Happy birthday Angel!! Today we had quite an adventure. We left the hotel, and started a traverse over a bunch of peaks, to loop around the valley and end up at the Elbrus ski resort. Big day we hoped. We didn't accomplish the whole traverse, but we had a lot of fun. We scrambled and climbed on exposed towers leaning over glaciers, we discovered a peak broken in half by an earthquake, we crossed though waterfalls-- it was very diverse. The broken peak was actually pretty crazy. The whole thing was a jumble of broken, loose rocks stacked on each other. Touch one fridge sized block, and 4 more move above it. It definitley kept us on our toes. After the whole day of scrambling and climbing, we descended to grassy hills with flowers and butterflies. Then we put our helmets on. (rock fall danger). The whole climb was right on the border of Georgia and Russia, which are in dispute. Because of this it is a big deal to be on the border, so we got checked twice by military outposts. The guys would stroll up, fully geared with huge machine guns and their arms crossed, and start asking us questions in Russian. Speak English? Some of them do, some of them don't.

All day, I just couldn't help but laugh. I'm just having so much fun with life right now, traveling all over the world, with supporitng family and friends. Every day is an adventure, at home and out here. New friends, new places, its awesome. And today was a perfect example of how I feel. We were so free, wandering and exploring a mountain range in Russia, going wherever our feet took us, probing the unknown in a foreign county. This whole trip has been amazing like that, we have had so much time to do whatever we want, to do things not on our agenda untill we we're doing them. Great day in the hills. At the hotel, our muscles are just tired in a good way, in a way that lets you know they've been used well. A hot shower, relaxing, and good times.