It Happened!

Day 5 of 8...still smiling

This time last week I was reveling in the fact that my daughter had just completed her first day of pre-k.  I used to laugh at "Those People" that had to tell everyone a play-by-play on their children's daily occurrences, but I couldn't contain myself on how cool it was that she was now excited to be going to classes everyday.

But what was really interesting to me is that the day before her first day of school, I was wearing shorts that I wore every day for the previous 10 days, hadn't showered in the same amount of days, nor shaved, and just happened to be in eastern Africa; Tanzania.  I couldn't help but start to realize that just 24 hours from one of the most important days of my parental experience, I was in a country where the average age of mortality is 51.  I knew that climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, the week before her school, was risking the chance to see her off on her first day and the dichotomy of worlds that I found myself was truly mesmerizing.

Kili was everything I that I never imagined.  I never imagined that walking an average of 5 miles a day would be so difficult.  I never imagined that walking, literally, a foot's length stride at a time would be difficult.  I never imagined that being with 5 of my best friends for 10 straight days would make you feel like you were twelve again; but I feel that way every time I'm with them anyway.  But I most of all never thought that even after all these years of knowing each other, after the unbelievable life experiences we have shared, after 3 years of detailed, military precision-like logistical planning for this once-in-a-lifetime, epic adventure, we would still only have three topics to discuss during the hours of getting to the top of Africa; farting, pooping and farting.

I was with some of the most well traveled people that I know.  We have experienced some of the world's most interesting aspects of life and the mere fact that our basic "needs" were the center of attention garnered some of the most interesting conversations I have ever had.  Its amazing to know that when your day's goal is to safely ascend the highest mountain on a continent and support the efforts to get to that summit, you begin to realize that most of the other BS that we focus on in a given day is immaterial and irrelevant.  I/we were most concerned with eating, or not eating, the right foods, taking the right medicine, wearing the right clothes (for practical purposes) and for getting enough sleep; all in the name of the rear end bodily function.  Putting yourself in compromising positions, even in front of your best friends, makes for very uncomfortable hiking, tent sleeping, group discussions, enclosed area meetings, open area meetings, and everything in between.

It was really hard to believe that such a short time ago, I accomplished one of the main events of my 40th year's schedule and the main outcome of our discussions was that I didn't even use an entire roll of toilet paper.  I should have used (insert one of my best friend's name here) advice who used three rolls.

Happy to be home and yes, I do now bow to the thrown.