30 Day Blogging Challenge Day 15 (I’m half-way home!): The best thing to happen to you this week.

This week my son-in-law and I went rock climbing at Climb Iowa. I’ve always loved the thought of rock climbing. I brings back the boy in me who figured out how to stand a garbage can between our garage and the neighbors garage then climb up between the two garages by putting one foot on one window sill and the other foot on the other eventually scaling up between the two until I was on the roof. In retrospect, it wasn’t that huge of an accomplishment, but to a ten year old it was frickin’ Mount Everest.

I’ve rock climbed a number of times, but it had been many years ago. So, Clayton and I headed over to take the beginner’s class. We learned to tie on properly and belay one another. That means that while one of us was climbing, they were tied to the other who stood on the ground and managed the rope so that if you fall off the wall the other person locks the safety rope and won’t let you plummet to your death. When you get to the top, the belayer on the ground slowly lets you down.

It’s a bit tricky at first and the first time I got to the top of the wall I gave Clayton the appropriate command by yelling, “Falling!” Clayton is then supposed to say “Fall on!” to let me know he’s ready to slowly let me down. The first time, Clayton didn’t have the exact feel of how to do it and instead of falling slowly I fell rather fast for a terrifying ten feet or so before the instructor stepped in and helped slow the rope. It was scary for just a moment as I realized that my life was literally in the hands of my son-in-law (Was he wondering how much he stands to inherit if I kick the bucket?) 😉

I’m being silly, of course. We had an awesome afternoon together and after climbing several walls of varying difficulty, our arms and fingers were simply refusing to work. You will never find me out climbing sheer cliffs in the wild, but I found the safe and challenging environment of Climb Iowa to provide a great workout and a rush of boyhood excitement.

Climb on!