the climb. DH is all good, but it was time to climb.
We loligagged our way out, annoyed a chuckawalla who did pushups to announce his territory. and then met a solo Aussie on Silver Bridge. he was worried that all the warnings for hiking down-and-back in one day, were they as dire as he read??…his funniest comment was “or are they just meant for the fitness of the average American?” Anyway, nice guy we kept yo-yo’ing with him to the top which was fun. have you noticed you always meet Australians by themselves in the coolest places?
Bright Angel was neat. I’m glad this was our first time taking it and we started from the botton (not actually true, we went down to 3-mile w. G over Thanksgiving). You follw the river west for the first mile or two and cook in the sand, all the heat from the canyon baking you in a hot-box. Then it turns and follows the creek up the wall, a lot like the North Side. There is a huge giddy-up to get out of the Inner Gorge.
ready for a break, Beckie spotted. a nice spot about 30 feet down from the trail where the creek formed a slot and some natural pools over slickrock, so we hung there for a bit. That was the gem of the hike.
Then worked out way up up up. Heat was tough but nothing we weren’t ready for. The last 4 miles were more of a workout, trying to have fun keep our cadence and not get too distracted by the traffic. We stopped at 3-mile to get ready for the last push, and think about G’s trip here with us in November.
You know you are near the top of the GC when you see:
children
seniors
japanese tour groups
people in flip-flops
people carrying 32oz plastic water bottles from Grand Canyon Market clutched in their pink fleshy hands
people walking cluelessly 3-abreast
japanese tour groups
You know you are near the bottom of the GC when:
you are used to the smell of mule piss
took us about 8 hrs roundtrip, then we enjoyed a bottle of wine at the top.
Got a hotel in downtown Flag near the bars, $90 for a crappy room but at least we could walk everywhere. My twice-scoped knee was in bad shape by the end of the night, the arthritic prelude to my future is scaring me; it may be time to give up Ultimate once and for all.
Blue Ridge was ~1.5 hrs from Flag to the put-in — not bad at all. The lake is terrific, twisty and narrow with cool high-altitude blue-green water.
Its restricted to very small motors and a bit off the beaten path. We saw only about 20 people all day. It was great, just incredibly quiet and intimate with the narrow walls. We paddled out about 1.5 hrs to the end, then backtracked to a nice ledge where we hung out for a few hrs.
Then 2 hrs back home. Great weekend.
Official Word #2: bb
It might be spelled Bb or bebe. i don’t think spelling should matter if you can’t tie your own velcro shoes.
G can’t go anywhere without it. not anywhere. except there is more than one. there are actually 4 or 5 in varying shades of pastel and sizes, and in a pinch, any fleece jacket or sateen robe or misplace lingerie will do. the point is, she wants something soft and she’ll gauge out your eyes to get it. that kind of all-encompassing fixation really isnt so bad, we just have a lot of blankets stowed about the house.
apparently the day care one was getting cleaned one day, much to G’s dismay.
beckie got home from a bacherlorette party right as I was leaving to go ride. parenthood has not affected our lifestyles much, other than we never see each other. i worry about the consequences of this, but the consequences of giving up our fun are worse.
somehow Genevieve found colored pencils. a whole tin of them. this is very very dangerous and potentially messy, very very messy.. Apparently…apparently Beckie has had these pencils approximately “for ever” R.A. Holmes, Jun 17 2007. I have never once so much as caught a whisper of the pencils, but G sniffs them out like blood to a shark. It takes me the better part of a day to collect all the pencils from all the tiny fists and tiny hiding places.
So, we store the pencils on a higher shelf.
Today the pencils were re-discoverd. tinyHuman is growing. I was a bit annoyed, more to clean up.
Later I am working on my bike. My knees had been hurting and I felt cramped in the seat, i needed to raise the seat a smidge. this is always difficult, my seatpost has no gridmarkers, and it does not show a mark well. how will I know how much to raise it?
pencils
i chose light blue. i rode 3.5 hrs on the Double Bypass this morning. knees feel great.
its awesome!
we’re running around, one direction, the other direction, shit I dont care what directions, we’re above, we’re below, we are combining the bellybutton game! i need to get a new camera that will take videos. and a new mp3 player. this is exhausting, this kid rocks.
Shaggy – Oh Carolina.mp3
hehehe. this is how G rolls:
not once, but twice, i got unprovoked dancing to the sultry rhythms of Shaggy.
all-mountain
— adjective
i used to just be happy to ride. happy to roll with Tsaina to Fort Lowell park, pop through the washes and have a smoke, ride Chiva with Larry Heater, ride TRW without crashing. it took me a year of living next to it to have the balls to ride Mine Trail! but i’ve ridden a bike my whole life, so it was inevitable living out here, where there is so much to ride. and i kept riding. I kept going further, up harder, down faster, over nastier, and a funny thing happened on the way to getting better: I got good enough to realize how not-good I was. I could be always be spinning faster, dropping further, climbing stronger, cadenceing smoother, railing harder, gnaring gnarlier. There was always a boundary out of my comfort area, even as the comfort area got bigger and bigger. There was nothing special about my riding, other than I did a lot of it, a lot of it. Some call this above-average, some call this being an enthusist, some call this obsessive compulsive.
what do you ride? I ride everything. and I ride it all badly. I am the all-mountain rider.
Woe, the all-mountain rider