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Dead Cholla Wall Climbing
We planned our Petaca Point hike with hopes that conditions would be good for climbing at nearby Dead Cholla Wall, and they are perfect. We join one other couple, also easing back into climbing after a hiatus, to try some top roping here. As is often the case, reaching over the cliff edge to clip…
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Petaca Point Overnight
I can’t remember the last time I had such a terrible time leaving for an outing. The weather looks dreary, we’re slogging through our preparations, and neither Ann or I really want to go. “Just force it,” I say, “we need this.” The sky looks darker and darker as we drive north until our final…
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Book: Blood Brothers / Elias Chacour
An autobiography by a Palestinian Christian who has been a tireless advocate for peace with Israel. It’s written in a simple but vivid style, and Chacour has some remarkable success stories that are a welcome relief from the usual Middle East news. He makes his own unshakable faith quite clear as the inspiration and grounding…
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Easter Wanderings
Our initial desire is to check out the Mentmore climbing area near Gallup, New Mexico. We start out on Friday night, finding a pretty spot on the Continental Divide Trail to overnight. It begins to rain, then hail and snow. Reading the guidebook for entertainment, I notice a comment that the porous sandstone at Mentmore…
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Book: The Known World / Edward P. Jones
This swirling work of historical fiction centers around a slave plantation in Virginia that is owned by a former slave. The tale jumps around in both time and perspective, taking some effort to follow, but the effort is rewarded by an intimacy with Manchester county that feels eerily like having lived there a long long…
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WordPress Geo Mashup Release 1.2.3
A couple more small bug fixes for Geo Mashup, for sticky posts showing up in all info windows, and percentage widths not being allowed in saved settings. Upgrade as usual.
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A Desert Birthday for Ann
We’ve been waiting out cold weather (though not snowy as predicted), and today seems just warm enough to try an overnight. On our way we detour to the Gilman Tunnels for some mellow climbing on Sierra Corazón 5.5. Then we set off to find a dirt road that I know crosses the Continental Divide Trail,…
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HOLZ und EISEN
This is one of my favorite Geo Mashup customizations, a compendium of guerrilla-style golfing locations in Germany. There are some features here I haven’t done anywhere else, like the maximized info window and interactive paged location list in the sidebar. You don’t have to speak German to have some fun playing with this one, while…