I'm going to El Alamein tomorrow. It's my last full day here - I'm at the end of a fantastic trip to Egypt on which I have done everything, spent less than I thought I would, and ate the best falafel/pita sandwiches of my life, daily, for 25¢ a go. Yay!

Congrats, Eidee!

I have an awesome new neighbor who was dying for someone to ride with. I suddenly have a nearby incentive to go ahead and get through the next few training steps on the green horses and get my older mare back into shape (after we've both had some health issues for a few years).

We've already trailered out to a state park for one ride, and I hope we'll do it a lot more in the days to come.

Of course, my back tweaked after two days of REST this weekend, so it may be another little while :( but I'm tryyyyyying to take it slowly enough. And in the meantime clearing out an area in the utility room for a three-horse tackroom and a wheely-saddle-cart.

Despite swearing after completing last year's event that we would never do it again, we are doing this again. 3/4 of the team are returning and the 4th person will join in if we can't find a replacement and will be part of our support crew otherwise. We think we have a replacement in a colleague who went on one of our training walks with us, which is good. Our goal last year was just to finish, so we need to up the ante this year and are aiming to finish in under 25 hours (5 hours less than last year).

Even more awesome are the longer-term plans we have made as part of this decision to do the Kokoda Trail in 2014 and already have a group of 8 interested. Hopefully, we can get enough together to have a dedicated tour for our group rather than mixing in with strangers. The biggest challenge will be finding the money for this (about $5k all up).

I have wifi on the traaaaaain.