Southern Crossing, 5.11+, V, Brandberg, Namibia. Photo by Peter Doucette.

“Was Namibia everything you expected it to be?” my friend Kyle asked me this morning.

I’d been home for eighteen hours and had almost driven the wrong way on the road, twice. I hadn’t yet seen the poodle. A scab on my shoulder had started to bleed again.

“More,” I replied. “Better.”

On June 1, Peter Doucette, Kate Rutherford, and I topped out a new 1300-foot 5.11+, Grade 5 rock climbing first ascent on the Brandberg, Namibia’s highest peak. It was the kind of climb you do in Yosemite. It capped the kind of trip you never get a chance to repeat in your lifetime.

We’re back. We did something tangible. We did other things I don’t yet understand. Right now, I have to drive to the airport and pick up my Polish Cousins. I have to put salve on my scab (a whipper on the almost- onsight offwidth). I have to get some sleep.

Stay tuned.