Enchanted by the Enchanted Tower

We’ve been out of touch for the past little while for the very good reason that we haven’t been remotely close to any place with internet in about four days. If I wrote you an email, consider yourself very lucky, because I had to type it with two thumbs on my cell phone screen, which is about the size of a two by three swatch of postage stamps. Not so fun.

But we have returned to the internet in a spectacular manner, having managed to obtain free housing for the night! Yesterday at Enchanted Tower we ran into another group of climbers from Albuquerque and went to Pie Town with them (more on that in a minute). We talked about getting dinner together in Albuquerque, and then in a flash of divine intervention, Helen offered to let us stay at her parents tonight. With laundry. And beds. And most heavenly of all, showers. Thank you thank you housing gods.

The Enchanted Tower

Pie Town. What can you say about Pie Town. Well, their literature says “It’s all downhill from here,” because the town is situated directly atop the continental divide. But I say “Mmmm, scrumptious,” because they have delectable pie for sale. As fortune would have it, the climbers we were at Pie Town with were amenable to a round robin of pie sampling, meaning I got to sample FIVE FLAVORS OF PIE! Which of course to me was like Christmas, Easter and Halloween all at once (specifically the sweets consumption of those holidays). In summary, Pie Town = Awesome.

We did some climbing too, which was, you know, pretty cool. Enchanted Tower itself is a piece of the cliff line that pushes out and up into the valley, looking very much like the prow of a ship. A gigantic ship, since the tower is over 100 ft tall. There is a lot of climbing on the tower itself, and we got on a one nice route there, but the majority of the climbing is on the cliffs to either side. Most things are overhanging with nice pockets in the rock hold on to and tire yourself out on.


















Joseph is up there if you really squint.


















Pogue's Cave

That cave was a really cool climb, up and out of the cave on the left side with your hands sunk in these huge pockets that go in and then cut sideways, so you felt like there is no possible way you could fall off. That delusion maintains itself until your forearms get so pumped (climbing lingo for tired) that you just have to let go. But the best part of the climb was when Joseph climbed up to the lip of the cave and pulled really hard with hands and feet to get to the next hold. As he did, a strange hissing noise filled the air. He’d pulled so hard that he’d pushed a fart right out of himself. He clipped his next bolt, and we both cracked up.

If you were a scientist with about thirty very large satellite dishes arranged in a very large array for radio astronomy, what would you call your facility? The Very Large Array of course! Despite its remarkably mundane name, the VLA was beautiful, situated on the Plain of San Augustin in the highlands of New Mexico.














The Very Large Array














Looking off into the heavens.

That’s all for today. We’re off to Shelf Road, in Colorado, and then up to Boulder for about a week. Thanks for reading, and if you have any comments, leave them here, facebook us, email us, call us, whatever form of communication suits you best. We always love to hear from you. Wouldn’t you if you were spending the summer with one other person? Save us please!

We'll talk about the sky soon.