And they are off.

Welcome to the first blog post for the Kilimanjaro Expedition! Here you’ll be able to track our progress from Boston through London to Tanzania and eventually to the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro.
Today was our first proper day of preparation, filled with gear checking, packing, unpacking, searching for minor missing items like our yellow fever immunization cards, calling our parents in a panic to bring out spare clothes et all, repacking, realizing nothing fits, jumping on the bag a couple of times to compress it, and then finally zipping it up all of our stuff and loading it into the car.
When you pack for a long expedition like this, there is plenty of stuff to bring; enough to overload even the largest Polar Gear backpack. But our most precious piece of equipment, isn’t really a piece of equipment. Her name is Kidogo, a little hamster puppet, dedicated as our fearless mascot. In Swahili Kidogo means, “a little,” a name which we all feel is quite apt for such a strange and amusing creature. Kidogo will be our mascot for the trip and will proudly proclaim victory atop Mt. Kilimanjaro.

Today we leave for London, red eye special, and arrive at 9:00 am in Heathrow, Airport where we will hopefully spend the day enjoying the wonderful British weather and, of course, practicing our British humor. As always, the excitement is running very high and we can’t wait to board the plane en route to London.
So from the members of Team Kilidogs remember:
You Stay Classy San-Diego…(written by: Seth)