Kersti & Billy Down Under: Climbing in the Pinnacles

So, our friend Brian is an avid climber and invited us to go camping and climbing in the Pinnacles this weekend. Kersti couldn’t make it as there was a family birthday party to attend to, but I was able to go for part of the weekend. Our friend Byron from Australia is currently at Berkeley under a Fulbright scholarship, and he is also a big climber so it was good to get a chance to catch up with him as well. We drove down late Friday night after work and set up camp. It was a clear night with no moon so the stars were really fantastic. The next morning we went rock climbing on a difficult climb with a crazy inverted shelf at the top. It was my first time climbing but I gave it a good attempt. I wasn’t able to get past the shelf but I was able to get quite a ways up! It is a much rougher sport than I realized, and we were all pretty cut and bruised up afterwards. It was a hot weekend, but fortunately they had a pool at the campsite that we were able to make good use of.

This weekend also marked the start of our 28 day metabolic cleanse that Kersti and I are doing, as well as Amy! So far so good, it has been a challenge to resist a lot of the food and drink but hopefully it will help me find out which foods are good for me. Fortuitously the diet ends the day before my birthday, so I will have very good reason to celebrate!

Kurt, Dan, and I back together causing mischief again!

Our Dartmouth buddy Jason (JT) came up for the weekend from LA. We had a fabulous time, doing some way too hard runs, playing tennis, and going into the city. Unfortunately, this is the only picture we took, but it was really great to catch up with him. Hopefully we will be seeing a lot more of him now that we are back in California.