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Published: November 11th 2008
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Leaving no grass to grow under our itchy feet, (which were probably itchy more from foot fungus caused by poor on-the-road hygiene, than from any metaphysical relationship to the travel urge) Jono and I made our way to Smith Rock.
On the way, we visited the very good and very pregnant friend of mine, Jane, who we had only managed to catch up with once in the whole time we were in this part of the hemisphere. I am slack. I confess. But slack things can tend to have more give and be less likely to break than tight things… where that point is leading and what, if anything, it is justifying I do not know. I have already mentioned this earlier I think, but I just could not get my head around how much my friend Jane had changed from Uni days when I first knew her. Now instead of hand printed and dyed fabrics hanging on the line to dry and a bathroom full of film negatives (we were both creative arts students) she has a line full of nappies and a bathroom full of baby’s bath toys, potties and dirty nappies. Actually, I have to clarify that.
My friend had not changed, just her life. OK, well, she has a bigger belly, but she still had the same wacky sense of humour and love of fun. Needless to say, as much as Jane was trying to warn me about all the pitfalls and stresses of motherhood… being around her kids made me absolutely 100 percent clucky. A term, I discovered, not used in North America. As far as I could tell, they do not have an equivalent ‘cutesy’ word for the maternal instinct.
Jono did manage, albeit with difficulty, to pull me away from gaga land and back on to the road. We made a brief stop for a lunch time picnic and swim at a beautiful lake just off the road before getting ourselves to the wonderful Smith Rock. A place of beautiful vistas, fabulous orange at times pockety, at times nubbiny, always fingery rock. We camped here for a good week or so and climbed our fingertips off. The climbing was difficult compared to squamish: steeper and more technical. It was also scarier with run outs and difficult high-ball starts on rock that was nowhere near the quality of Squamish granite. But I loved
it. The atmosphere was great - big open sunny skies. Beautiful orange rock. Grassy vistas for the eye to roam freely about in. Great camp ground with clean hot showers. I kept hoping I would get get my brave hat on before leaving so that I could climb all the things I wanted to climb, but as inspired as I was with the place I was also daunted and spent most of the time following Heather and Jono up stuff. So, I will just have to come back. Next time I will be brave. Strong. Powerful. Mighty. Ahhhh… the next time list. How big it is.
Anyway, Smith Rock treated us all well, and we got to have some cultural experiences as well, such as wall mart shopping and fried pork skin eating.
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