rootlessdreams

Oh soooooo much to talk about! It’s been awhile since we’ve written a blog so firstly we’d like to apologize for the hiatus. As most of you know, Matt and I took a break from our travels to celebrate the Holidays with our respective families and to work and make a little money before we traveled abroad. Now fifty days later we are sitting in the San Fransisco International airport patiently awaiting our flight to Australia. I’m not sure how many people have ever had a 12 hour layover, but I can’t say I strongly recommend it. The upside to a 12 hour layover is that our bags are not checked all the way through to Sydney. Now I know some of you are thinking how might the fact that our bags are not checked all the way through be a “plus.” I mean, now we have to lug our heavy stuff around all day in the SF airport, we have to check in again, and we have to go through the arduous security screening process again (and yes both Matt and I were practically stripped searched in a “random” screening this morning), “but bare with me” (yes that was a pun, HA!), there IS a light here I promise: Ya see Matt is currently horizontally reunited with his crash pad that Josh lent to us. She’s the only crash pad we’re bringing. He’s been horizontal for awhile now because we went to bed at 2 am last night and we were up at 5 am this morning to get to the airport in Atlanta on time. Thank you so much Kate for putting us up and driving us this morning! Needless to say we’re already tired from traveling. Much to his pleasure, Matt is extremely comfortable and enjoying his supine position … some might even say such a luxury is well worth the hassle. He’s already gotten a number of complements as well as a ‘lil admirer. She wanted to share the comfy seat with him and all was well until her parents finished their meal and she had to leave! This crashpad is a ‘lil smaller than Matt’s original crash pad, Belle, but that makes her easy to travel with, and cute … and she’s an awfully purdy red color too! PS. I think her name is Rubi. Thanks so much for letting us borrow her Josh!

A quick synopsis of the past couple months’ highlights are as follows: I got Giardia and it made me quite sick for the holidays … it has since been cured with powerful medication (and a life saving 5 liters of IV fluid -thanks Nicole!) Matt climbed with Josh multiple times a week at HP40 sending many sweet climbs including The Thief, Grab Me, Chattanooga Plow, Great White, and many more. I took a fabulous side trip to upstate NY to help Brett set up and host the 2nd annual Colgate ABS Bouldering Competition, visit my sisters Kirsten and Nicole, and go ice climbing! Which, by-the-mention-of-Brett, thanks to him we’ve made some changes to our web page. You can look at any of the older posts now, and there are some other slight “touch ups.” I hope ya’ll enjoy the changes and thank you so much for your help Brett! Matt sent two V8’s in a day at a private area down south!!! I got to visit Matt and his family down in ‘Bama for most of February (thank you soooo much for having me Karen, Clark, and Granny!). We got a nice visit from Jen and Gina down in ‘Bama. Matt and I had a blast visiting Chris, Bonnie, and Mike up in Chattanooga and seeing Zoso. I had a super time visiting me mum in Baltimore, as well as briefly seeing Mario and Ben! And I had an absolutely fantastic time visiting Sophie C. this past week! Oh, and Matt won the men’s advanced division at the Sloperfest competition at HP40 last weekend -nice work Matt!!!

There are too many more highlights from these past couple months to mention, but suffice it to say that all of the highlights include and are centered around spending time with fantastic friends and family. To all we thank you for such encouragement and support along the way. I’ll end this transmission here with promises of more to come from the land down under Take care everyone, and be well … our thoughts are with you all. Ciao, Eric

PS. Our Canadian friends Matt P. and Isa had made a wonderful gift for us. You can check it out as we recently added their video to our webpage. Not only did they do an exceptional job in the video, but it deeply touched both Matt and myself. Thank you so much Matthieu and Isa for your friendship and your words. ‘Til we see you again, much love … CIAO!!!

PPS. We just added a San Fransisco to Sydney film vignette montage thing … enjoy!!!