Preparation

Our Tanzania trip (Kilimanjaro Hike + Safari) is about 6 weeks away.  There is still lots of preparation to be done!

This weekend, we took Pep on about a 7 mile hike on the Skunk Cabbage Trail. While it wasn't a terribly strenuous hike, we did do some climbing, dodging lizards and frogs, and weathered the rain (which surprised us-- it's been incredibly warm and sunny "in town").    We have acquired our acetazolamide (altitude medicine), cipro, malarone, and the like.  It's definitely been a challenge finding time (amidst clinic, busy OB calls, and a really awful 12 hours of projectile vomiting/food poisoning last weekend for me) to do some moderate hikes in the area to get us ready, but we are really trying!

Our "office" (third bedroom upstairs) currently looks like this, with all of our "gear" being collected in one area in preparation for our trip. 

We've slowly acquired some extra clothing and hiking gadgets through various trips through Oregon at REI and Columbia stores and now have quite a nice little collection, should we ever have another grand plan to hike a 19,000 ft peak! :)  Wish us luck in these next few weeks and in October!