a day in the life of mergs

Yee haw! Big day today: 83 miles and over 5200 feet of climbing.

Once again, we rolled out around 7am to get a jump on the heat of the day. Although 83 miles was about double my longest ride of this year, I was excited and felt great after Day 1. This was a great day on the bike.

The hills were just awesome. Big ring climbs, granny climbs, they were all good hills. In fact, someone counted 51 hills in the first 45 miles, then they just stopped counting in disgust. Me, I was having a grand time.

Along the way, I jumped into a lot of pace lines and rode well. I met a lot of great people and a few strong riders that gave me some great pulls.

I just loved this ride: not only the best ride of the year but probably one of the best rides ever for me ever. I just felt strong and fast and climbed better than I have ever climbed before. OK, its Iowa, but folks... these were great hills! :)

After losing Team Fohty at the first pass thru town (I think they ditched me at the beer garden) I rolled along until meeting up with some of the others at the lunch town. This is where I met up with my new hero Tom (more on him later). Tom and I stomped all the hills and got into Jefferson around 2pm. This included a 2 hour lunch stop at Coon Rapids (that's the town mascot: "Road Kill Raccoon" to the left) where I needed to get a spoke fixed at the bike tent. Even so we were making some good time today.

In Jefferson, Tom and I were greeted by our host family at the door Craig Hertel, his wife and daughter. Imagine my surprise when he said, go ahead boys and get cleaned up, then join us on the gazebo for snacks... and oh, there's a half keg of beer for you guys on the deck too.

Is this heaven? No, its Iowa, and its pretty good here.

Unfortunately, the bus did not arrive until 5pm so we had to delay showers, and instead we went straight for the keg and the snacks, reveling in beer, salty chips and our own filfth. ;)

Thank you Hertel Family. You are awesome and you were wonderful hosts!

Today's Metrics: - Mileage: 83 miles Climb: 5,239 feet

The ride into Jefferson will be a true test of cyclists' conditioning, with 5,600 feet to climb over 83 miles. The route resembles a pastrami sandwich: Imagine two pieces of bread, flat on either end, with mounds of meat in the middle. As riders approach Jefferson they'll see what looks like a grain silo on the horizon. It is not. It is a 162 foot bell tower. Anyone who's not too tired from the 14.5 mile Karras Century Loop can ascend the 18 flights of steps to the top. Me? I'll take the elevator.


I have beer, snacks and a shower. Has anyone seen the bus?


Passing through Kimbalton > Elk Horn > Exira > Larland > Coon Rapids and Scranton.

We broke camp and I rolled out of Missouri Valley around 6:45am to get a jump on the heat. Today's ride was not too warm, a front seemed to have passed and the temps dropped by morning. Iowa in the early am is pretty sweet.

It was good to get rolling.

I was really eager to ride hard right out of town but just took it easy. I have 7 more days of this and I need to calm down. I rode a bit with some of the people in camp including some guys from Springfield MO that call themselves "Team Fohty". Good guys.

As we rolled out of town we started seeing typical Iowan humor such as the rest stop to the right.

Today's Metrics - Mileage: 59 miles Climb: 3,797 feetYou can thank the founding fathers for locating the town of Missouri Valley on the downhill side of the Loess Hills, nestled in the Boyer River valley. However, it is still a river valley and the riders will eventually have to climb out. Climbing is the operative word for most of the day as the route winds its way through Beebeetown, Underwood, Neola, Minden, Shelby and Tennant on the way to Harlan. The good news is that there are only 59 miles to our first overnight stop in Harlan. The other good news is that this will be the fifth time that Harlan has hosted RAGBRAI, so the folks there are old hands at meeting riders' needs.

I arrived in Harlan around noon. Where's the bus?

After a hot bus ride from Le Claire (near the Mississippi River) across Iowa to Missouri Valley on the Missouri River, I was pleased to be off the buss. Original plans where to arrive early on Saturday afternoon, setup camp (in the yard of a local church) and ride 12 miles down to the Missouri River and back to dip our rear tire in the Miss. in order to fulfill tradition (like this guy from CO below). We forget tradition instantly. The guy to the left (that is not me) was on a cushy bus... and arrived early, unlike us. Our bus ride crushed us: it was hot cramped and it arrived around 5pm. Although we tried to sweat as little as possible setting up camp, we were drenched by the time we were done. The temps were mid 90's and sauna-humid and although pulling a tent from a bag, erecting it, and blowing up an air mattress (from a battery powered pump) should not cause perspiration, it really did. We basically ditched the 22 mile round trip to dip our tire for a Fat Tire Ale made on cool Fort Collins, CO.

After setting up camp and a beer, we walked down town for some BBQ and a beer or two, then hung out on the back deck of the bus and just watch the oddities of RAGBRAI pass us by.

Funny, there were a lot of people just tipping over on bikes in the street, I remember my first day in clip less pedals too., but I was sober when i tried them. Quote of the day (George Keller): setting: a guy just falls over, still clipped in. George asks with concern: "are you OK?". Rider replies: "yes". George retorts: "Are you embarrassed?"

Later that night, Missouri Valley serenaded us with sounds of freight trains passing by and fellows across the street with an affinity for late night drunken f-bomb. Well, we didn't really need any sleep tonight... Day 1 is an easy ride.

The Bobbit Bus made it to Iowa! After a long hot bumpy bus ride (just kidding Paul it wasn't all the bad!) we pulled into Davenport IA around 6pm local time. We docked up to a long in the tooth Motel 6 for the night, had a decent meal and a beer across the street (where I was able to get the last 15miles of the TdF on TV then hit the bed. Meeting us here were about 8 people from various places like Philaedelphia, PA, Milwaukee WI and a few other places I can't remember.

Davenport, Iowa

This morning, we're up and almost ready to depart Davenport. We're heading down Route 80W to pick up a few more stragglers in De Moines then heading straight across Iowa to the RAGBRAI start in Missouri Valley.

Russ (Portland, ME) and I are itching to ride, so if we get into Missouri Valley at a decent time, we're planning on doing the 12 mile ride down to the Missouri River tonight so that we're able to dip our rear ties in the river properly and fulfil the traditonal starting ritual.

Time to catch a bus!

On Thursday July 17, 2008, I'm departing NJ for IA in the Register's Annual Great Bike Ride Across IA, aka RAGBRAI. RAGBRAI is a bunch of roadies converging upon IA and putting on a rolling party across IA.

I am meeting up with a group from CT, called Team Schmooze, (or is it Team UstaBe now?) who've done this ride numerous times in the past. Its basically an annual pilgrimage for them. In fact, Paul who appears to run the team has converted an old school bus into a luxury motor coach.

I'm eager to see the engineering marvel and anxious to get started on the ride out.

Now I have to go and start packing. Golly, I have a lot of lycra now... who would have thought.

If all goes as planned I'll do daily updates here. For now, here's more about the route:

Break out the Burma Shave signs. RAGBRAI is heading down the old Lincoln Highway.

A fair portion of this year's edition of the trans-Iowa ride will follow the country's first coast-to-coast highway. The 471-mile route will also take riders along other officially designated stretches, such as the Iowa Valley Scenic Byway.

The route is virtually the same mileage as last year's -- 477 miles last year and 471 miles this year -- but the amount of climb is dramatically different. Last year riders climbed 13,600 feet. This year they'll face 22,500 feet of climb.

It's Monday, and I'm pretty beat up... my legs are a bit stiff, and I need to stretch a couple of times a day, just to keep "limber" enough to walk. But I'm a happy with that.

Why is this? Two days ago Chris D. and I "raced" in the Wilderness 101 which as the name indicates is a 101 mile mountain biking race.

I say "raced" only figuratively because I "raced" against myself, not against the other 200+ riders. It was a race against being "DFL" (dead frickin last). It was a race against my mind telling me to "quit" and "throw that bike into the Coburn river". But after 71 miles of fireroads, 30 miles of sweet singletrack and about 10,000 vertical feet of climbing, I still have my bike and great memories.

Take a look at these hills:
(Source for profiles: http://www.nittanymba.org/maps2.php)

Wilderness 101 race stats, map and profiles on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilderness_101


In a word, I am numb. My body is numb from pedaling for 14 hours, my mind is numb from the fact that I finished this thing at all. Yes, I trained for it, yes I took longer than I thought I would, but no I had no idea how hard it would actually be. This is clearly the hardest endurance event I've ever attempted. Even though my time of 14 hours, 40 minutes is a big disappointment to me, I still gain some satisfaction from the fact that I did not quit (even though, truth be told, I thought about it on more than one occasion). What got me through? A fair amount of training, and a bit of gumption, being able to "share the punishment" with a fellow rider (Chris D). Riding that course alone would have been twice as tough mentally. Together, pushing each other, quitting simply was not a true, viable option for either one of us. I realized to myself that if I quit, I would forever see a "DNF" next to my name on the 101 website and I can't have that.


Here is some miscellaneous commentary of the day:

Besides, my legs my triceps's are really tweaked which I didn't expect, but should have. 30 miles of technical singletrack will do that (not too mention another 71 of double track, 1/2 of which was fast descents). The rest of the day was spent on some of the longest climbs I've personally done east of the Missisippi. I now know what 10K of climbing is and its not a joke, its punishing.


- the two single track downhills were incredible... i was too tired to truly enjoy them at full speed but i got going pretty darn fast on them. i was amazed that a 101 mile course would have such technical descents, but I am glad they are on there because they were memorable!

- the 2 climbs after checkpoint 2. these almost broke me. but i suffered through the next 45 miles anyway.

- the technical single track was amazing, probably some of PA's best stuff there. man, if only i could remember where it was so I can return and stomp it (without being so drained from 60 miles already under the belt). Sadly, i actually dismounted some stuff just to stay safe and get home.

- the rattlesnake at mile 80 or so, that "sat up" dead center of the trail and said "hello". I've never seen one in the wild before and def. never heard that rattle either (it sounds more like a hiss than a rattle) and I have to say, its loud and it was an attention getter! i heard it before i saw it and when i did i had to screech to a halt, and stop Chris who was just 10-20 feet behind me. had i not heard it, I might have managed a bunny hop over, but I'm not sure, and I would have not wanted to hit the li'l beauty, or get bit. to get by the rattler, I had to gently toss a half doxen sticks toward it to get it off into the bushes, where it stayed rattling like crazy as we jetted past. I googled the closest picture I can find of what I saw:


- the amazing technical singletrack sections after the checkpoint 3. just great great PA singletrack... bit like "American Standard" but 10 years ago before it widened and was dumbed down a bit. I must get back here and ride this with fresh legs. just amazingly fun.

- the downhills! did i mention the downhills?? some of this stuff was so tricky, i really wished I had some pads but we cleaned all but the one loose off camber section (where we did a safety dabs only to prevent catrstrophic injury ;) ). my triceps are so sore from these dh's, i can actually feel them when i type this.

- chris' announcement at mile 88 that he just had his "first official hallucination of the day". "the road wavered back and forth", he said, "kinda like doing shrooms" (not that he would know). (my hallucination came at about mile 95 when I looked up to see chris about 1/4 mile up the fireroad, climbing away... the problem was I saw two bikers climbing, both wearing chris' jersey).

- riding along "fisherman's trail" in the dusk. geez, that was a technical finish. under normal circumstances, i'd like to spend some time cleaning that thing (which I rate as doubtful for me under non-race conditions!) but instead we walked the worst section and just looked at each other, laughing at how frickin hard it was, esp. after 96 miles or so. (i read that some riders are cleaning that section, like eatough last year's winner, which I find utterly amazing. total kudos to anyone with the skill and strength to clean this section after stomping all those climbs beforehand.)

- the "wrong turn" shortly after fisherman's trail in the dark that added anywhere from 3-5 miles to our day. somehow we ended up going straight after a railbed stretch and ended up on a fireroad that put as part way up the road toward Millheim. The wrong turn was at least 6 miles from the finish, with another climb whereas I think most people took a 2-3 mile rail bed back to the finish. geez, i needed this extra climb like a hole in the head. technically I should be DQ'ed but I don't care; I finished this sumb!tch.

Luckily, i had no mechanicals, except for an annoying squeak in the pedal or crank for 100 miles, bike held up great. it was the rider that wobbled in around 10:40pm. About 2 hours longer than I thought, but what the hey, I'm here able to type about it and these wobbly legs of mine keep the memories fresh in my mind.

thanks to Chris, my partner, in keeping me on the straight and narrow and waiting for me on the climbs.

all in all, a GREAT day on the bike which I will NEVER forget.

Some photos:

JimG crushes the rock garden after 3 bridges:

Kudos to you Jim! As you can see Chris and I had less sack and chose to walk it:

In order to keep my fitness level up for a few endurance races I am doing this summer (Longest Day, Wilderness 101, 24 Hours of Allamuchy), and to save a little money from fuel costs, I have been part-time commuting by bike to work.

I tend to drive in with the bike, ride home on the bike, then the next morning I ride the bike into work. I do it about 2-4 times a week now, but as I get faster, I'll do it more often.

Its about 22 miles each way with the climb up and over Skyline Drive being the crux:

Oakland side: ~ 736 feet climb/6600 feet distance = ~11% grade.
Ringwood side: ~ 544 feet climb/3696 feet distance = ~14.7% grade.

Yes, my commute literally is "uphill both ways".

Here is the elevation profile and map:

This morning my commute into work (West Milford to Midland Park) was about 1 hour. Yesterday's ride home was about 1 hour 15 (there are more hills on the way home than on the way to work as the profile above indicates). When I first started doing this back in April and May it was taking me almost 2 hours to get home, so my fitness level is improving. When I can get this down to under an hour I know I'll have become a true "roadie" (God help me ;) ).

I just wanted to make a breif ride recap, throw up topo map of the route, and other miscellanea here, regarding our Longest Day Ride, Port Jervis to Cape May, on June 10th 2006.

Good golly, this was a long day.

We rolled into the Comfort Inn at Port Jervis around 3:50 am and fiddled with our bikes and lights and got ready for the ride. We started pedaling around 4:20 am in th dark with the lights on.

Immediately, we lost the sag vehicle that Yori was driving, and we had to stop and wait for it to find us. But this was not Yori's fault. No one waited for her and she did not have a cue sheet. First Cluster Foxtrot solved.

Eventually Chris and I caught up with the group at about mile 15 where everyone had stopped to wait and eat.

After talking about this ride with Toolbox and reading about doing "centuries" I found that its vital to eat all day, every half hour to and hour and get about to water bottles in you per hour. So stops every 20 miles would continue throughout the day.

We rolled on... this part of the ride was hilly and there were some climbs so the trick was to resist the urge to attack hills and just sit and spin. Not everyone felt the same way and some stringer riders really mashed and left me in the dust. I did my best to catch up on downhils but this was also a bad strategy because its nice to coast down them on these long rides to save energy.

After we ducked below route 80, we started riding through the Chester area and the last few remaining climbs were behind us. The last climb was not a big one but one to ride cautiously for energy savings. Me, at least (I was constantly nervous all day about over-exerting myself and bonking before the end). It was good to spend some time talking to Manny; a guy I knew from Lewis Morris rides on Wednesday night but never got to know very well. Thanks for helping me pass the time man!

Once we passed below route 78 there was nothing more than small rollers and flat terrain for hours upon hours upon hours, and more hours.

At mile 103 (halfway) we stopped in a small town (name?) and took a good 20-30 minute rest. This was when someone told be that we just rode 103 miles! My first "century ride" a new personal record! But only halfway there. Wow.

Once we moved on, we rode down a road in Hillsdale along a river. A pretty nice ride. But I remember being pretty tired here. The pace was brisk and I had rouble staying wth the group. Sometime at this point, JimG realized I had no clue how to draft in a paceline (which was true). He took me under his wing as his personal pet project and had me 4" off Rob's back tire. I could not believe this was the correct distance but I did it, and kept close as best I could. Rob was one of the strong riders and yet easy to draft because he was always dead straight.

JimG then kept on me. If I drifted off the pack, he slow and pull me in. Repeatedly. Toolbox was also throwing me lifelines, as was Chris D. But it was JimG who really took me in and got me home. All day long, I watched the pavement whiz by and JimG's tire spin 4-6" off my front tire. I remember this vision especially in the hell that is Fort Dix and the Pine Barrens. The blur of the asphalt, the stripes on JimG's Hutchisons spinning at 18mph, and Alice in Chains in my iPod, my noodly legs... this *was* the Pine Barrens for me.

We kept rolling on... somewhere around 180 I started feeling good again and actually took a few turns up front. Not for long but I was there. Mainly to slow Rob and JimG down. The bastards were still bumping up against 18mph and I thought I would explode. So I got up there and did a casual 16. Not for long though.

The last 20 miles were especially tough. The winds started up from the side and head on and the bridge over the aqueduct felt like Skyline Drive. At some point Rob and JimG decided it was a race for the finish. I did not see them again, I think they had to catch another group that passed us. I wish I had their energy!

Toolbox and I rolled down the Boulevard and then made a left onto road leading to the Cape May Lighthouse. About a half mile from the lighthouse we saw it for the first time. Sweet mother of God, was that a sight! Here's the thanks I get... after pulling Toolbox in for the last mile, of course he had to pass me, cut me off (swerve to avoid t-boning him) and watch him fly into the parking lot before me. Oh well, I was last one from our group to make it home but I was glad as hell to be there!

The image below is what greeted us upon our arrival at the Cape May Lighthouse (camera in my mobile phone is pretty poor). After 208 miles, you cannot imagine what a beautiful sight this was!

Next year, I am there.

Stats (thanks to Rob for sending these out):

Started: 4:25 AM
Finished: 7:29 PM

Average Speed: 16.76 MPH
Total Distance: 208.2 MILES

Total Time: 15:04
Riding Time: 12:25
SAG Breaks: 2:39

Calories: 8645
HR Zone 2

calculations based on Rob's HRM, and start and finish times.

A BIG - TIME thanks to Yoriko, Kim and Frank for driving the Sag Vehicles. Without these people, we would not be able to do this ride! To everyone in my group I thoroughly enjoyed this and it was great riding with you. Thanks for any help you gave me getting me through my "first Century" and double Century.

Close Up Maps:

TODO... work in progress, oh so much to say... video is forthcoming.

Johnny and I headed up to Mount Washington NH to attend an Avalanche 1 course held jointly by the AMC and the US Forest Service. It was a very eye-opening and informative weekend. I now know 2 things:

1. There are no avalanche experts; just people that know more than you, and people that know less that you.
2. "Avalanche Science" is part science and part black art, and I have a lot to learn!

John and I rolled up to Pinkham Notch, at the base of Mt Washington NH on Friday night and got there in about 8 hours. We checked into the Joe Dodge Lodge and found the rooms cozy and comfy. With breakfast and idnner included, $69 is a good deal. John behaved himself... no hugging and no snoring, and he remained clothed which is a bonus in a roommate. ;)

We hung out in the living room with a 12 pack of Long Trail, then hit the bunks early at 11.

7am we hit the cafeteria and had breakfast. Good food. Class began at 8am. We reviewed the basoic science behind avalanche releases and prediction. The instructors at AMC and US Forest Service Rangers were fun and interesting. After a long drive up, it was nice to be entertained and not bored into sleep. We saw some slides, some movies and discussed the differences between weak and strong layers, etc..

On Saturday, night we had dinner, watched and avy movie over a few Long Trails, and then called it a night early (10 pm).

Sunday we got up and did breakfast at 7 and suited up for a day in the ravine. Weather was brisk at the bottom and as soon as we tucked into the trees, it warmed up due to the trees sheilding us from the wind. It was a bright blue day and the trees looked especially inviting.

After about a 1 hour hike up towards Hojo's, we crested the hill and immediately felt the temps drop about 15 degrees. It was pretty incredible really. And due to my attempt to keep up with Johnny's blistering pace, I broke a sweat on the hike and was cold in a split second. This sucked. I know better than than this.

As we waited for everyone to catch up to the group I went into the shack to try and warm up. I never really warmed up however. My last ditch effort was to strip off my base layer which was soaked and just go with one less base layer. It worked somewhat and I happened to have another fleece in my pack which I threw on. I was much better now. Moral of the story: don't sweat in the ravine.

The teachers took us up the trail up into the bowl in howling winds with temps around 0 degrees F. It was a good hike though and even though I never even saw Tucks, it was cool to get up there at least that close. I need to get back here in the spring to ride the bowls.

Johnny, if you have Ravine photos of this weekend, please send them to me so that I can add real ones to this, rather than all these nicked photos off of other people's sites. :)

We setup about halfway up the trail above a streambed and stated digging pits. The first test was a shovel shear and we dug out a column on 3 sides, cut the backside and did some tap, tap, tappin. If memory serves, the column failed on only a very hard slam of a fully bent arm. Pretty stable. The next was a rutschblock test so we dug out again a section that was about a ski length wide. I tested the first time with a soft hop onto the column, while strapped into my snowboard, followed by progressively harder jumps in place. It did not fail. In fact I jumped so hard that I slipped, fell, ass-checked, then fell off the column into the pit. Doh. Next we gathered 3 fellas arm in arm and we jumped simulataneously onto the column, finally making it fail.

We decided to end the classroom instruction there. The cold was getting pretty unmanageable and we all had ice beards and mustaches. It was the look and feel of a day on Everest.

I turned to the instructor, and older fella and very cool and knowledgeable and he asked "woul you ski that?" I said "I believe I would". I asked him if he would, and he replied "you betcha!".d He then turned to a fella in our group without hesitation said "hey, nice snotsickle. That's about the best I've seen all year." It was a good one: a full 2 inches in length at a minimum. :)

On Friday evening, Jason and I headed up to VT, crashing at his Sugarbush condo. Since the trees at the Bush are suffering from January r@!#s, we hit the road early Saturday am and drove about 1.5 hours up the the "center of the Northeast Powder Universe" otherwise known as Jay Peak.

The weather: superb. The day was brisk, temps in the teens, but with blue bird skies... a perfect ski day. Thus we decided that it was time to hit the trees and ravines on the famous Big Jay. After asking some discreet questions of lot attendant and bumping into a splitboarder (gee, I wonder where he was going? ;) ) we were confident Big Jay was "on" (meaning the snow was deep enough to ski and ride). This would be our first excursion out there, thus we were downright giggly about this.

So, we took the lift up after a single warm up run and immediately ducked into the traverse over to Big Jay. The hike over was beautiful... well packed and easy to hike. The first half is rolling and rideable/skiable and the second half is a skin or a boot pack up to the summit. The shot here is from my phone, thus the res is low but the winter-wonderland look and feel is obvious.

After scoping out some entrances we chose one near the top of the summit. The entrance was tight and admittingly being unfamiliar with the terrain, I was cautious, and I made rather bad turns at the top. But within a couple minutes, it opened up to wider glades and ravines. Although it had been tracked out by probably a hundred other skiers, there was tons of powder to be had, with some lines actually being fresh tracks.

We explored several parallel ravines on decent, keeping within earshot or eyeshot the hole time. We ducked and weaved down gullies around trees, over lips and down dips. This is J emerging from one of the gullies, gittin some:


The conditions were great and the last dump was at least 4 days prior. The place really holds onto its snow.

Unfortunately, even though we knew better, we missed the easy way out. We got lulled into some fresh tracks down low on the face and we went too far, riding to the botton of the basin, and thus missing the easy traverse out. No worries... we were not the first to do make this mistake and there were some others that had tracked out in the flats like us. Jason had no problems on the skis and my collapsible poles came in darn handy on the snowboard... I only had to take a foot out twice.

After about 10-15 minutes on a traverse we bushwhacked a bit then rode a partially frozen, very funky, streambed. We were out to the access road in another 10-15 mins and got to hitch-hiking back to the base. We had a short wait: only about 10 minutes before a Jeep Cherokee stopped, and we hopped in. Not bad! We were back in the lodge in 5 mins for a late lunch... high fiving and grins all around. Damn its nice to make a first decent in knee deep powder!

On Saturday 25 July 2005 I rode in a 12 hour mountain bike race (at Stewart Buffer Zone (Newburgh, NY) with 4 other friends: Chris, Jason, John and Ryan. Weather was sunny and warm in the mid-high 80's, humidity fairly low.

End result: we all did 8 laps (of 7.75 miles per lap), except for Jason who did 9.

Official race results are here: http://genesisadventures.com/Stewart%2012%20Hour%20Results.pdf

Shockingly we were not DFL but we didn't exactly have a shot for the podium either... the winner did 15 laps, and as I predicted... almost doubled our lap count. However, who cares! This race kicked arse... tons of fun!

Ryan, took some awesome shots of us and some of the other riders here:

A day-by-day journal of our honeymoon in Africa will be posted here, complete with photos and some movie clips. We hope you enjoy the recap because every time we're asked "How was Africa?" we can never fully tell the story of how amazing this place was... only the full recap, with photos and video does this "trip of a lifetime" any justice. It sounds so cliche' but in this case and in our opinion, it truly was a "trip of a lifetime" and its changed us both in many ways. We shall never forget the sights, sounds, smells and excitement of Africa.

Baadaye...


Since the recap is in journal form, you must start reading on May 18 2005 and our last entry is 7 June 2005. The blog organizes these in reverse date order so in order to make this thing easier to read (and to see what's new as I get new entries posted on the site), I am creating this index of entries.

Our trip was structured into 3 basic phases: an 8 Day "Northern Circuit" Safari, 5 days in Zanzibar, and a 4 day Safari in Selous Wildlife Conservation Area. The whole package was arranged by Christian and Yohannes Kamm of Tanganyika Trekkers ( http://www.TanganyikaTrekkers.com ). If you decide to go to Tanzania, we would not hesitate to recommend Tanganyika Trekkers !

Departure Day: http://mergs.blogspot.com/2005/05/honeymoon-in-africa-departure-day.html
Arrival Day: http://mergs.blogspot.com/2005/05/honeymoon-in-africa-arrival-day.html
NC Safari Day 1: http://mergs.blogspot.com/2005/05/honeymoon-in-africa-northern-circuit.html
NC Safari Day 2: http://mergs.blogspot.com/2005/05/honeymoon-in-africa-northern-circuit_21.html
NC Safari Day 3: http://mergs.blogspot.com/2005/05/honeymoon-in-africa-northern-circuit_22.html
NC Safari Day 4: coming soon....
NC Safari Day 5:
NC Safari Day 6:
NC Safari Day 7:
NC Safari Day 8:

Zanzibar Day 1:
Zanzibar Day 2:
Zanzibar Day 3:
Zanzibar Day 4:
Zanzibar Day 5:

Selous Safari Day 1:
Selous Safari Day 2:
Selous Safari Day 3:
Selous Safari Day 4: