Palmer - back in Ceuse

Hey 3d,

So me and Scottie are back in Ceuse now after a couple of weeks in Rodellar, and it's good to be back. Spain was a lot of fun though, so here goes:

The night before we left, this guy Arjan from South Africa asked us if we could give him a ride to Spain with us. He was working on Realization, but his belayer gave him a hard catch when he fell off the crux and he basically shattered his heel against the wall. So a one-hour uphill hike wasn't really doing it for him. He's a really fun guy to hang out with - his last name, no joke, is 'de Kock,' and you can probably imagine how many terrible jokes that led to.

So we showed up in Rodellar, and pretty quickly ran into 3 other Americans from New England One of them was Mike Foley, who I think a lot of you know. He's the ridiculously strong kid from Rumney who did China Beach before he could drive. We spent the whole time climbing with them, which was an awesome addition to the crew and a whole lot of fun. At one point, Mike's friend Magnus Midtbo ("meet-boe" aka "meatwad") showed up and went on a spree onsighting everything to train for the World Cup in Barcelona. I got to watch him onsight this thing Geminis, an 8c/5.14b up to the anchors, where, with his hand inches from clipping, his foot popped and he blew off. It was heartbreaking, but a pretty cool show nonetheless.

The camping in Rodellar was super-plush; the sites were flat, with plenty of trees for shade, a restaurant/pub nearby, and fully-stocked restrooms centrally located. Unfortunately we weren't staying there, we were staying 5 minutes down the road in a gravel parking lot we affectionately referred to as "The Chateau." The Chateau was nice too - it was a garage, bedroom, kitchen, living room, and dining room all in one, with a great view of the mountains and even better view of the sky. The plumbing was a little rustic, and the roof leaked a little bit when it rained, but otherwise it was perfect and we saved like $200 in the process.

After two weeks or so, we left Rodellar and drove to Barcelona to watch Mike and Magnus compete in the World Cup. Mike ended up taking 50-something out of 60 something, which is saying a lot about the competition. Another one of our friends, who has done a couple of 14d's, took 40-something. Watching finals was amazing - the route was probably 14b or 14c, and a lot of the bigger names (Adam Ondra, Patxi Usobiaga, Ramon Julian) got really close to onsighting it.

After that we dumped Steveo and Kiff off at the airport, picked up Mike, and took off back for Ceuse. Mike's working on some new project with Dave Graham - not kidding - and Scottie and I have found our own, slightly easier projects to work on for the next month. We've started training on a woody in a barn at camp, and last night we got to train with Daniel Woods - probably one of the strongest people in the entire freaking world - while Joe Kinder and a few other pro climbers hung out with us. Pretty ridiculous. And Joe's looking for a car, so we might end up selling him ours - funny how things work out.

I guess that's it - it's been awesome, but it's crazy that the trip is starting to wind down already. C'est la vie.