To Go or Not to Go?

Getting out of town is the hardest part of leaving, they say. This was certainly the case this past week. School ended on Sunday, and we had ambitious plans of packing everything up and heading to Maple Canyon Monday night and then off to California on Thursday. And then reality sunk in, and all the tasks that needed to happen for ten days on the road dashed our initial plan to pieces.

“Maybe we can leave a bit later,” I thought in the morning. Then in the afternoon, it was “maybe we can leave early tomorrow morning.” As I write this, it’s now, “maybe we can be on the road by noon!” At least I’m getting more practice at letting go of expectations.

At one point, I almost gave up, laying down on the floor to take a mental break. I’ve been on the fence about traveling this week. I like to take advantage of these opportunities, but I also love hanging out at home with a low key agenda when I’m off from work. We have such good local climbing, and outside of Rifle, you rarely see another soul. In fact, it almost feels like cheating. While the rest of the country laments how crowded and busy their cliffs are, we have hundreds of climbs here that are sitting untouched, waiting and longing for someone to experience their vertical art.

And the weather, oh the weather right now is PERFECT! The dirty little secret of Western Colorado is that it can actually rain here quite a bit when the monsoon starts, which means high humidity and less than ideal conditions. But not right now.

And then I thought of being on the road. Of desert sunsets and alpine lakes. Of camping amongst pine trees and walking to beautiful granite cliffs. And I was once again pulled back into packing mode. I pulled myself off the floor, and I looked at the guidebook and got stoked on the place we wanted to visit, a whole new area with new climbs I’ve never even seen. I took another look at my todo list, took a deep breathe, and refocused on what needed to happen to get us on the road.