We live South of Denver, but I had a business function up North today at 120th and Federal, and it was a rather hazy day, but here’s a shot of Denver.
There’s Bill (one of our sponsors!)
Carrie and I love to make homemade pizza. My mom has this ultra-secret recipe for pizza dough which is just awesome. Maybe if you ask nicely, I’ll email it to you. (Actually it’s not secret, and it’s very simple, but I add a couple things to it which makes a great thing EVEN BETTER – so the secret’s really mine – but ask and I may post the “secret recipe” here!)
So you may be asking, What does pizza have to do with climbing Kilimanjaro? Well, I’ll admit it’s perhaps a loose correlation, but follow me here.
When you make a pizza, you can make it with cheese and sauce. And it’s a fine pizza!
But maybe you’d like a pizza that has a little more to it. That’s how Carrie and I like our pizza – with lots of awesome ingredients and toppings. And it’s how we’re planning on climbing Kilimanjaro.
See, you can climb Kili with some simple gear. You can have a sleeping bag that’s only rated to 10 degrees (instead of the recommended 20 degrees below), and you can have a hand-held flashlight (we start our summit on June 27th at midnight-so we’ll need light) instead of the recommended head-lamps, and you can even climb (and get to the top) in less than adequate clothing.
But why? Why get the “Just cheese version” when for just a little more work and investment on the front-end, the trip can be so much more enjoyable?
There are a lot of people who live their lives by the philosophy which says that cheese pizza is good enough, or that they just like cheese pizza. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
If someone else wants to go through life just eating cheese pizza, that’s fine.
But I hope that we inspire some people with what we’re doing! And I hope that people also understand that it’s a lot of little steps that get us to where we want to go. That philosophy (of little steps-rather than instant success and riches) is one of the things taking us to the roof of Africa, and it is how we are planning our trip.
Is it challenging physically and financially? Definitely! And once we’re on the mountain, will the mental challenge be large? Absolutely! But I can tell you, I would absolutely choose our pizza over the other choice EVERY TIME!
Why settle for the one on the left when for just a little more time and effort, you can have the one on the right?
Jim Rohn says that “being successful is not doing extraordinary things. It’s doing ordinary things extraordinarily well.”
I would say going to Kilimanjaro is an extraordinary thing. But I would also argue that we are able to go, because we do our best to do ordinary things to the best of our ability, and because we are surrounded by AMAZING people!
(This definitely includes our group of awesome sponsors as well!) Thank-you to everyone who has expressed their support and encouragement!
(And if you want the dough recipe, or have other thoughts about this post or our trip, or anything related, just add a comment below.)