Day 29 2/12/99

Theresa's prescription sunglasses with side shield (prevent snow blindness on top of Kilimanjaro) was the most important thing that we still needed for the trip with only two days to go before leaving. Fortunately, Quan of Silicon Valley Eyecare came through with flying colors. We presented him with a certificate of thanks! We have never done this for any other people before, but I was so impressed by his customer orientation!

Here is Rondo sleeping in the family room in his favorite position--any place where there is sun :-) He is all pooped out after yesterday's all-day doggie kamp. Of course, sleeping is his favorite hobby! I hope he does not get too mad at Theresa and I for what we about to do to him--leave him for 4 weeks! At least we get to celebrate his birthday with him tomorrow, the day before our trip. You will see tomorrow.

You would like that I've bought enough stuff for our trip after more than 8 trips to REI and spending thousands of dollars there. Today I went with Theresa to REI for one last time to buy some Coolmax T-shirts and safari shorts for her thinking that I will not be buying anything for myself. Well, I browsed around and could not resist buying a REI 2-oz portable camera tri-pod. It also has a mini-strap to be strapped to poles and other structures. Pretty cool. Huh.

For example, I'm able to take this picture of myself working in front of my PC in the den. Note the short haircut I have for the Kili climb. So this Ultrapod is the end of my REI shopping spree. Well, not quite. What exactly did I buy? They look like shoes. Hum. Wait a minute, they look like snow shoes. You may think that Theresa and I decided that we need to make our Kili climb a little bit more challenging and will be taking the ice/snow route--you know about the snow of Kilimanjaro! Well, actually, these snowshoes were on sale. The moment we walked into REI, we picked them up. They are exactly the ones (Atlas model #825) I wanted to buy a year ago after we tried snowshoeing for the first time. So we go snowshoeing the weekend after we get back from our trip--provided if I can still walk :-)

Coincidentally, I also receive this new magazine subscription offer in the mail. It's National Geographic Adventure. I will definitely order it because 1) I'm a long-term subscriber of National Geo and has always enjoyed its pictures and stories, and 2) what a great magazine for me to review to select our next adventure! You don't think Theresa and I will just stop our adventure travel with Kili, right? (Well, we will see how we feel about this after our climb. :-)

After all that shopping, we decided to fuel up at Max's Restaurant on Saratoga Ave. It's excellent. Everything is huge, including this chocolate eclair with vanilla and chocolate cream filling--it's four times the size of a regular one. Yummy. (Of course, we always have fond memory of Max's Opera Cafe since it's right below where my sister lives in San Francisco.)