So....

...living like this must mean that Europe is close....

CARS

So we now officially own a car very much like this one in Europe.....

Citroen C4 - our home away from home. Should be something like driving a go-cart with a diesel engine.

We are officially going now!

Flights are booked! We are going to be traveling from May 18, 2009, to September 1, 2009. That's 106 days of climbing, camping, sight seeing, hiking, and bakery visiting....

Big News

Well the biggest of the big news is that Krissy got an email from Dalhousie University last night stating she got into the Masters of Occupational Therapy program!!! So it looks like a move to Halifax will be in the works for the fall.

The other exciting event of the day was that Josee the cat met Dash the cat. Dash is Angela's cat. Angela will most likely be taking care of Josee for the summer and yesterday was their first introduction. Turns out the two cats are complete opposites of each other. Dash is super laid back and friendly towards everyone and everything, and, well, Josee is not. There were lots of hisses and funny sounds leaving Josee's mouth. Dash just looked on more curious than anything. It will be interesting to see how they react when they meet again.

Lots of the trip planning stuff is done now: finances, vaccines, etc, etc.

Josee

This is Josee the cat. I am looking for a home for her for the summer - any takers?
-Krissy

Old News - Quebec Tour de Bloc Competition

On March 28 and 29 Krissy and I went to Quebec City for a Tour de Bloc at the Delire climbing gym. Things ended up going better than I expected and I wound up qualifying tied for first in a pretty strong field of guys. In finals I ended up third after making a couple of stupid mistakes. All in all it was a good competition for me. This comp was Krissy's first really big one, she ended up getting pretty intimidated by the number of girls there and didn't climb a whole lot. I think she learned a bunch from her experience there and will be set to go the next time she gets to compete at a big Tour de Bloc.

-Ben

Old news - California

The first of March I spent ten days bouldering in Bishop, California. I had been there once before, so I knew what to expect and had a list of a bunch of problems I wanted to do. The top of my list was the Mandala - after my fist short session on it I was sure I was going to do it. I took a rest day and went back to it and on my first or second go my foot slipped while doing the crux and which caused a huge blood blister on my finger - basically ending my trip before it really began. I still managed to climb some cool problems and take a few decent photos. The ones below of me were taken by Florian Muth.

-Ben

Our new Blog

Hi All,

This is where we are going to try and put some details about our travels this spring and summer. We will try and update it as much as possible - whenever we can find an internet connection...

Right now we are planning the final details of the trip. Looks like we are definitely headed to Europe and maybe South Africa! We are going to be traveling from mid May until the first of September. It is going to be awesome.
-Ben & Krissy