Seattle Poor John Lucky Me

The end of our African months took us to Seattle Washington. It should have been miserable in our lovely Economy Comfort seats, the first leg of which turned out to not be comfort economy after all, but while John was full of meeting time, I was looking forward to reconnecting with old college friends Marilyn and Phil. So, ok, Seattle is amazing because of a surround sound of mountains, so I will get those out of the way. Though there were only two hours of crystal clear day, and Marilyn had to loan me all her warm clothes, and we have had a lovely time. These are some of the first set of mountains that we continuously saw on Bainbridge Island. Fun on the Ferry.

More mountains

These are called "The Brothers".

Mt. Ranier was only brilliant for 2 hours--just when I was working on internet in the room, but this wasn't too bad.

More brilliant mountains from Bainbridge Island.

The draw for this trip was not Roxie, though her cuteness pretty much surpasses all the humans.

Apparently, there is this famous wall near the port is just full of bubble gum. You might think this is art, or you might think this is disgusting. I lean to the latter. We did agree to be close enough for this picture.

I pretended like I own Roxie...Great friends beautiful island

So seriously, Marilyn and Phil are terrific, but with Roxie....hard to underscore the power of dogs.

These were fun birds in the water.

Not sure if I like red headed woodpeckers better than pileated woodpeckers, but this one was intense. And on the east coast you don't see many.

I have never seen this flower. Hope Judy can tell me more. It is apparently called a skunk flower.

It is pretty cool to be back in the Lord of the Rings---even in Seattle

John and Phil are pretty awesome.

There is a lot to see in Seattle, but we have enjoyed the less traveled scenes, and these locks are great. During salmon running season, you can see lots of them, of course we are not at the right time of year, but there is so much else to see (though we are freezing)

The railroad drawbridge. Thinking of how that works.

This doesn't look like much, but it is an Anna humming bird, and I have never seen one, Hard to get the pics because they move really fast because of the cold, but this is the best I got.

Wow-the old buddies get together--Diego and John. Great to catch up. So we have another 48 hours to go. I pray that Marilyn hasn't gotten sick of me, and am enjoying this meltdown from Africa. Infinitely, I feel badly for John who as usual is working his way though every day.

Kilimanjaro Marathon 2012

The pathetic start of the 5K portion of the Kilimanjaro Marathon just happened to be my first race ever. I was so excited anyway in the crowd of people. No one really knew what was going on. People were going out ahead of the others, but then the singers would move them back. At the time of the start (45 minutes late) the singers and the person in charge of the start just gave up. Yousuf and I were good participants and started right behind the "banner" and did not cut corners.

The end for the 5K was sort of pathetic as well, but I comforted myself with a fast time 32 minutes (was it really 5K?) and the knowledge that I had run the last 1K straight uphill. I have been completely unable to repeat that time, but maybe the excitement of the moment helped.

My running buddy Yousuf. He was kind to me and clearly could have gone faster except that I couldn't. For the uphill last 1K, I said go go go. And he did. I credit myself with getting him to enter even with only having practiced for 3 days, and he was just fine! Thanks for keeping me going Yousuf. We waited for the 1/2 marathoners to come in and especially to see John, Charles and Jan. It is hard to express the excitement that we all felt.

While we waited the first wheelchair entry arrived.

Unbelievably the first full marathoner came in ahead of our boys!

Charles hardly looked winded coming through the big finish sign.

John was not too winded. He said that he had kept a steady pace and finished in 2hr. 5-6 minutes.

John explained that Zuli, a really nice guy from Tanga, had helped him the most. As with all things, the organization of both the 5 and 21K were a bit chagalabagala. There was no effort to have the runners placed ahead of the walkers and that made the start awkward at best. For me, it was a constant effort to find a hole through which to run in the beginning, and then even later when the faster runners suddenly stopped and started walking. I almost crashed into two groups when I was paying more attention to moving than to what was in front of me. Poor John said it took about 5 minutes just to get out of the college gate because of the walkers and then he had to zig zag for about 1 kilometer to get space to run. That meant that he was already using more energy than he needed. And he met the same situation particularly on the way up. People who had set off too fast and suddenly stopped or started walking. He even found a man unconscious by the side of the road and, worried that it was Charles, stopped to take his pulse and shake him a little to make sure he was ok. When he saw that it wasn't Charles and saw women coming with water, he moved on. So, his time probably would even have been better if things had been a bit more orderly.

Jan was just a few minutes ahead of John.

We were pretty proud of one another. (AHHH)

Friends together--Greg ran with his son Nikoli and Niko's friend Omar. Nikoli could have easily done the half as he is really fast, but you are not allowed to enter until your bones are stronger at age 16.

The MEPI team was a bit bigger than this, but hongera sana to all of them who ran. (especially my girls Harriet and Lucy) We headed home to get cleaned up and take a break. Harriet came over to drag Charles back to the stadium (not much dragging involved)

We all hope to participate next year.

The Day Before the Kilimanjaro Marathon

Bob is preparing us for our hash in Machame. Historically he volunteers for the hash before the Kilimanjaro Marathon so that he can set something that will take us up and down hills and make us less horrified at the hills on this race. He did a great job. After the hash I couldn't walk for two days.

In addition to Bob, Phil and Sarah co-hosted the hash. Sarah made the food, and was her usual charming self. Bob made his elk spaghetti.

Simon (the 2nd fastest runner up Kilimanjaro) and Greg talk about the upcoming marathon.

After the hash the group enjoys the bites and listens to Bob

Now it is the day before the marathon and the signs are everywhere.

This amazing blown up advertisement for the biggest sponsor, Kilimanjaro Beer is right on the corner that everyone has to pass by.

Ndizi mama came early and wished John and I success for the marathon (I didn't explain that I was only doing 5K! Now we have our potassium.

We took a quick trip up to Marangu to see our carver, and found a goat out on a Saturday ride. What a delightful ride for him, though I fear that it will not end well.

These babies as well are being raised for food, but are very cute right now.

A wedding in Marangu complete with brass band on the car. I guess the bride and groom don't want to participate in the marathon.

One of the oldest hotels in the region, The Marangu Hotel, still serves many customers and provides thousands of climbers with guides and porters from it's beautiful old hotel campus. This bird of paradise is just one of the lush sights of the area.

Here is John crossing the finish line in 2008. He hopes to better his time this year after 3 years nursing his knee. He is certainly fit. Wish us all well!!

Life around Moshi (Kweli?)

How wonderful to find that we were so intent on bringing a proper sprinkler back from the states for our gardener, that we could walk across the street and see what his wife fashioned from a $1bottle of water. It has as much power as the sprinkler and is so much more of a conversation piece. Personally I am going to use all water bottles this way in the future.

But on to other adventures. John was a community choir pretender on Saturday and accompanied me (actually drove half of us) to the Sugar Plantation (TPC) to the home of Catherine and John Paul. It was of course fantastic. Catherine and John Paul were perfect hosts, and we were really treated to a wonderful evening. Ben and John and here talking undoubtedly about Ben's impending departure from KCMC and our feelings of woe and tragedy about that. As well, they just like one another, and that sets the tone for an evening. It seemed that everyone just plain liked one another.

John Paul and Catherine had a fantastic bar built out of a fishing boat. A whole fishing boat that they bought right from a fisherman. It was beautiful. One piece of wood honed with loving hands. I am sure it was sea worthy, but also drink worthy and one of those pieces that you can lean on.

part of the choir listening to stories of..... "choir" or "Clive"

A great story of Clive (above)

We all brought a little meat and grilled it. Catherine and John Paul made side dishes and this was a feast!

We have a nice little choir!

Here is the thatched roof of their gazebo. All the thatch was gathered and woven by their housekeeper. John Paul had brought the thatch (some kind of special grass) in to plant over TPC as a ground holder. It was amazingly tight. A GREAT NIGHT