Movie Review: Meru - Sun., Sept. 20

Meru is a documentary about three world-class mountain climbers -- Conrad Anker, Jimmy Chin, and Renan Ozturk -- who wanted to summit 20,700' Mount Meru on the Shark's Fin route in the Gharwal Himalayas. It had never been summited before.

The movie jumps right into the portaledge (hanging tent) of the three climbers as they're hanging from a cliff thousands of feet in the air. That got our attention!

From there, the documentary takes us back three years and introduces us to the three climbers. We learn about their families, their climbing experience, their mentors, and the pull of climbing the mountain.

Climbing Mt. Everest is a hike compared to climbing Mount Meru. On Mt. Everest the Sherpas carry the gear. On Mount Meru, the climbers must bring up their own gear which  means limiting what they can take. Also, the climbers need to be very experienced in all types of technical climbing: mixed ice, big wall, overhangs.

Conrad Anker had over 30 years experience in technical climbing. Jimmy Chin had climbed with Conrad Anker before and trusted him. Renan Ozturk was a relative unknown to Jimmy, but Conrad knew of his climbing skills. A three-person climbing team is considered optimal due to the amount of supplies needed. They have to consider every single thing they take up the mountain with them, including amount of food, climbing equipment, camera equipment and personal hygiene gear.

The movie is intense. So many things can go wrong such as injuries, avalanches, rockfall, severe weather, loss of equipment, even doubting your own abilities.

This filming done for this climb was done for their own benefit; they hadn't considered making a documentary out of it. Jimmy and Ozturk filmed the climbs they made, but it was Jimmy who came up with the idea to make their film into a documentary. He wanted to share aspects of climbing that were important to him that other people might not understand.

The film is excellent. In addition to the climbing, which is breath-taking, you learn about the people who did the climbs as well as the support people in their lives. Bob and I love this movie. A cliffhanger! Five stars.

After the movie, we headed out to Random for pizza and beer then we headed back to the 5th wheel. Now Bob's watching the Seahawks vs. the Green Bay Packers.

The Liberty Bar - photo by Jamie A. (from Yelp photos)

The Liberty Bar - photo by Tricia P. (from Yelp photos)

Last night after work, I took Bob to dinner at The Liberty Bar. We had never heard of it until a guest at the RV park discovered it on a bike ride. The restaurant is on Alamo St. in the King William Historic District. The building housing the restaurant is bright pink. Years ago this lovely building was a convent. Now it is a well-kept-secret eatery.

I ordered Codorniz con mole verde (quail with green mole) which was served with roasted tomatoes and potatoes. It was wonderful, but a lot of work to eat! Bob chose a chicken salad sandwich with potato salad and he was very happy with his choice too. We will definitely return again and again to check out more of their eclectic, fresh, yummy food. I'll be recommending this place to Travelers World RV Resort guests!

Travel Bug out.

It Does not Compute, Random Beer Garden, and Basal Cell Carcinoma - Week of February 22, 2015

Hans and Lisa (of Metamorphosis Road blog), Bob and I wanted to hike on Sunday, Feb. 22. However, the cold weather put a damper on that.

Instead, Hans came over to help fix my computer. It was massively sluggish, giving odd error messages, and wouldn't let me play Scrabble.

Oh, no! Please don't take my Scrabble away. I hadn't been able to play Scrabble on my computer for two weeks. Bob let me play on his computer when he wasn't using it.

Hans generously slogged through my registry, hard drive, and files to delete excessively large files and threats to my system. The upshot is: I need a newer, faster computer. On speedtest.net, my system performed terribly.

The other problem seems to be our AT&T air card. Hans had me run updates on the air card and that helped considerably.

By the time he had worked on my laptop for a couple of hours, I could play Scrabble and we were able to back up my computer onto an external hard drive. Thank you, Hans, for helping fix my ailing laptop. My laptop is three years "old." I guess that's ancient for a computer anymore.

We took off for Random Beer Garden in the afternoon where we treated Hans and Lisa to craft beers on tap at Random and Z's Wood-fired Pizzas. Lisa had her laptop with her and showed me Windows 8.1. She can edit her photos easily on her computer screen with flicks and swoops of her fingers. I see Windows 8.1 in my future when I buy a new laptop. Lisa did a great blog on San Antonio hikes and Random, and even took photos, which I forgot to do. You can click here to read her blog.

Here are some of my older photos of Random...

The old farmhouse

Inside the old farmhouse, now an events center.

Outside seating and beer garden

Over 80 craft beers on tap

After Random, we came back to Travelers World. Hans and Lisa invited us to their 5th wheel for a nice, warm, comfort-food dinner of sausage stew, rice with quinoa, and green salad. Good stuff! We sat and chatted for another hour and a half, said our good-byes as they were leaving in the morning, and headed home. 

With Bob and I working so much, we were happy to spend as much time with Hans and Lisa as we could. They will be in Austin for five weeks, then in Fredericksburg, Texas, and South Llano State Park. We plan to see them at least one more time while they're in Texas, maybe more.

Tuesday, February 24: Today Bob went to a Mohs surgery specialist to have basal cell carcinoma removed from his neck. He had a previous skin cancer removal site scar that had been bleeding for a few months. Mohs surgery entails removing cancer cells from the edges and depths of the wound. After each excision of cells, the skin pieces are sectioned, put under an electron microscope and the edges checked for cancer cells. They keep removing skin and checking the edges of the sections until no more cancer cells are found. Bob had to have three rounds of surgery today to remove more cancer cells. During his surgeries they were able to avoid the nerve in his neck that controls shrugging your shoulders. We were in the outpatient clinic for five hours!

The doctor was able to remove all the cancer cells from the edges of his wound, but the cancer had deepened into his neck muscle. The wound in Bob's neck is four inches by two inches and about 1/4" deep. The Mohs surgeon did not feel comfortable removing the cancer from Bob's neck muscle, so Bob has been referred to consult with both a head/neck surgeon and a plastic surgeon. He will have that consultation on Tuesday, March 3, at 1:00 p.m. Before the consultation he will have a computerized axial tomography (CAT) scan.

Bob will have a new surgery under general anesthetic, date to be determined. Because his wound is so big, the plastic surgeon is needed to consult as to whether a skin flap from another portion of his neck can be used to close the wound, or if a skin graft will be needed from another part of his body. The way I see it, his wound is way too big for a skin flap. He will most likely need a skin graft. We'll know on Tuesday, March 3.

That's the news from this "neck" of the woods. More reports to follow.

Travel Bug out.

You'd Think We're Texans... - Sat., Sep. 13, 2014

Our boots

Oh, wait, we ARE Texans! Just renewed our car registrations for the first time.

Happy birthday to my sister in law, Gina. I hope your birthday was a good one yesterday.

Our temperature has taken a huge drop, 30 degrees to be precise. 96 on Friday, 66 today. We were able to open all the windows on the 5er and let in fresh air. Had to close them once because of a passing rain shower. Then I opened them again until it got too chilly. Nice to refresh the air inside Rigamarole after months of closed windows due to air conditioner use to mitigate the heat and humidity.

Today, Bob ran ten miles and said he felt great, actually ran the whole route (no walking). He worked, and then took his truck in to an auto body shop to have them look at a tweaked driver-side door. When we had heavy rain the other day, water came inside the cab. Not to mention, there is really bad road noise without a tight door seal. We certainly want that fixed before our trip!

Then, he noticed that his truck was leaking fluid underneath. Yesterday he had the oil and fuel filters changed. He took his truck back to Goodyear. They said one of the seals on the fuel filter was bad. They have to order a kit and are charging him another $172. That sucks because he had no issues with fuel filter seals leaking before he took it in. We don't understand why they're not paying for it since it happened after we took it there.

Last night we went to Random Beer Garden and Event Center to chill out after the work week. And chill we did. Thankfully I had my sweater with me. And we wore our cowboy boots which protected our feet from the mud, horse d'oeuvres (to be polite) and the rocky, clay-like parking lot. It rained some, was breezy and we had a short lightning show. We ate Z's Wood-Fired Pizza from one of the food trucks and drank Redd's Apple Ale...good combination. The musical duo who played were very good. I especially thought she sang an Adele song to a T.

I ordered a few things before our trip. My old Nike Pegasus walking shoes are past their prime so I ordered a new pair online. Today they arrived. I took photos while they're nice and clean. Still waiting for two more packages.

New Nike Pegasus 29+ shoes - very comfortable.

Nike Pegasus light-weight shoes with Thorlo socks.

Tomorrow, Susan, Darren, Bob and I are going to hike the Friedrich Wilderness Park 10K again to see if we can get the mileage right and re-do the walk instructions so people can find their way around on the Volksmarch without getting lost.

All for now. Travel Bug out.

Random - Fri., Mar. 21

When a week flies by this fast either (1) I'm working too much, or (2) we're having too much fun. This week was a combination of both.

Wednesday through Friday, I worked in the RV park office. To me that is fun work.

Friday night, Bob and I had a date out to Random Beer Garden in Boerne, Texas, near Boerne City Lake. The place was crowded. At one point, there was a line at the 56-tap bar which required six bartenders to meet the demand.

The lights change color randomly.

Teka Molino Tex/Mex food truck

The Nor'Easter food truck (where we ate)

For our dinner, we chose The Nor'Easter food truck because they had cod sandwiches. And, oh, what good sandwiches they were. No deep fried cod, just thick-cut cod grilled to perfection with a few spices. Bob had coleslaw with his sandwich; I chose rice with veggies, and we shared our side dishes.

The pecan trees are leafing out.

Random is a beautiful spot to spend an afternoon or evening!

Line at the bar.

Bob testing furniture made from wine barrels.

For cool evenings, Random provides fire rings and wood creating a warm ambiance.

We had a very nice date and headed home about 8:45 p.m.

Travel Bug out.