Sunday Adventure pt. 1

Yesterday, we visited Garden of the Gods, a national landmark just outside Colorado Springs. The sandstorm rocks there have been weathered into unusual and occasionally impossible-looking formations. (In other words, the picture on this blog's banner has not been photoshopped.) The unusual red rocks with the towering Rockies behind was spectacular.

We met Nathan Hoobler, producer for Adventures in Odyssey, there to do a little rock climbing. Nathan is an avid rock climber and took us to an outcropping that was easy enough for us to climb, but still an intense challenge.

Before we could climb, Nathan climbed up the rock face to insert an anchor for us. When he got back down, Marvel volunteered to go first. Drew followed him, then Molly, Liz, me, Rachel, Bekah, and Nathan. In the meantime, Nathan Hoobler set up a second rope some feet left of the first climb. This was a harder course, but Drew, Molly, and Nathan made it look easy.

The most important part of rock climbing is the belayer. This person held the rope that fed up to the top of the rock and was tied to the climber's harness. Nathan and Marvel did this for us.

Climbing real rock is a lot harder than climbing a man-made wall. Handholds and footholds aren't set up at regular intervals, and they may be camouflaged on the rock face. I often had to stop and look for a bump in the rock large enough to put my weight on or jutting out enough to grab on to.

We talked about trust a lot while climbing. Nathan Hoobler brought his climbing shoes, which had grippy rubber soles. When Marvel came back down, his first piece of advice was "trust the shoes." They could let you get a grip where you couldn't in tennis shoes.

We also had to trust the belayer and the rope he was holding. When I slipped and began sliding down the rock, I didn't go very far because Nathan was holding the other end of the rope. When I had climbed as far as I could (which wasn't quite to the top but oh well), to go back down I had to lean back away from the rock and walk backwards. I slipped a lot of times doing that. But I reached the bottom safely, and I really enjoyed the experience.

After climbing, we hiked other parts of Garden of the Gods, but I'll leave those adventures for someone else to post. :) Pictures also to follow.

--Alex aka Mitch

We are here!

So, after about two days on the road, we arrived in Colorado last night.

...Oh wait, I bet you're wondering, "Who are you, and why is this important?"

Well, let's start with who we are. We are a group of students from Taylor University in Upland, Indiana. We come from all over the country but we all love the radio show Adventures in Odyssey (AIO), and we call our group the Adventures in Odyssey Club (AIOC). Current members include Drew, Bekah, Rachel, Liz (our wonderful club President), Marvel, Molly, Alex, and me, Nathan. There are also a few members who were unable to come: Will, Emily, and Becky.

Now, why should you care? Well, that's really up to you. We decided to come out here to beautiful Colorado (my home state) to visit Focus on the Family and sightsee during our spring break. This is where we can all meet and journal and let anyone who reads this know of the adventures we have here. You might actually get more than one perspective on the same events. But that's the fun part. You can see and read the different perspectives and get a bigger picture of what is happening.

So, soon we will have more posts up and you all can enjoy them at your leisure.

Loving being back home, and wishing you all well,

Nathan