Single track savage

     Quack, Quack, Quack, Quack followed by groan grumble grumble followed by a hand patting the night stand looking for the evil device pretending to be a duck at 4:00 AM Saturday morning.  I think to myself 'why do I do this?'.  With a cough and a sniffle I ease out of bed onto my feet padding lightly across the bedroom floor on tendinitis ravaged achilles.  I hear Marcy stirring as I start downstairs to make some breakfast for us and start getting ready.  A few minutes later Marcy joins me to eat some eggs and start packing our gear in the truck to head over to Vienna IL.  She is coughing and hacking, the bonus gift from our recent trip.  I am coughing and hacking because my beautiful bride is a giver....and gave me her cold.  The clearing of mucus, filling of belly, and loosening of tendons brings a more positive attitude towards the day.  The weather app on my phone confirms it's going to be a beautiful day for a race.  I pull up the directions to the race and see it w

      It was a warm fall evening and 10 well trained professionals were gathered for a final meeting to sort gear and prepare for their upcoming mission...well, trained professionals might be a stretch. I had about 3 evenings of Spanish class and a little time on some phone apps. We were actually a diverse group of newbies and old hands sorting out 800 lbs of school supplies to transport to Guatemala along with our own gear.  We got our sorting done, some serious prayer time, and left with our plan to travel and meet up at the airport in St Louis.  During the week I had a little freak out on the the volcano hike portion of the trip.  We were getting some sketchy information on availability of packs for the trip, but it was decided that all would be ok. Just in case bring one if you can. Saturday morning started with a 1:45 AM wake up and 2:30 departure.  We met up with our fellow travelers and got our two 50 lb bags per person checked.  We flew to Atlanta where we met up with two more