We’re off to Tanzania tomorrow for a three-week scouting trip. We’ll spend eight days on the mountain and another ten visiting children’s hospitals, rehab centers and other places looking for wheelchair donation prospects. If possible, we’d like to create a bond with the Tanzanian people.

This whole project is coming together. When I first started to think about it, I envisioned an all-encompassing effort. Climbing the mountain would be a significant part, but making the impression that I wanted meant finding a way to make people notice me, and the disabled community. We’re on our way to doing that. Our educational program, “Nametags,” has had three successful events—many more to come when school resumes. You can see parts of one on the homepage video. The documentary movie is taking shape exactly the way that I hoped. We’re on the verge of partnering with a major force in the industry. They will bring on sponsors. Our voice could get much bigger. Often I ask myself if this is all really happening. I think it is and I hope it continues along its present path.

Tomorrow marks the beginning of the next phase. My production crew of five, plus guide and doctor, who also has a film background, will fly more hours than I want to imagine. We’ll learn what we don’t know, or at least a good portion of it. The climb makes me excited and nervous all at the same time. With some of our recent testing I feel that I should be able make it up a fair amount of the mountain. I said I should. That’s the question. What can I really do? I average about a mile an hour. Following the typical hiker’s schedule, I would do about 15k or 9.3 miles a day. At my present speed, that would take me at least nine hours.

I climbed for nine hours last week up Crested Butte Mountain. On the way back to my guide Dave’s house, we finally descended to the bike path—flat and smooth. The pavement turned to gravel and I felt the resistance rise. I asked Dave how far his house was. He said just on the other side of that house. It wasn’t more than 100 yards, yet a little voice in my head, or arms—it was tough to tell where it came from because everything was numb—wondered if I’d make it. I did, partially because I didn’t want to look like a weenie in front of Dave, but I was flat exhausted. I can’t imagine what eight days like that might do to me.

I can’t imagine, but I’m about to find out. We start the climb on Thursday. I doubt that I will make it all the way to the first hut that first day. We’ll be forced to camp somewhere along the way. The vehicle, at least before the flight, is in great shape, although it’s heavy. It weighs 83 pounds, or 57% of my 145 pound body weight. The vehicle, my fitness, and our knowledge of the mountain, all leave a bit to be desired—I’m just not sure how much.

Please come back to this site. I’ll update you as best I can on my progress, though I’m really not sure how my USB connect  (not even sure if you call that—it’s the computer thingy that allows or should allow me to connect) will work over there, and then there’s the issue of hard drives not working above 10,000 feet. I don’t know either of these from personal experience, but I’ll try my best to tell the story. I might have to write it all in my journal and then transcribe it when I get back down for the July 4^th celebrations in Tanzania. Okay, they might not celebrate over there, but I expect some fireworks.