Our first morning in Dumpy, so appropriately spent in the Wal-Mart parking lot in Billings. After a frenzied morning of packing up the rest of Dumpy yesterday, stopping and talking with three neighbors before leaving, and seeing G. off after all of his hard work renovating Dumpy, we loaded into the truck, got the pets in gear—Jedi in the back of the truck, and Sassy in Dumpy—and started off on our journey to Billings, where we taught a clinic last night to the Steepworld Climbing Team.

Tired out and sore as could be, nonetheless after a little warming up and a good, solid stretching session of more than half an hour, I felt revved up and ready to share as much knowledge as I could with the kids in Billings—first the junior team, and then the senior team. It’s so hard to convey information in such a short period of time—I always feel like I’m throwing a giant, heavy book at clinic participants, saying, “Catch! You have an hour to absorb all of this!” It’s tough, for sure, but I believe that even if each person takes away one or two key pointers or points that applies to them individually, then that’s good enough. I certainly appreciated the help from the coaches tremendously, from the pre-setting of the routes that I requested in advance, to the helping to handle the groups of kids and assisting in teaching the points we were trying to convey. And overall, these kids were superb, trying their hardest, encouraging one another, listening attentively, asking good and smart questions, and working well together despite wild variances in climbing experience and ability.

We ran way overtime in both sessions, not rolling into Wal-Mart to eat until long after 9 p.m. Starving, I hacked off some broccoli florets and pouring out some dressing, crunching and devouring to try to stave off the hunger…ahh. Even when the 85-year-old security dude—one of those “I’ve got one job and I take it way too seriously”—knocked and asked us to move so that he could keep all of the campers in one place to make it easier for him to watch all of us, I just stayed in Dumpy to eat and observe the pets. Jedi looked astonished when the floor beneath him inexplicably began to move; after all, he’d been riding in the truck all day and probably hadn’t realized that Dumpy moves yet, or at least, not what it would feel like. Sassy, on the other hand, was like, “Yeah, yeah, I get this already.” She didn’t even have her usual first-off motion sickness that she tends to begin each road trip with. Both of them seem pretty psyched on the camper, though—it’s a lot more space for us to all hang out together.

Woke up way too early this morning, though, after staying up way past midnight. For some reason, I couldn’t sleep after quarter to seven, and after reading for awhile, I gave up and got up, made coffee, read my morning reading, and just got the trailer a little more sorted out. Sassy was stoked to just cuddle on the bed, while Jedi just rested on the floor.

Today, then, we’ve got to go get some new tires for Dumpy, and then we’re off on our adventure, free to climb for ourselves and do our own thing for a good, solid chunk of time now. After the frenzy of the summer, with some 35 people visiting at the house and far, far more hanging out with us in the canyon, I’m psyched to be the visitors now for a time, to not be the hosts but to just check out new stuff and wander about. Head off on a journey, with nothing on our plates for a while but climbing and training, with a little writing thrown into the mix.