Monthly Archives: May 2009

May12

Friday may 8th, 2009

Posted on by
Standard

Whew, Saturday was a good day, but its taken me for-freaking-ever to get some time to write this post. Which is really stupid when you think about it, because I really haven’t done that much since Friday, besides a quick trip to see the Grandparents for mothers day, a run to the Sam Adams brewery, and some minor homework Sunday night. Time just seems to fly during the summer, you know?

Anyways… So Friday I got up and finally got hit in the face with the fact that I would definitely not be going backpacking this weekend. Unless I hid myself in the Blue Hills or the Hammond Pond reservation, I couldn’t get away for a trip, and even if I could (damn you lack of a car!), I had no idea where I could head to. So, instead of hiking and camping through the woods, I hiked the concrete jungle. After a very relaxing morning, I packed up my new backpack (hell Gregory’s are comfortable) with some basics like my climbing shoes, rain gear, water, food, and just enough to leave the main compartment empty but to still have a fair amount of weight in the pack. Cant make it easy on myself you see, thats no fun 🙂 After packing, I headed out the door in the direction of REI, in order to pick up some of the new tents for the gear locker. We had already decided on getting the Kelty Yellowstone 4 for the club, since theres already three of them in the locker and they seem to hold up to the elements and gumbies pretty well. I got two at REI (lucky that I only wanted two, since thats all they had), threw out the boxes, and stuffed them into my pack. They did fit, but only barely; the pack was pretty damn huge once I had it all packed in. But once I got it on my back it actually settled pretty well, and I was off towards EMS, to grab another rope for the locker. However, about halfway there I changed my mind and took a road less traveled; at least I hadn’t traveled it before. It was only a small linkup road, but it was a nice change of scenery for me, and got me a bit farther through Boston than I was initially intending. I actually ran into the advisor for H.E.A.T. on my way to the locker, and got to have a nice, if short, conversation about NU and the clubs within it, along with our “green” initiative. About five miles into the walk I stopped by Northeastern to drop off the tents, and finished up my walk along the orange line and through JP. At one point I’m pretty sure I wandered into an area that… may have been advisable that I stay away from… but it was a quick scare, and I just booked it on through ’till I got back over the hill and onto Huntington, where I picked my way back home and to a fairly delicious dinner. Happy! So even though I missed a weekend of backpacking I did get at least one good day of hiking in, and trading the blank and lonely vistas of the mountains for the living and breathing city was a nice change of pace. I’ll never understand why some people can’t find the beauty thats all around them; the buildings and the people of the city can be just as amazing, if not more. I mean, people built this entire thing. PEOPLE! Look at what we’ve done, and how huge it is! Honestly, if people put their minds and energy to it we could make some amazing things, its just a shame that we can’t make environments that co-exist as well as people in the stories can. A city hidden within a forest? I’d live there any day.

May8

Thursday, May 7th 2009

Posted on by
Standard

Wow, I forgot how rough summer classes are; its only been a week and I already feel like it’ll take the entire weekend to catch up on the work that I need to have done by Monday. Blarg…. But anyways, fairly easy day today, Went to Metro Rock with Daniel and his brother Brian, did a sort-of-pyramid set, 4 or 5 5.8’s, 2-3 5.9’s, and attempted a 5.10, with a lot of light V0 and V1 sends with some V2 and V2+ attempts. Overall a very solid workout day, but I still miss outside. I really want to head into the back country for a backpacking trip this weekend, but I can’t seem to find anywhere to go. Tomorrow I’ll check it out, but since Sunday is Mothers day, I’m not 100% sure that I’ll be able to get out there. Maybe theres somewhere to camp in the Lexington area?

May5

Sunday May 3, ’09

Posted on by
Standard

Day before my moms Birthday! So Last night I got a call that the family is having a small BBQ in honor of the familiar matriarch, and that I should take the train out to be there around four or five. “Train?”, thought I, “Why would I take a train when I have all this free time, and haven’t had a long bike trip in a while?” So I woke up in the morning ready to take on the world; I got all my gear together (rain gear, bike fixin’ tools, human fixin’ tools ← AKA first aid kit) and a full Camelback with an orange in case I got hungry. Add into that my climbing shoes, cause who knows what I’d find, and I was ready. I started up the GPS to track the whole trip, and headed out my front door. Since I was getting a later start that I hoped for, I took the direct route instead of stopping by Hammond pond, and went straight down South Huntington to 109. Turns out what seems fairly flat when your driving can be quite the opposite when your biking, and I found out that 109 is not really flat, but is a bit more like a damned roller coaster, what with the up and down and hills and valleys and everything. But bike it I did, all 25 miles (yeah, I know its not a huge amount. Shush you.), and I got to Medway around 3:30. I stopped in at a boulder along side 109 maybe a mile from home to try some quick bouldering, and that was a very interesting rock. It had three main sides, and each one was a different type of rock: one was really smooth rock, almost like sandstone; one side was pure quartz crystal, with lots of cool pinches and footholds; and the last side was all rotten granite, cool crimps and lots of “crap, the holds gone!” situations. Overall a very cool boulder, but it turns out that the people who live near it don’t take kindly to climbers, and I got a very stern, “Hey man, no climbing allowed, its private property!” from a high school kid hanging out at the top right after I topped out. So down I climbed back down, took off my climbing shoes and threw my boots back on, and pedaled the rest of the way home to an amazing kabob dinner and birthday cake for my Mom. We chilled for a bit afterwards, and then when 8:30 rolled around we headed to the train station to get me home, since I wanted to catch a showing of Wolverine, and didn’t really like the idea of biking in the dark. But I made the mistake of heading to the bathroom before we left, and we missed the train by a solid few seconds, just seeing the last car pull away from the station as we got there. So after a bit of debate, we drove part of the way back into Boston and I biked the rest of the way in, going straight to the theater to meet up with everyone who was seeing it with us. An AMAZING movie followed, after which we all walked back, and the I crashed like a politically-incorrect idea in the senate. Good day, and I hope to do that bike ride more than a few times more, hopefully bettering the time by a significant amount next time. Two and a half hours to go 25 miles? Pshaw….