Since I’m leaving this coming Wednesday (March 27) and not returning to American soil until April 22^nd, the postings that are scheduled to take place on March 29, and April 12 won’t happen. Instead, I’ll publish a small essay today (March 22) and hopefully something bigger when I get back to the states on April 26th.

In the meantime, here’s the final essay pertaining to preparations for the Kenya trip. Just getting ready has been one strange ordeal, and not always that easy. That’s what makes life interesting though, and if everything came like a bowl of cherries, it would be boring, right?

Word Count: 611

Kenya Kurudi

Part IV

A college acquaintance of mine used to put it, “Almost time to blow this Pop Stand.” After planning this trip out for over a year, originally scheduling it for November, 2018 then having to re-position it for this spring I fly out of Denver this coming Wednesday. I’ve planned and re-planned this adventure down to the most minute detail, and just getting to this stage has been an odd journey in and of itself. Probably the most ironic thing about getting to this stage is this, all the inoculations needed to get ready for the trip involved a ton of scheduling and re-scheduling (see website Kenya Kurudi Essay #3), almost exclusively because of the record snowfall we’ve gotten here in Colorado this winter. Ex. The Yellow Fever shot was originally planned to take place in January. Because the vaccine for the inoculation comes from a live anti-body that’s currently in limited supply, Passport Health in Albuquerque was chosen as the site to get the shot. This was followed by one big storm after another, which played total havoc with traveling in the four corners. Storm #2 in particular was probably the worst one of all and totally paralyzed everything in its path (and we do mean everything). The entire distance from Durango to The Duke City (213 miles) was one big snow-covered mess, and obviously this forced me a re-schedule (four times in fact).

Other inoculations proved just as much of an ordeal. The Typhoidand third of the Hepatitis B shots may not have involved traveling as far since I only had to drive down to Durango to get these. Unfortunately, the storm that happened on the day I got these shots was even worse than most of the previous low pressure juggernauts. Obviously, the windshield wipers got put to the test (in addition to a few other parts of my car), and a trip that would normally only take an hour, turned into a 1½ hour white knuckle ordeal. I won’t bore you with details, but needless to say I eventually got all the inoculations needed, a prescription for the anti-malarial pills, and various other things required for the adventure. Basically, I’m ready and I guess you could say I currently sit on the precipice of this journey happening.

What’s the most ironic aspect of this whole ordeal leading up to today? Now that I’ve basically taken care of all the side trips needed to get ready for the main adventure, we’ve experienced a nice patch of weather. Three straight days of sunshine and clear blue skies in fact, and the only patch of nasty weather happened yesterday when I was required to drive south to clean out a storage locker. In preparation for the trip of course (figures).

Am I ready for this whole adventure to happen? I guess I am, and even if I’m not, damn the torpedoes and full steam ahead. What’s life if you can’t make some of it up as you go a long?