I’m feeling much more positive since the last time I posted. There’s not much some French wine and cheese can’t cure. We’re still in Ceuse. I’m still getting my ass kicked. But I have started approaching the situation a little more drunk and full. I don’t know why I ever think I’ll show up in Europe and just be able to climb everything. I think that’s just part of the whole fantasized version of traveling. Sure you know there will be ups and downs, highlights and annoyances but when you’re psyching yourself up for a trip weeks prior you don’t sit around thinking about how terrifying Ceuse runouts are going to be and what a bitch it might be to order a croissant.
All in all it’s lovely. You can tell by the pictures, and Joe’s constant status updates. There’s a huge group of friends here so even when you’re sucking they’ll tell you to sack it up and have some baguette. We’re here for a few more days then on to Gorges du Loup. I can’t point it out on a map right now, but I’m sure we’ll get that sussed sooner or later.
This is our fourth day in France, but only the first that I haven’t felt like I’m hovering 10 feet above everyone. Just on the day I should have been feeling better about my jetlag I decided to indulge in a great bottle of red and way too many European smokes. I’ve been paying for such celebratory tactics since then, after which a lovely lil cold settled into my system and sent me into 12 more hours of comatose like sleep.
But low and behold I’m awake and in the south of France and it’s hot, but it’s beautiful, and we’re at a skydiving airport but not skydiving. And Ceuse is amazing, but really hard. And in the shade the conditions are really perfect, but that doesn’t happen until 3pm, which would be OK if it weren’t a 50 minute hike to cliff. So in turn my jet lag actually helps out here, because I sleep till 12:30 anyways, hike at 3pm climb till 8:30pm hike out and have dinner by 10pm then am asleep at 2pm. I guess that’s how I know I’m in Europe. Because telling from the amount of Americans at the cliff you would never know. I’ve had to use a whole of three French words since I’ve been here, which is great considering that’s all I know anyways. Who needs to be put out of their comfort zone when they’re feeling under the weather anyways? Please don’t take my bitching to heart, that’s a hungover, jetlagged, sick person talking, Ceuse is amazing the climbing phenomenal. You don’t get a entire sport claiming that unless it has some validity, right?
I have a whole week to settle in here in Boulder, CO. That’s actually quite a lot of time considering since the middle of May I haven’t spent over two weeks in any single location. Am I tired? Yes. Would I like to just chill and be in a house that’s mine and has food in the refrigerator and pictures and figurines and shit? Yes. Am I going to do that any time soon? No. Of course not! Joe and I are heading to France on Monday and we’ll be Euro-stylee till the middle of November and then who knows. We sure as hell don’t and never do. Fun!
I’m going to try my damnedest to continue with my business projects and seek out work in Europe. Everyone speaks English there anyways right? And besides that I’m getting way stoked to climb. We’re hitting Ceuse first and I‘ve never been. It’s like the freakin’ mecca of sport climbing, plus we’ll be there for like four weeks, making it my new permanent residence! Whoopie, here we come…
Below are some pics of the last shoot I did with Ben Moon in Bend, OR. We camped out one night and woke super early to this amazing fog layer that covered the lake. A beautiful vista is about the only thing that can help a coffee-less 5am wake up call.
I’m trying to figure out if it’s just a coincidence that the last time I blogged I was just leaving Portland and the next time I’ve been able to blog I’m just returning. Joe’s been calling my current state hustlin’, most people refer to it as working. I’m still not exactly sure how to define it since it’s something like me putting a lot of effort into something I actually like and then getting compensated for it afterwards. Yeah not sure if I’m ready to try and define that yet.
Since I last left Portland I’ve been continuing my pursuit in the production industry. This is mainly done through networking slash over-socializing, which I’m luckily naturally predisposed to being. The tradeshow is obviously the best place to test these skills. Myself and bid-nass partner Annie Aschim did our best to sound ultra confident that we knew exactly what we wanted to do and exactly how we were going to do it. If that seemed to fail we would just say how we’ll work really fucking hard no matter what. We made some great connects, got some really positive feedback, and even had a hand in producing the d&R shoot that went down post show. Here’s a bad ass video of how the shoot went down! It was awesome to be part of the process and watch how the creative flow goes down on these shoots.
Dawn and Relentless: Behind the Scenes from Tim Kemple on Vimeo.Right after the show I got the opportunity to work with Liz Long from Aspen Productions on a shoot for Stetson. This shoot blew everything out of the water that I had been a part of before. Meanwhile Liz kept referring to it as one of her smaller production gigs, yikes. She’s a great lead and has given me a real idea about what it would be like to work in production full time.
Which brings me to now. I’m in Portland, but and have actually been spending the last days in Bend. It’s a sweet little town, with a great vibe that’s outdoorsy and hip without being overly pretentious. Plus the trail running is sick. In fact most climbers would have my head, because in pretty much the best conditions you’ll ever get in August at Smith Rocks, Ben, Katie and myself went on a run around the entire Smith area and didn’t rope up once. What can I say, climbing isn’t the center on my world at this very moment. I have plenty of time for it to be in about 9 days when I’ll land right in the middle of sport climbing’s mecca. Allez!
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