Details about the trip:

Imagine this, you plan a trip with your friends, most of you taking a day off of work. You would like the weather to be nice since climbing on wet rock is the actual worst. You check the weather and book the AirBNB a week before thinking you're guaranteed it won’t rain. A day before the non refundable trip, you check the weather just to see it's thunderstorming the entire time you're there. Welcome to almost every single climbing trip, especially the ones Winnie goes on. We are to a point where he isn’t allowed to say the name of the location we plan to go to. Of course it never works, but it's still funny to joke around about. So we head to the Red, a popular climbing area in Kentucky. Joey and I get there first, he pulls out his mandolin, I pull out my guitar and we get to singing some tunes in the beautiful air BNB. An hour later Winnie and Becky get there with more eggs and burgers than any of us could eat. To give you an idea, I think there were like 20 burgers for 3 people and 10 impossible burgers for me with 6 dozen eggs. I appreciate though that with Winnies shopping skills, split between all of us, we only needed to pay $10 each. Very efficient. Anyways, since it is now storming the full day we are there, we decide to go to the crag Bruise Brothers. For all you non climbers out there, crags are the locations that house a set of routes. To give you an idea, Red River Gorge has over 3,000 routes. We get to Bruise Brothers to get some climbing in before the rain hits which is nice but when it rains, it pours. The holds become slimy and the weather is teasing us. Sunshine one moment, monsoon the next. We get in a decent amount of climbing then head back to try to light a fire. The sky clears up and we start planning for day 2. Day 2 looks a little more promising and the day 1 progresses. We decided to check out a new crag, Phantasia. The hike to the climb was supposedly .2 miles of a hike, the shortest distance to a crag yet. Well, our walk ended up being around 2 miles. We got lost and didn’t even park in the correct location. You should read my project that connects with this one about Winslow if you’re interested in our getting lost journey. Phantasia has 21 routes ranging from 5.5 Trad to 5.12 Sport. The description in the guide book says that this crag gets morning sun. Which was a lie. We got there to warm up on the 5.9 sport and chalk came off my hands immediately when I touched the rock. My hands looked cleaner than they did when we first got there. Going into the cave section I about had a heart attack. The thing about my climbing is that I get stuck in the future and in my head a lot. Being a yoga teacher one would think I would be able to breathe and be in the moment but when my body freaks out, it freaks out. Something I am working on. Once you pull over the lip/cave section of this route, the rest of the climb is super enjoyable. So now I reach the top and attach to the anchors to take some photos. Each time I clip in, my body tingles with anxiety dropping the rope to the bottom. The rope that was holding me up and keeping me safe is now gone. Knowing that I will be up here for the next 45 minutes to an hour. And for some reason I love every moment of it. It’s rather peaceful hanging off the anchors and hoping they aren’t too old and rusted to support me. There is a feeling of safety along with adrenaline to being attached to the rock, overlooking the rest of the space around me. Watching and capturing the moments of my friends. Finding the right angle, seeing a piece of art through the lens. It definitely hits my creative buttons, scratches that itch. I get to capture each one of them in their own individual beauties and share what I see with all of you. So here they are, with their own individual projects and quotes from them that I love. Enjoy! 

P.S, Ezra (my dog) rolled in poop every single day of this trip. I gave her three baths in a row. The third bath was a Hydro Flask bath since we were at the crag about to drive home. Take this like birth control for owning a dog (something Becky mentioned while Joey and I were washing Ezzie off)