Getting closer......

Well, this post is about 3 weeks late.   A casualty of spending every free moment trying to put this kitchen back together!  We're really much farther along than these pics show, so I'll post again in another week or so to get all up to date.  Mike's dad Steve has been a huge help, here working 3 or 4 days a week and leading us through every step of they way!

We're trying to add some elements of eco-friendliness to this project, which has been an interesting endeavor.  It's not always easy to find the green products, but it has been worth the effort for the most part.  It's nice to know that we're not adding unhealthy chemicals to our indoor environment, and we're doing what we can to prevent more from being emitted in the world outside our doors.   Here's some of what we did:

To insulate the room we used sheep's wool!  In addition to being non-flammable, non-polluting (unless you count sheep poop), and comfortable to work with, it has the benefit of smelling like a nice wool blanket!   Plus, it's made in the US, and helps keep farmers on their land. (Black Mountain InsulationUSA)

The cabinets are made in a local factory in Bow, NH (Young Furniture).  They use FSC certified wood, and formaldehyde free plywood in their construction.  The cabinets are unfinished, so I spent a fair amount of time painting them, but it made them more affordable!

The counter we got is a butcher block, also FSC certified with formaldehyde free glue and sealant.  I looked at several other interesting materials, like compressed paper (PaperStone) and recycled glass/solid surface stuff, but they were just too expensive.  Plus, I really like the feel of wood, so butcher block was a good choice.

For our decking material I found a company in Wisconsin called Renew Plastics that makes completely recycled plastic 'boards' that are PVC and BPA free .  It was a little tricky to track them down, but I worked with a local lumberyard that was very helpful and managed to find what I was looking for (thanks Exeter Lumber!).  Jamie basically laid the whole deck surface for us, which was an amazing help! 

I also used VOC free paint, and of course did some creative recycling of materials that were in the house already (some cabinets that are our pantry and the kitchen sink). 


So that's the news for now!  I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving, and I'll try my best to get some newer photos posted after I recover from stuffing myself on Thursday! :)

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Kitchen Chronicles

Well, we arrived home from our trip Labor Day weekend and immediately jumped into kitchen renovations.  So far we've built most of a deck (still waiting for decking boards to arrive), demolished the walls and ceiling, created a door where there once was a window and done lots of research into green materials for each step of the way.  I also replaced my car after 11 1/2 years of faithful service!  And, just to add more excitement to the mix, our friend Jamie got an unexpected early invite to start his Master's program in Mass. and is staying with us for a while....the more the merrier!!  For anyone who's interested in the saga, here are some pictures to get you started (as well as some last photos from Colorado): 

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The Final Stretch

Well, here we are at the end of the trip.  We start wending our way home on Saturday, it's hard to believe that it's time to get back to jobs and home responsibilities, but it has been wonderful to have this time together to explore and enjoy the first months of our marriage. 

Mike did one alpine peak in BC--Mt. Habrich-- with his friend Duncan (from England); they hiked in 4 hours or so to reach the final headwall, 1000 feet of climbing!  They really enjoyed it but it sounds like a long haul!  Just before we left Squamish we took a 3 day backpacking trip in Garibaldi Provincial Park.  It was a great time; beautiful, pristine wilderness, hardly any people around and relatively good weather (one day was rainy off and on).  We have lots of pictures to share, so I hope you enjoy them

Since then we've been 'camped' in Boulder, staying with our friend Colin and enjoying the luxuries of life under a roof: refrigeration, running water, etc.... ;)  We've done a lot of climbing at small crags which has been a nice change from the long, committing days we had in Squamish.  The three of us did do one adventure climb in Rocky Mountain National Park: the Petit Grepon.  It was 5+ miles of hiking in to a remote little pond surrounded by granite walls.  The Petit Grepon is a free-standing tower, 1000 feet high, with a tiny summit--maybe 8 feet by 25 feet? A pretty amazing spot, and a fun day for us.   The climbing wasn't particularly hard, but it was a long strenuous day altogether, we started at 7:30 a.m. and didn't make it back to the car until 9:00 p.m!   We were ravenous and exhausted but very happy to have done it!  


Hope you all enjoy the pictures, and we look forward to catching up with everyone when we get home!

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Well, I was supposed to write this post a week ago, but time flew by and here I am a week later just getting around to it.  Oh well!  We've just finished a little backpacking trip and will be leaving BC tomorrow, but I'll save that story for next time.

For now, most of what I have to report on is climbing, climbing, climbing.  We did as many long routes up the Chief as we could fit in, as well as visiting other spots in the area like the Malamute, Slhanay,  and Bulletheads.  I was most excited about doing the Grand Wall; it's a pretty classic route with some hard climbing and it's one of the routes we didn't get to do together last time we were here.  The last few pitches of the route--called the Roman Chimneys--are not generally climbed anymore, and after doing them we could see why!  A bit dirty and mossy, a bit harrowing and not so fun.  But, after talking about wanting to do that part for 2 years, at least Mike can say that he's done it!

We continued to have beautiful weather until the evening of July 31st, when we saw the first rain since we arrived.  I guess July really is the best time to be here!  Since then we've had a few more showery days, enough to make it hard to climb but not so bad that it's a pain to be camping.  We also got to enjoy the local 'Logger Sports' festival, with competitions in more kinds of wood chopping than you knew existed!  Tree climbing and log rolling in water were also fun to watch. 


Just a few new pictures this time.....since we've been primarily climbing there isn't much new to show.  You can only take so many pictures of a person climbing above or below you on a wall; they all pretty much look the same! 

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Squamish, redux

We arrived in Squamish at the tail end of their long winter and dragged out spring to enjoy a week of 90+ degree weather!  We immediately settled in and got down to business...there's more climbing to be done than we could possibly touch in a lifetime.

For those who don't know about this climbing paradise, take a look at the western coast of British Columbia, find Vancouver then go North about 25 miles to the little town of Squamish at the tip of Howe Sound.  There you will find a formation called the Stawamus Chief, 2000 feet of granite walls rising straight out of the water.  Not to mention all the other 'smaller' formations in the area that would be world class in their own right: the Slaney (formerly Squaw), the Papoose, the Malamute....400-1000 feet high and riddled with amazing rock to climb.  If you're interested in checking out the area try this site: www.squamishclimbing.com 

So far we've climbed about as much as my muscles can handle (Mike could climb 24 hours a day).  We've done some incredible routes, including a day of 18 pitches and over 2000 feet of climbing to the top of the Second Peak.   There's so much daylight here that you can literally climb until almost 10 at night (and we have done so accidentally on a couple of occasions!) .  We've met a lot of nice people here, including a whole crew of folks from the UK.  It's interesting, when we were here 2 years ago there were a lot more Americans from all over the place.  Now we see a few license plates from the Northwest, California and Colorado, but by and large everyone else is either Canadian or has traveled from Europe.  The cooking area at night is a hodge podge of languages; we've heard German,French, Dutch, Swiss, Flemish, Hebrew, Portuguese.....it's a pretty cool mix!   Not a lot else is different from our last trip here, the campground is a little bigger and there's now a water tap at the cooking area, oh joy! :)  Simple pleasures!  

Last week there was big drama: a guy tried to BASE jump off the top of the Chief on a very windy day.  He ended up getting blown back into the cliff with his parachute and (very luckily) got stuck on a small ledge a couple hundred feet from the top.  A huge rescue effort was pulled together that took about 6 hours and lots of helicopter time.  He was eventually pulled up and flown away, with only a broken ankle.  Incredible!  So that's the big news for now!

We'll stay here a bit longer, not really sure exactly when we'll be able to drag ourselves away or where we'll be next, so stay tuned!

Hope this finds everyone well and enjoying the summer!

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And so it begins....

We left NH on Tuesday, June 22nd.  We spent a day or so in Western NY visiting Grandma Veazey and other family, then moved on to Madison, WI for a visit with Jamie and Ellen.  Sandstone climbing with complimentary fingerprint erasing, farmer's market with more fresh veggies, breads and other goodies than could possibly be consumed....good times were had by all!  It was hard to drag ourselves away, but amazing climbing and adventures beckoned! 


We continued on our way west, stopping to play at a roadside sandstone formation called Castle Rock, and eventually washing up in the far west of Minnesota at Blue Mounds State Park.  Mike checked out the climbing (and I use the term lightly), I watched the buffalo roam (well, really, they were just grazing), we rested up for a night then moved on out in the morning.  Stopped in the Black Hills of South Dakota for a day and a half; tried to find the climbing in Victoria Canyon but only succeeded in stream-whacking for a couple miles (that's bushwhacking, but in a stream).  At least it was cool!  I don't think we've had a day yet that was below 90.  We also visited the Needles in General Custer State Park, we put on a show for the tourists at one formation, then explored a little bit farther afield in a nice shady spot.  Amazing spot, unlimited climbing!  No time to linger, though, because we were bound for Devil's Tower. 


Arrived at the tower Wed late in the afternoon, just in time for a severe thunderstorm.  Luckily the predicted hail did not arrive, I don't know if the car could have handled another hail beating!  Colin drove up from Boulder to join us for a couple of days, and we huddled in the car for the evening while the rain poured down.  Luckily the next morning was beautiful, so we went looking for some climbing in the shade.  We were sort of successful.....it's not easy when you're on a thousand foot high volcanic cone in the middle of a plain.  More hot weather brought more thunderstorms, we had just rapped down and were considering what else to climb when we heard the first rolls of thunder.  Packing up and hiking out quickly were suddenly a priority! 


The next morning the three of us got up early to do the Durrance Route to the summit. We were hiking in by 6:15, but there were still two parties ahead of us by the time we got there.  It's a popular route, and the weather was supposed to be very hot again so I guess we all had the same idea.  Luckily it was a windy day, so the heat wasn't quite as bad as it could have been, but rapping down in 95 degrees and full sun was, shall we say, a bit uncomfortable?  Still, it was amazing to be on the summit of such a unique formation and have a chance to play on some very cool rock!   We stuck around one more day to try a few more routes, including El Matador which is one of the classics of the tower.  Imagine climbing up the inside of a 6 foot wide hallway for 150 feet and you'll get some idea of what it was like.  Extremely intense!  The sun finally chased us off the wall, and we jumped in the car to continue West.  We stopped one night in the middle of Montana, and one night just north of Seattle, and today crossed the border into Canada!  We just arrived in Squamish this afternoon and are looking forward to settling in for some serious playtime on incredible granite!  Tally so far: 2 weeks, 14 states, 5 climbing areas, 3,200 miles.

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On to the next adventure...

When last we met, our intrepid adventurers had just arrived home to jump into major house renovations.  Fast forward 18 months and one wedding and here we are, hitting the road again!  So, for those who are interested in keeping up with our travels the blog will be revived for the summer.

We really enjoyed catching up with family and friends at our wedding.  It was such a whirlwind, we wished we could have spent more time with everyone but I guess that's how it tends to go for the bride and groom :)  Thanks to everyone who made the trip, and for those who couldn't make it...you were missed!  Thanks also to all who shared pictures through email and Facebook, it's been great to see all the different perspectives on the weekend.  For anyone who'd like more wedding pics, please check out our friend Kump's official site: www.weddingprints.com  Search for 'veazey', click on 'select', then put in the password: kumpy (no need to enter your email address).  You're able to order prints if you would like, or just check out his amazing work!

Heading out now...more to come soon!