An ice cream cake was recently discovered in the Cambian layer of our freezer. Carbon dating indicates that the cake is not really very old and, in fact, was only very recently "put on ice" (as the quaint expression goes around our house. ) Sadly, about half the image has been eaten away by either 1) freezer burn or 2) very clever and cold-tolerant mice. I've done my best to restore/recreate the original picture. Instead of calling it a fresco I have jokingly referred to it as a frostco. Ha! Such wit! As it turns out the cake was custom made for Susan's birthday and the [expensive] decorative icing was meant to celebrate this grand adventure we both are going to take. I do not think it is a good omen, though, that I (Dad Taylor) do not appear in the passenger seat in the picture. Either Susan is unaware I've been thrown from rickshaw into a skim coat of cow manure on the road or she is aware and is delighted by the thought, figuring I will catch up with her at some point and - after a shower - regale her with the story over a gin and tonic. Looking forward to it.

Holy Tome

Patrick, of Team Ramrod, has no idea what he’s done. On the occasion of my birthday, quite innocently and unknowingly, he cursed me. At 9:35pm on September 8th he gave me the Lonely Planet India. Since that moment I have been unable to show love for another human being. Her text has consumed me. 1.94 pounds of enthralling specifics and details. 1140 pages of pure joy. Love can wait. I have planning to do.

Set in Soap

This just in:
"The start and end points are fixed in soft rock or hard soap as Cochin and Darjeeling." - Tom, Rickshaw Run "Organizer"

Someone used all my India shaped soap. I've had to use the far inferior map medium known as the Jpeg to illustrate this news.

Dusty Gautlets

To Be Sorted can no-longer expect to put merely our pride on the line come December 27. Honor, wealth, and women are not acceptable stakes. No. We must put our very humanity on the line. If we are to be real Autorickshaw drivers we are called to wager our thumbs. The very thing which brought the human race to our current evolutionary glory. Our opposable masterwork.

The appendages of many high profile racer lie limp in the dirt in the name of this longstanding Indian tradition. The loser of a major race is left unable to operate a rickshaw for the rest of his shameful life. Certainly 2,000 miles is a major race. Certainly we are high profile racers. But can I be certain To Be Sorted will not be forced to cut off our own thumbs?