Our editor asked us to gather up photos that might be good for the cover of our upcoming book.  He joked that it’d be great if we had a drone shot of our family on deck while sailing in open ocean.  One of these days we’re going to get a drone.

But I did remember when we crossed from St. Martin to Anguilla, our friends on Discovery sailed parallel to us and took some pictures.  I asked if they could forward them along.  Within a matter of hours, they’d shared not only the photos from that little crossing, but also photos from the several months we sailed together.

Overhangs have always made me nervous.  I took my first lead fall on an overhang, and I took another one this past fall in Yosemite.  I don’t like having my center of gravity behind me.  I like to balance over my feet, where my hands don’t have to do too much work.  There's nothing worse than hanging by your hands, feeling them slowly slipping, as energy fades from your fingers.  Overhangs are the most exhausting.  But they are part of the terrain.  They are part of life.  I can’t avoid them, so I figured I’d better get good at them. 

When we planned this road trip, we figured we'd be out about 100 days.  We came home on day 105.  We didn't anticipate coming home on the eve of one of our favorite Christmas traditions:  Carols on Columbus.  We are not playing this year, but we will be there tonight to enjoy the beautiful music and spirit of the season.  Here's us playing our song, "I'm Going Home" a couple years ago.  We hope to see you there!

I woke up and peered over the ledge.  I could see the ground over 600’ feet below.  I looked to my right along the ledge.  JP was still asleep.  I sat up in my sleeping bag and shifted sideways, my back against the cliff.  I sat cross-legged, facing the valley, so my feet would not hang over the lip of the ledge.  My appetite had returned.  I reached to my left, picked up the open can of soup I’d set there and worked my way to the bottom with my small metal spoon. 

The sky was hazy from the wild fires that burned to the north and west.  At the base bivy we’d woken to find ashes on our sleeping bags.  Although there was no layer of ash this morning, my throat was sore.  We’d breathed in a lot of air in the last two nights and the day in between.  I pulled my red bandana from the pocket of my puffy coat.  I normally wore it across my forehead.  This morning I tied it, bandit style, to cover my nose and mouth. 

I’m a comeback climber.  I took twenty years off to help raise five kids with Emily.  I did very little climbing during that time.  But as the kids got older, the climbing snuck back in.  Last year I had a break through and came to the Valley for a week and a half with Alison.  (Which I wrote about here.)  We scouted things out in case it seemed possible to come here with the whole family.   During the intervening year, we fit the pieces of the puzzle, cobbled together a road trip and here we are.  We’ve been on the road since Aug. 18.  Ten weeks.  About a month more to go.  Everything before Yosemite (Squamish, City of Rocks, Zion) was to get ready for Yosemite. 

I don’t know about you, but sometimes in our marriage Emily and I have—well—tense moments.  Tension is a bad thing.  Not gonna lie, on this road trip we’ve had our stressful moments, both in our marriage and as a family.  Living out of a van and vagabonding can do that, especially with an occasionally intense dad/husband like me. 

I want to do something some people think is crazy, like climb El Capitan.  To me it seems very normal and reasonable.  Ambitious, but reasonable.  Emily thinks it's crazy.  You may agree with Emily.  We can all still be friends.  The trick about climbing, especially big walls, is that it takes two to tango.  Since I'm not Alex Honnald (the guy who free soloed El Cap) I need a climbing buddy.  I’ve always thought Emily would be a great climbing partner.  She disagrees.  Which brings me to the point.