Tiny Huecos of Information

Still in the desert.

Climbing stronger than earlier (although today was a weak attempt).

Meeting fantastic people from all over the place and with interesting "day jobs." (More on that soon.) For now, here are three photos:

Inside my tent.

My tent with Lynn Hill's Airstream and some hills behind.

Noey and Al with some perfect avocados from Santa Barbara. See the pockets behind them in the rock? Those are huecos.

More climbing photos to come. Many stories from this amazing place.

Hueco.

Right now I'm sitting in Hueco Tanks State Park with my little 2 year old friend, Tessa. She's sleeping in a running stroller and I'm sitting in the windy park. I'm looking up at the rock bands and out at the prickly pear cactus and creosote.

I have been humbled on the boulders out here, and think that I should take my friend Jeep's advice to: "Get in really good shape and drag your fingertips across pavement to get ready for climbing in Hueco." It was fun to check a few out this morning, and I definitely want to get back on some problems that I attempted while putting my ego on hold next to Tessa's strong parents.

Tessa is very cute. She empathizes about my cut hand, and recounts for everyone how I fell running in North Carolina. She loves On the Road Again by Willie Nelson, which is ironic since she has been to so many climbing sites in her 2 and a half years. She loves the puppies at the ranch, Hueco and Boulder.

We had to watch an orientation video, about which Tessa said, "Oh, we watch the movie again!" This park is pretty cool with rock art and formations called huecos, which remind me of those little basins on cave floors. Because of the way the rocks formed here, water collects in these bowls of hollowed-out places and there are many birds, rabbits, snakes, javelina, and insects around.

I'm sleeping in Roomie's tent in the campground outside of the Hueco Rock Lodge. Nights are cold with the open black-blue sky and full moon. It's amazing to see the silhouettes of the mountains in the distance from the scrubby dirt on which I sleep. I have been journaling and got to practice yoga in the quiet stillness this morning.

Exploration

I am going to Texas to spend time with friends, climb, and learn a little. Although I am excited about this trip, I have a bit of homebody longing to stay around Asheville. (My roommate talking about baking cookies is not helping my desire to get in the car...) I know that part of it is that feeling I get even when going out on Outward Bound trips; it's a dread of the unknown. As Wendell Berry put it in The One-Inch Journey:

Always in the big woods when you leave familiar ground and step off alone into a
new place there will be, along with the feelings of curiosity and excitement, a
little nagging of dread. It is the ancient fear of the Unknown, and it is your
first bond with the wilderness you are going into. What you are doing is
exploring. You are undertaking the first experience, not of the place, but of
yourself in that place. It is an experience of our essential loneliness; for
nobody can discover the world for anybody else. It is only after we have
discovered it for ourselves that it becomes a common ground and a common bond,
and we cease to be alone.

Part of it is excitement about life here in Asheville right now. I know that with every transition and adventure, I feel hesitant at first. Then, once I am out and back, I feel they add more colors and textures to my world.