Breakfast With the Easter Bunny

Cowgrit bought tickets for a Friday morning breakfast with the Easter Bunny in a local park. We arrived early and met Calfgrit7’s best friend’s family there.

We expected the breakfast to be something simple, like a continental style, but it turned out to be even simpler: mini donuts and mini bagels. Eating the bagels was like chewing leather. I broke my no-sweets diet by eating a couple of the mini crullers — I was hungry.

None of the boys wanted to sit with the Easter Bunny, but they were curious enough to view him from a distance.

After the breakfast, we walked through the park to see the fun stuff: a road train, blow-up bouncing houses, fire trucks, a juggler, a climbing wall, and a few costumed mascots. We wanted to start with the bright red road train, but the engine was smoking heavily. I asked what was wrong, and they said the battery caught fire. Okay, that was out.

So we visited the fire truck, McGruff the crime dog, and the boys and I played in one of the blow-up bounce houses. We watched the workers raise the climbing wall, and the other mom with us asked if I was going to climb the wall. I mentioned how difficult it would be to climb it with a coat on (it was pretty chilly, still, that morning). She said I was making excuses.

“Alright,” I said. “She’s questioning my manhood. Hold up Cowgrit, I’m gonna climb this wall.” I took off my coat and handed off my cell phone.

I stepped up to the gate of the fence around the wall and told the guy there I wanted to climb. There was no charge, but I had to sign a waver. Yeah, that’s a sign of a hardcore challenge. I entered the ring and looked up at the wall from directly below.

“Wow,” I commented.

“Yeah,” said the attendant adjusting the harness for me. “You don’t realize how tall it is until you’re standing under it.”

The attendants said the wall is 30 feet tall, and I could see the angle was not a straight up 90 degrees. It leaned out over me, so not only would gravity be pulling me down, it would be slightly pulling me away from my grip.

I’ve climbed some short walls, but never one so high that I needed to wear a harness. I’ve seen the harnesses, and they look quite uncomfortable. The way they strap around and under, I always imagined they would at least pinch sensitive parts.

I got the harness on, put the helmet on, and turned to look at my family and friends watching me. They were taking pictures and joking about how I was holding up the little boys and girls in line behind me. I wasn’t the only adult wanting to scale the wall, but most of the participants were under 12 years old. [That’s probably a 10-year-old girl up on the wall in the picture.]

So I reached up and grabbed ahold of a couple of protrusions and began my climb. Scaling a good climbing wall is as much a mental challenge as a physical challenge. You have to figure out the puzzle of where to reach and step to set up your next reach and step. And every moment you’re holding on thinking is another moment of wear on your muscles.

I work out regularly, and though I’m no where near anything like a body builder or super hero, I’d have thought my muscles tone enough to handle climbing 30 feet up a wall. But this exercise uses some muscles I’ve never really worked. My forearms and wrists were tiring fast. By the time I reached the top (and I surely did reach the top), my forearms were burning. It was all I could do to hold with one hand to use the other to reach and squeeze the bulb on the air horn — the victory trumpet.

Toot, toot! The attendant far below me called up for me to just let go and let the winch slowly lower me down. That’s easy to say, and easy to think about, but actually letting go is much harder. It’s so unnatural to just lean back and let go while hanging 30 feet above an asphalt parking lot with just trust in a rope and winch. I decided to just climb back down, but I found that was going to be impossible — not only were my forearms and wrists sore and tired, I couldn’t see below me well enough to judge where to step or how to shift my grip. It seemed like I was going to fall one way or another: by slipping or by releasing.

I swallowed the big lump in my throat and leaned back, let go of the wall, and fell. To my immense relief, the rope held and the winch unwounded very slowly. I gently lowered to the ground. Also to my immense relief, the harness did not pinch; it was not uncomfortable at all even with all my weight in it.

Once I got my feet firmly on the ground, I turned to my fan club and pointed at the mom who had questioned my manhood. “HA!” I shouted. The attendant helped me untangle from the harness, I took off the helmet, and I walked away from the wall a victor. But my forearms and wrists hurt all the rest of the day.

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Hopping the Pond

Today I start my long flights taking me to Sweden for the week. I leave my home airport, Saturday, at 4:30 in the afternoon, headed to Chicago. I leave O’Hare airport at 11:00 at night and arrive 9 hours later in Copenhagen, Denmark at around 2:00 in the afternoon on Sunday.

I plan to continue blogging from Sweden, but because of the time difference, and probable jet lag, I don’t know what kind of schedule I can keep. I’m excited and anxious. The next time I post here, I’ll be on another continent.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com