Show & Tell Sunday: Honeymoon

I was going to Show and Tell our wedding in honor of our anniversary (still a good read), but this would now be our anniversary of our "mini" honeymoon. The picture above is the view from our balcony of our honeymoon condo. I specifically went and checked out rooms at this place ahead of time and requested this one because I knew Magic would love the view of one of his favorite climbing spots. And climb here we did! I think we climbed the smaller triangular looking slab of rock that is about a third of the way in from the left in the photo towards the bottom of this ridge. Can you find it? Of course, Magic wanted to climb the route named "Magical Chrome Plated Semi-Automatic Enema Syringe". Don't you love the name of climbing routes? Although it sounds hard from the name of it, it's actually quite an easy climb, which was good since I was exhausted from planning our wedding. If you can name this mountain ridge (no cheating, i.e. no googling), I'll take you climbing there, or at least take you out to lunch!

We actually took two honeymoons. One right after our wedding for a few days close to home, the mini-honeymoon, and one to Thailand later. Both involved rock climbing, amongst other things!! But first, let's flash back to the day after our wedding.


The honeymoon begins! If you haven't read the story of our wedding (really, you don't want to miss it), you might want to go check that out first. This is the view from my sister-in-law's backyard where we got married. You can kind of see the view of the Rocky Mountains in the distance from the clouds. In the foreground is the remains of our chuppah (pronounced like "hoop-ah"). I like how the top of the chuppah looks like clouds, which is kind of hard to see in the picture since they blend in so well. I'm not Jewish, but I loved having a chuppah. Ours was made from aspen poles that a friend had cut down for us, and was decorated with flowers. Instead of a wedding party, we had "The Chuppah Groupa". Magic and I each picked a man and woman friend who meant a lot to us to hold the poles. The meaning of the chuppah for me symbolized a sacred space to hold our new relationship in marriage, supported by our dear friends. It was also a symbol of Magic and I creating a life together, as in the Jewish tradition, it symbolizes the bride and groom's new home.


This was before I ever went to an RE or found out I would have to have surgery to remove multiple uterine fibroids before they would even touch me for fertility treatments. We took our "official" honeymoon to Thailand eight months later. By this time, I had had five opinions on my uterus, one of which I flew across the country to New York City to get. That was pretty much the clincher for me, and I decided on the surgery. I was waiting until after our honeymoon for the knife, but regardless, the glow of our wedding had vanished and the looming reality of uterine surgery and my declining fertility was already weighing heavy on my mind.


In Thailand, we visited one of the primo climbing scenes at Tonsai beach. We met throngs of climbers from all over the world; Japan, Isreal, France, Sweden, Holland, Germany, Slovenia, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, the US, and of course, Thailand. Magic even ran into an old climbing buddy there.


I'm not much into scenes, but the climbing was outrageous. Pulling down on stalactites and trying to smear on greasy limestone while sweating buckets - exciting to say the least. I wanted to climb the route that this woman below is doing the split on, but sadly, we didn't have time. The long grey phallic looking thing to the left of the cave is a giant stalactite. Outrageous!

Flashback to the last stop on our mini-honeymoon after our wedding (below). You guessed it, another climbing spot! This one required a hike through an area that had been burned in a wildfire and was now spectacular with blooming penstemons and other wildflowers. I didn't realize it until later, but I had visited this area when it was barren and charred. It looked so completely different now, that I didn't recognize it at first.


Reflecting back on this now, I see the analogy of something beautiful arising from the ashes, something that I wish has yet to be for my life.