The story of our engagement...



May 28th is a special day for us...it's Susan's birthday and my parent's wedding anniversary. In order to celebrate Susan's birthday, we had planned a climbing weekend at the City of Rocks in Idaho. Unbeknownst to her, I was planning to propose. City of Rocks is a world famous destination for serious rock climbers. Its granite boulders seem to jut out of the flat lands...most of the surrounding areas are hills and farms, but in this one area covering about 14,000 acres, huge pillars and mammoth boulders are clustered around each other like a "rock city."

We had planned for several months, trained in the climbing gym and outdoors, and had packed an impressive amount of gear and food. Susan had hinted that she wanted this weekend for just the two of us (and I of course agreed, because the ring, which I had bought a month prior, was itching to be revealed!), but at the last minute, I told her (falsely) that two friends were going to join us...she was not very pleased! But like a champ, she took it in stride....

We arrived Friday afternoon, set up camp, and got our packs ready to go and climb. We headed out on the trail. Meanwhile, my mind is racing, because as we walked, the ring was sitting in the tent back at camp, and a bottle of champagne needed to be cooled....i tell her that i forgot something, dash back to camp, put the ring in my pocket, and throw the champagne in the cooler. Phew! Susan at this point has no idea.

We get to the route we want to climb. It's called Raindance, an easy 2 pitch 5.7 that should have given us a nice warm-up for the weekend, and beautiful views of the City from the top. Instead, the weather had turned for the worse. Skies were darkening, the wind was whipping, and the temperature was dropping. At the base of the route was a couple who had just finished. They remarked, "It's howling up there!" Oh no.

My plan was to sit at the top, take in the view, and propose in style. Instead, it seemed that Susan and I would barely hear each other because of the wind, that we may be in danger of lightning, and that my fingers would be so numb from the dropping temps, that I would fumble the ring!! Meanwhile, Susan has her harness on, she's taking quickdraws out of my hands, pointing at some feature on the wall, and asking me, "so ok, i clip in there, and i'll traverse left, and you won't see me after that ridge so make sure i have slack...." I'm nodding my head, and trying to concentrate on the particulars of this climb and my responsibilities as a belayer, but the thoughts keep colliding with my engagement plans in turmoil.

Finally, I had to tell her that I had to do something before we climbed...and I proposed to her at the base of the climb. Susan started laughing, and smiling, and laughing again even more when I told her that we didn't have friends coming up to join us. She finally said yes. We did one pitch of the climb and headed back down because the weather was truly getting nasty. After we got to camp, we opened the champagne, had a wonderful dinner of BBQ chicken and salad, and headed to bed as rain started to come down in buckets around us. We woke early the next morning to "thud, thud" on the top of our tent. It had snowed over night!!

Thankfully, we had bought 2 new REI -20 bags (2 mummies that zip together!) so were plenty warm. Our tent also did not leak or sag, so were comfortable. We had breakfast and coffee in our tent. We decided to pack up though, and head home and leave the climbing for another weekend.

The ride home was fantastic though!! We started to plan the wedding, thought of music, food, location, friends and family....it was really fun!! I thought to myself, man, you should have done this sooner! It just feels so right, and so good, like all is perfect in the world. I'll never forget that feeling.

Posted: Wed - May 31, 2006 at 01:41 PM          

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