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Red Rocks, Nevada 28-Apr-2005 At 4:42:45 AM Megan

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Boer somehow ends up having to lead both of the next two pitches, while Ben and I sing (the Beatles, as well as various other random things – ‘One Way or Another’, ‘My Highland Goat’, ‘Magical Trevor’, ‘Charlie the Wonderdog’, that sort of thing). The third pitch provided some interest, as Boer disappears off the edge of an arête to the right of us, then reappears below us somehow. On track again, he sets straight up the face. Ben then bravely volunteers to lead the final pitch (10 metres of 5.0). He proclaims the rock and gear solid, and Boer and I head up after him in bare feet. Boer doesn’t deal well with the lack of shoes – I begin to have suspicions that he isn’t really hardcore at all.

From there it’s an exposed walk to the base of Solar Slab. It looks much nicer than Johnny Vegas, but we don’t have time to climb it now, so we head off down the Solar Slab Gully. It’s an interesting rappelling journey down – it’s not what you’d call a vertical route. I think the rap was done in about 7 steps. It was scenic though. Most amusing moment (for me anyway, yes I know no-one else finds it funny), was as I was clipped into the fourth or so rap station, feeding the rope through the chains. Somehow I was blocking Ben’s view of what was going on, and he got the idea in his head that I had passed the half way point in the rope, and was in fact feeding the whole rope off and down the cliff. Boer picked up on Ben getting worried, and their looks of concern, and Ben’s panicked cries of “Megan, the rope!” as I flicked the end of the rope off the end of the cliff was priceless. But enough of that. We didn’t get the ropes stuck (hoorah!), and got back to the car after a long long long trek.

The climbing gym was calling us to shower, so we headed there and paid the $4 necessary to get clean, before moving on to meet the other guys at the Buffet in the Bellagio. At the Bellagio, we joined the long queue. Thankfully we got our table reasonably quickly, and descended upon the food. Oh the food, so much food. So good. At this point we were all so tired that we’re laughing hysterically at everything – EVERYTHING! Except for Boer, who was looking at us all as if we’d gone mad (he claims he was too busy with the eating of the food to actually pay any attention to what we were laughing about – hah, why would you laugh, all that time spent with your mouth open, and no food going into it). Tammy can’t stop laughing at mine and Ben’s feeble attempts to tell our funny stories from the day. Ming was just adding a Viking hat to everything anyone said, and finding that hilarious. It really just degenerated from there, and I was laughing so hard I was crying.

We leave the buffet, say bye to Ben and Boer (who are going to be sleeping in the car overnight) and head to the airport. There are hoards of people crowding to get through security, and it was a relief to reach the relative sanity of our departure lounge (I say relative, as most departure lounges aren’t packed with pokies – this one was. Of course, it’s Las Vegas). I sit and take the yoga guard position, as Ming and Tammy sleep. Finally it’s home time, we pour onto the plane, and sleep beckons. We arrive home to a DC that’s beautiful and warm… mmmm, warm. What sort of reality is this? I feel obliged to skip work.

PS Ben says everyone is invited to Mexico

PPS My full gallery of photos from the trip can be seen here.