Hello fellow friends and acquaintances alike,

Welcome to the sites of my newest blog, A Dirtbagger’s Delight.  I, Melissa (aka Buehlgnar or Monkey-sa), is the dirtbagger. Well, sort of. I do live in a house and I don’t own a van.  But that doesn’t matter.  I have been and will forever be a dirtbagger.  I’m just looking to do it in a more stylie way than most.  More on that later.

So what to expect from my blog? This will be a place where i will write down my obsession with climbing and everything that goes with it.  It will also address the forever internal conflict of wanting to live the carefree, responsible-less lifestyle of a climber and the fact that in reality, this isnt so easily achieved, and often when it is achieved, the “dream” isn’t as dreamy as we all originally thought.

I am a Californian.  A friend of mine told me that we are not from the places we were born, but from the places where we chose to live.  I chose California when I was 20 and stayed until I was 28.  I was on the move most of my time spent there, but I ended up in Bishop, Nevada (haha) for the longest stretch of time.  That’s where I felt like I was home.

I am now living in Asheville, North Carolina.  Woah, kinda a big change.  But dont judge me.  I grew up in Ohio and I wanted to be closer to home.  My responsible-less lifestyle in California came at a price and I wasnt willing to pay that anymore.  What price?  The inability to see my parents.  Yeah, I am a fucking softie at heart, but dang it, they are getting old and I have been putting climbing ahead of everything for so long….

Asheville is rad.  I have met such a good crew of genuine people here.  The climbing is hard and scary, and the culture of Ashe-vegas, is FUN! Something that lacks in climber towns is a good culture. So I moved to a non-climber town, but still located close enough to climbing to keep me happy.  Balance. 

Ok, I have to go.  I have physics in 4 minutes.