Pipes and ryebread

I met the coolest kid on the plane ride out to DC. Her name is Piper and the first thing I noticed about her was her sparkly pink shoes. I asked her where she got them and she said "An air conditioner fell on me and I was in the hospital". That is the best thing anyone has ever said to me on a plane.

Pipe's mom used to be a professional trapeze artist (she now works for State dept.) and Pipes decided to rig a "trapeze" (bath towel) over an 80 pound air conditioner. Needless to say at first swing the thing fell off the wall and crushed her chest. She was in the hospital for 4 days and then had to wait another 2 days to be able to fly (on a plane this time). The injury did not slow her down any. First she made cards for the pilots. Then she made cards for the stewardesses. Then she wanted to see my broken hand. As we were deplaning she was showing me how she could jump (almost concusssing some surrounding passengers) and her mom told her to chill out. Pipes said "I haven't been able to work out for 6 days, so I have to get some exercise right now!"

Hopefully she will have a full recovery. She belly flopped onto my legs a few times which scared me but seemed to be fine for her.

Also, I ran into an old climbing pal named Ryan (aka ryebread, his Jewish name) in DIA. It was great to see him again and hopefully I talked him into moving to Denver so we can climb together. He coaches kids in competitive climbing and placed 10 of them in Nationals. Go Ryebread!