The French Laundry

I had an opportunity Monday night to go to The French Laundry for dinner. If you have not heard of it, then you're probably not a foodie (foody?) or from the Bay Area. This place only takes reservations for a day exactly two months in advance and it's not easy to get one. You can call and call in the morning and when you finally get through you're informed that all tables are reserved. "Sorry, try again tomorrow."

Let me tell you how I ended up at a place like this because I sure wasn't going to make those calls. A friend of Anna's had a couple of his assistants speed dial until they got through and made the reservation for Memorial Day Monday night. But in the end he decided to he couldn't go so Anna inherited the reservation, and hence I was one of the invitees.

Now, The French Laundry had been on my list as a place I'd love to go but only if the sun and the moon and the stars aligned. And since they did, that's how I ended up with the experience of a lifetime. I didn't know that food could create that kind of experience but I was shown it is entirely possible. I had obviously heard of the reputation but it's something that you just can't understand until you've lived it.

The menu consisted of a nine-course fixed menu from appetizer to dessert with two fish courses and two meat courses. Every course was spectacular but three in particular stand out. The first was the "Oysters and Pearls, a "Sabayon" of Pearl Tapioca with Beau Soleil Oysters and Russian Sevruga Caviar. Just from the description it sounds decadent. The second was one of the meat courses. It was a crosscut of a rib-eye I believe and I have never had beef melt in my mouth the way this did. Of all the courses this was my favorite. It was so good that I had to close my eyes at times so that all I had in my mind was the taste of that work of art. And lastly was the dessert. I believe it was described on the menu as this: "Feuillantine au Caramel" Butterscotch "Boîte", Caramel "Mousse" and Milk Chocolate-Praline "Feuillantine." But essentially it was an egg shaped piece of milk chocolate with caramel in the center that was out of this world.

As you can probably guess, you pay high price for a dinner like this and it's probably more than you think. It was definitley more than I expected but if you can believe it, I found it to be worth every penny. It's that good.

Back in Cincy

I'm seated here in the student union building at The University of Cincinnati connected wirelessly to its network, which blankets the whole campus. Now, I've seen how technology affects daily life in all sorts of areas of life: work, travel, love, etc. but university life was a long time ago for me now and I can't imagine the conveniences and problems it must create for a university student. I'm going to date myself here but when I started college PCs were still measured in 86s, I had a 2400 baud modem in mine (what the hell is that you might ask), AOL was just a startup, and I used a touchtone phone to register for classes continuously hitting redial just to get into the system. Granted, that's a far cry from the punchcards my mom used to register at the same university twenty-five years(?) before that. Times they are a-changing as they say but it seems to happen faster and faster these days.

Anyway, enough reminiscing. I'm visiting Veronica for a few days and I arrived post-rain to a number of beautiful spring days. It was a relaxing time and although it feels like we didn't do much we did manage to fit a number of things in. I arrived Thursday and we went to a birthday gathering at a fellow criminal justice student's house finally proving that I wasn't a fake boyfriend. Although since Veronica still hasn't met his girlfriend she very well might be fake. Friday I worked a little while Veronica taught here classes, we went to the campus juggling club, we climbed in the gym, we took a tango lesson, and ate a late-night (for Cincinnati) Italian dinner. Saturday we went to a house of Colombians and made a Colombovenezuelan meal that was a cross between pabellón and bandeja paisa, went to an eighties party for the foreign language department, and saw a fireworks show at an on-campus carnival. Yesterday we saw The DaVinci Code. If you've read the book, don't bother seeing the movie. If you haven't read the book, don't bother seeing the movie, but read the book. Today it's back to SF and a ton of projects I lined up for myself.

Red Rocks 2006

This entry is a little delayed since it's now been two weeks since I returned. Mike and I went climbing in Red Rocks the week of April 22-29, our second trip there with the Calgary Mountain Club and their third year in a row. Red Rocks is an amazing place and hard to believe it's so close to Las Vegas. It's so close that you can see the strip from the top of many of the climbs. It's also so close that the suburban sprawl is encroaching on the park borders; McMansions placed one right next to the other fill planned communities at a depressing rate. But enough of that. We were able to pop into town and pick up what we needed and then escape back into the seclusion of the desert, hidden from civilization by a large hill.

We drove down on Saturday and arrived after everyone was asleep; we set up the tent and got a good night's rest. In the morning we had a brief chance to catch up with old friends before everyone took off to climb for the day. We made a leisurely start to the day before heading out to do a little cragging to get back in the swing of climbing outdoors. I didn't climb much last year and it takes a bit to get into the headspace for leading outdoors. We chose a couple one-pitch climbs to warm up on and although the first one was a very low grade (5.6) called Doobie Dance, it definitely had my attention. It actually had me wondering if I was made for this leading stuff but I made it up and it felt good. The second climb, Romper Room, was one grade up (5.7) but it felt much easier. I don't know if it was me getting back into my lead head or that first one was just a stiff 5.6 but I was starting to feel more confident. We finished the day with the first couple pitches of Lotta Balls, a 5.8. We felt great on it and Mike led a slightly scary little runout section of face climbing on little knobs of rock that looked like they might break off at any moment. It's those knobs that gave the route its name.


Howie on Lotta Balls.

Since we were feeling so good after the first day we decided to jump on a classic that we've been wanting to do for awhile, Black Orpheus. It's an 11-pitch, 1000' climb rated at 5.10a but with only one or two moves at the 10a level. It's a great climb that starts out with three really nice pitches and then has a few annoying low-level pitches in the middle but then finishes with three or four pitches of really awesome climbing. The hardest part of the climb turned out to be the descent. We had some beta for getting down but we may have read it wrong because we ended up rappelling down and reaching the end of the ropes, just barely making it onto some rock that definitely wasn't the third class slabs the description said we could walk down. We had to make some sketchy moves over to a horn of rock that had a sling around it from a previous party that had made the same mistake. We put another sling around the horn but neither of them looked like they would stay on if we pulled the rope in a certain direction. I had the benefit of having a piece of gear to back up my rappel but Mike made some adjustments to the slings and then came down praying they would hold. Luckily that last rappel put us on walkable slabs and we were able to hike out the rest of the way making it back to our packs right before dark.


Me on top of Black Orpheus.

That climb merited a rest day so we relaxed, went into town to take showers and do some grocery shopping, and just hung around camp. We were planning on a big climb for Wednesday and we wanted to be ready. Our plan was to climb Epinephrine (5.9), a 15-pitch, 2000' climb famous for its 600' of chimneys. It was a bit daunting but we wanted it, so we were up at 5:30am the next morning for the drive out to the approach and the hike into the climb. We arrived to find that we had it all to ourselves so we set things up to start the route. Mike started to lead the first pitch but paused part way up. He seemed to lose a bit of confidence, which is rare for him, so he climbed back down. I racked up and started the climb making it only a little farther before I made the same pause. There was a section that was a bit runout but I could see all the moves that needed to be made and it should have been easy climbing. Nonetheless, I backed off it as well. Some days you just don't feel it and we thought it was best to listen to our instincts than take unnecessary risks when our heads weren't in it. We spent the rest of the day looking for a climb to do but in the end we just weren't feeling the energy to climb that day.

The next day we did an easy climb just to get back on track. It was a fun climb called Tunnel Vision (5.7). The tunnel part of the name comes from a section of the route where you actually have to go through a natural cave and come out the other side. That evening we decided to give Epinephrine another shot. Another pair in our camp was planning to do the same climb but they were going to leave a half hour earlier than us. We figured it would still be alright and we could pass if they were too slow. We were up again by 5:30am and on our way shortly after with it just starting to get light. When we got to the parking area there were three older gentlemen preparing for a climb and unfortunately it turned out that they were planning on climbing Epinephrine as well. That didn't bode well because the beta we had said to try another day if you get stuck behind another party. We wanted to still take our chances so we started racking up while they took off on the approach. We figured by the time we got to the climb they would be on the first pitch, but as it turned out we overtook them on the approach and got to the climb before they did only to find that the pair from camp was still leading the first pitch. Things were not turning out well.


Mike in the tunnel on Tunnel Vision.

We decided to just prepare to get on the route and see what happened. We were ready to go when the other guys arrived and the second person of the first party had started up. Since the other guys were going to have to get ready we got the go-ahead from them and jumped on the climb. We told them we'd let them pass if they were coming up quickly. It was a bit of a cluster from the beginning and didn't get any better. I led the first pitch and caught up to the other first party. Mike followed and was arriving just as the second person was leaving the first belay. Plus we had the other guys on our tails and they were moving quickly. Mike led the second pitch and I followed just as all three were coming together at the same belay. When I got up to the second belay, it turned out that Mike had gotten off route and went to another set of bolts off to the left. I think this was the moment where we made a couple of poor decisions that affected the outcome of the day. We could have fixed our mistake quickly and gotten over to the correct belay but we debated about letting the party behind us pass since they were moving quickly and had arrived first in the morning. We waited and they still weren't in sight. By the time we finally made a decision to get over to the other belay, their leader came into sight getting to the belay before we did. From there we just had to wait.


Mike racked up for Epinephrine.

That party moved quickly on the first pitch but from there they slowed wayyyyy dowwwwn. By the time we got over to the correct belay we knew we weren't going to be able to finish the climb; there just wasn't going to be enough time. We knew we were going to have to bail but I wanted to do the next three pitches because they were the ones that make this route famous. I was willing to throw away the rest of the climb but I wanted my chimneys. And get them I did. I led all three of them and they are just as classic as everyone says. Chimneys can vary in width form wide airy chimneys to narrow squeeze chimneys. The first pitch was fairly wide but a bit slick. The slickness of the first part meant that my feet didn't always feel like they were sticking as well as I would have liked and that can be a fairly insecure feeling. To climb a chimney means putting your back against one wall and your feet against the other and doing little shuffling maneuvers to slowly make your way up. They tend feel pretty insecure and the available protection isn't always that great. It involves a lot of grunting and swearing and so much so that the woman who was in the first party was making enough noise that I would have sworn she was having sex if I didn't know she was climbing chimneys. The sounds were so similar that the other guys on the route were making comments about it. She found it quite hilarious when I told her later.


The chimneys!!!

That first chimney started out wide but it soon narrowed down until I felt like I had my knees wrapped around my ears. It wasn't exactly comfortable but managed to make it up and out onto the first chimney belay. Only two more to go. The second chimney was more of the same except for an awkward exit move out of the chimney and onto the face. It probably didn't look pretty but I did manage to pull through it and worked my up to the second chimney belay. After that it was one last chimney that was supposed to be the easiest. It was a little easier only because it had more features to put my feet on allowing it to feel more secure. The hardest part was a point where you have to turn around inside the chimney, which is not an easy thing to do. Trying to make a 180-degree turn while wedged between two walls is about as simple as it sounds. I'm not sure how I did it but I somehow got myself facing the other way. Once that was done things went pretty smoothly and I topped out on top of the Black Tower with a marvelous view of Red Rocks and Las Vegas in the distance. I brought Mike up and we enjoyed a few moments on top deciding that we definitely wouldn't be able to finish the route without climbing in the dark. We decided that we'd just have to come back another time to finish it off so we started the rappel back to the base and made our way back to camp for our last night.


Me on top of the Black Tower.

All in all it was a great trip and got us psyched for the start of climbing season. Red Rocks is definitely worth a return trip and there are still a few routes we'd like to do there in addition to finishing Epinephrine. But I think it was the last year that the CMC was planning on going so it will have to be on our own next time.

For all the photos, check them out here.

Another California Weekend

Except this time the second day was spent rafting. Jesse and I drove up to Squaw Valley Saturday morning and had a great day on the mountain considering it's nearing the middle of May. We spent the first part of the day boarding through heavy, wet snow that actually made for great conditions. Then we went to the top of the mountain and sat in a hot tub by the pool for an hour or so. It's so surreal sitting in a hot tub having a bear while looking out over the snow covered mountain. We almost just stayed there until the end of the day but we were able to get back in gear and spend the last part of the day in the terrain park.

The terrain park is quite intimidating and the first thing we went on was the half pipe, which has you dropping onto a completely vertical and then shooting you over to the other side. Then you go back up the other vertical side, which, if you've gotten enough speed, takes you right up and into the air where you have to turn to come back down. My first entry into the pipe was not pretty but I found that I was getting the hang of it after a few runs and able to at least look somewhat competent.

Then there are the huge jumps in the park. The problem with those is that you can't go off them half-assed. I didn't want to approach the first one with anywhere near the speed necessary but that of course put me right in the middle of the flat section where I landed jarringly hard. The idea is to have enough speed to land past the flat section and on the downward sloping side where you can ride out the landing and prepare for the next one. Of course that's easier said than done when you're barreling down the slope with a huge wall coming right at you. We both started to feel more confident on some of the smaller ones and with a little more time I could probably take on a larger jump. But it will have to wait for another season.

From Squaw we drove down to the American River between Auburn and Placerville and met up with Anna. We camped for the night and then drove to the put-in for our day on the river. This was my first time rafting and it definitely wasn't the ideal time to get an introduction. All that snow we had been snowboarding on the day before was melting quickly and making for a fast flow with very cold water. There was a woman going around making sure everyone knew what they were doing and that they had wetsuits. Well, we didn't have wetsuits for all of us so she started telling us about the people she had been pulling out of the water that were hypothermic after less than two minutes in the water. And they had wetsuits. That didn't instill a lot of confidence in me. But we proceeded to see if we could borrow a couple while we debated if we still wanted to go. In the end we did manage to borrow two wetsuits and since we already had a third we made the decision to go.

It was all new to me but apparently we were in a very small boat, which is more prone to flipping; the water flow was exceptionally high and so the rapids were more difficult to navigate; and then all rapids looked scary to me, whether they were minor or major. Right off the bat in the first set of rapids we almost flipped our raft. I didn't know we had almost flipped until Jesse told me afterwards. And that wasn't the only time but it was the closest call. Plus the rapids have intimidating names like Meat Grinder, Triple Threat, and Troublemaker. That last one, Troublemaker, was as crazy as it got and it was enough for me. I'm not so sure I'm into rafting but I might have to give it another shot under better conditions. As a friend once told me, I'm a spider not a fish. And I have to agree.