This is the diary of a part-time dirtbag.

Today’s post is a shoutout to Indian Creek and the scars it left on my arms and backs of my hands. At the end of my second day struggling more than I ever have to climb anything in my life, my time in the Creek stopped being about climbing and more about how I was learning to live my life in a way that brought contentment in the chronic uncertainty and upward struggle that comes with the human experience. I only spent two weeks there, but I knew as I left that I would never really be able to leave for good, a fact proven now that I’m fairly certain these scars aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.

Right now I’m working on fixing up a little home for myself on wheels and putting some money away for future travels, and yesterday I wasn’t really okay with being in an area that doesn’t have super accessible climbing or my best friends or good coffee for that matter, but today I am. Today I am looking at the marks on my body that rocks have left and looking forward to making more. The thing about myself I will be working on for the rest of forever is being patient and practicing the skills and lessons that I’ve learned. I could also work a lot on being okay with staying in the same place for a while. And maybe choosing to actively pursue the things that make me happy instead of waiting for them to come to me.

The rest of this post is a small gallery from my travels this spring that help to remind me that this intermission in my potentially life-long nomadic tendencies is only temporary.

Nolerbear and I at the Hoover Dam

Defying gravity in Red Rocks, as per usual.

I took like 80 pictures of this mountain and tree. This is from the top of a Johnny Vegas/ Solar Slab linkup in Red Rocks.

The third white-out blizzard I encountered on my desert road trip, after seeing no snow all winter.

Tricks are for Kids, 5.REALLYHARD, Indian Creek. It is .75 splitter for like 75% of it and I was so mad that I couldn’t get more than one or two moves at a time on top rope that I punched the wall and bruised my knuckles. It was kind of dumb, but an excellent line.

Standard selfie in Indian Creek.

Oh the places that Hannah’s Hut will go. . .

Joshua Tree being beautiful.

Eating healthy foods with my friend Mark at Uncle Willie’s Health Food Store in Joshua Tree (just minutes before we approached nothing for seven hours).

Summit selfies done right. Joshua Tree.

More summit selfies (If you call topping out after one pitch summiting).

Hannah’s hut, J-tree edition.

This space deserves much more attention, but I’m going to keep it short because there is a hot dog in the car and folks waiting on me to get my bum into gear. I’ve been on the road for four weeks now and as would be expected there have been many ups and downs. I’m in it for the people and the places, and the search for what I might find of myself here in the desert. The thought of what I might…

I’m a long way from home and feeling lost and alone and a little scared and very unsure of what I should be doing with myself. Right now I am sitting in a library in Las Vegas thwacking away at the keyboard trying to sort my life and thoughts into a meaningful work of prose, but all I can think of is how even though I’m physically where I planned to be nothing else seems to be fitting in where I…

I’m going to keep this short, because for what could be the last time in a long time I’m procrastinating writing a final paper. It is the third and final term paper I have to write for this quarter and all of undergrad and after I’ve spent more than 48 hours in the computer lab in the last four days, I’m pretty over it to say the least. But that is not what I came here to write about. Tomorrow I…

> it is cold as tits outside but too early for bed

> start blasting snoop dog and make it a party

> hear a knock on the door: "Warden, open up"

> we panic and turn the music off

> half of us are minors so we give beer to the grown ups and slowly crack the door

> random dude outside starts cracking up at the looks on our faces

> he was just playin