humbly at her feet

After much ado about nothing, we have arrived live and well to the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro. I could not be more pleased to be finished with the extensive travelling we just went through. Right now we are weeding through the guides available for the hike and and haggling over prices. I believe we have found a guide with an exceptional price. The only catch at this point is that word on the street tells us that some Russians had to kick our guide's ass recently, due to some disputes over the contract. We are confident that we can avoid such problems and I think Jimmy can handle him if we do, in fact, encounter difficulties. We should be heading up the mountain on Wednesday for a duration of six days bringing us down the mountain on Monday the 22nd in time to talk with family for Christmas. A relief, I'm sure, to the many fans waiting to wish me a merry Christmas.

After the mountain we will return south and enjoy a more leisurely travel style with a lot of sun time so that I can look good for Jamie when she visits me in January. The most fortunate part of this trip is that I am getting out of Christmas shopping (forget Kilimanjaro!). I am sorry that the majority of you don't have that luxury but I wish you good luck in the chaos that remains and I hope that your holidays are treating you well. I will be sharing in the white Christmas this year seeing as how we will be reaching 0 degree temperatures and snows that, due to your driving habits, have a limited life time.

Until we can summit and provide you with a full update, please enjoy the picture above. That, my friends, is the roof of Africa and large mass of snow ever so close to the equator. A fact believed to be impossible when word of the mountain reached Europe. I can confirm after centuries of dispute that in fact there is snow in central Africa. You heard it here.