Climbing to California and Drinking to Belgium

My brother and awesome gnome rock climbing champion, Horace, let me tag along with him to his favorite climbing gym and post-climbing beers.

His gym, Vertical Endeavors, has daily specials for ‘student night’, ‘ladies night’, and ‘gnome night. Horace taught me how to belay and I only dropped him twice! Fortunately, he’s developed a lot of ceramic callouses from climbing so much and sustained only minor scratches and dents. He successfully climbed his first ever 5.10c. Numbers? Letters? I have no idea what that means, but he seemed pretty dang pleased with himself.

I got about 3 inches off the ground, which I was pretty dang pleased about considering that I’m about 3 inches tall.

He tells me that I’d better step up my game though because his goal is to climb the Gnome Dome in the San Bernardino Mountains of California by the end of the year. Oh boy.

Apparently post-climbing beers are mandatory in climbing culture. I can get on board with that!

We went to a bar called World of Beer, and oh what a splendid time we had! Being the “play it on the safe side” kind of gnome, that I am, I ordered one of my all-time favorites, Delirium Tremens. That silly pink elephant gets me every time!

My adventurous brother ordered a draft of Greenbush Loudmouth Soup. “Soup?” I asked him….”Soup!?”.

He smiled, nodded and fished out a handful of mushrooms to pay for our beers.

He let me take a sip of his soup, which tasted nothing like any soup I’ve ever had before. From this moment forward, I will be open-minded enough to drink any and all kinds of soup presented to me.

Since it was a Thursday night and we both had to work in the morning, Horace decided that we shouldn’t get wasted. He must know best. But I did want to get wasted. Sometimes having a big brother is a pain in the ass.

For desert, we got some odd “mixed beer” that had a chocolate beer and and orange beer. I couldn’t wrap my head around the concept and I still can’t. Stop making me try….my head hurts, okay?

As the server was bringing us our bill, I spotted something red and pointy out of the corner of my eye. Our favorite brewery, La Chouffe, had their sign hung behind the bar! There was also a gnome dude hanging out on a shelf above the taps who looked exactly like the famous La Chouffe gnome from Belgium! (An impersonator, perhaps?)