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December 20th-22, 2021 Joshua Tree National Park sits due east, about two and half hours, of Long Beach, CA, on the ancestral lands of many different indigenous tribes, including the Serrano, Cahuilla, Chemehuevi, and Mojave peoples. Because it’s so close to home, Whitney and I decided to drop Dottie off at her grandparent’s house. For anyone who has experienced how Dottie travels in the car, you understand full well why we opted… Read More
A while back I bought a book for Whitney as a gift. I became interested in the book because the author was a climber and self-publisher. I had read some of his other stuff and liked his writing. When I found out I could contribute to his Kickstarter campaign and receive a copy of the book I went for it. I didn’t know much about the book besides that it was a… Read More
This time, the book I will be talking about is Wild Winds, Adventures in the High Andes, written by Ed Darack. I came upon this book from a friend. She was finishing her service and was getting rid of some of her non-essential items. She saw the book and figured I might like it. So she gifted it to me. Wild Winds is about a mountaineer and photographer (Darack) and his passion for photographing… Read More
Holy smokes my trip to Colombia was epic! Or should I say ‘our’ trip to Colombia. I linked up with Whitney in the airport in Bogotá. The meet up went seamlessly. Our flights landed practically at the same time. By the time I was out of the bathroom near the Customs processing point I nearly ran into Whitney as she was exiting her flight. What a nice hug that was! It had… Read More
Part 3: Old English There was still some climbing left to be done for the weekend. The long distance we traveled necessitated that we take as much advantage of the pristine Red River Gorge rock as we could. In addition to that, at this point in our trip, there had been a shift in me. I didn’t want to go home anymore. The panicky urge to drive back to Illinois and then… Read More
Part 2: There After The following day the only thing that dragged me out of my tent was the urge to pee. Without that, I might have stayed in my plastic coffin all day, staring off into the orange colored oblivion and sweating in the midday heat. I became jealous of Mike and Hannah who had a tent to share. Mine felt incredibly lonely. My first interactions with other campers that morning were… Read More
Teddy Dondanville 