The Mongol Rally Guys

I’ve spent the last few weeks trying to get accustomed to normal life again. I’ll tell you one thing–it’s definitely not as exciting as rallying around the world!

Soon after returning back to the states we were interviewed on WJR 760 Radio’s Warren Pierce Show. This is the fifth time we have been a guest on his show. Warren, born and raised in Detroit, hosts a morning talk show every Saturday from 6:00AM to 9:00AM. Thanks to both Warren and producer Rachel Nevada [...]

The flight was only a tad bit delayed–much better than having to reschedule my flight three times because of snow as my friend Ann had to do! The plane was a beautiful, spacious new model with touch screens in every seat–much better than I was expecting from Aeroflot. Didn’t get to take advantage of [...]

After I returned to Ulaanbaatar from the Gobi Desert I spent most of the days hagning out with new friends while the nights were spent conversing at the local watering holes. I had the chance to attend a house party, see traditional Mongolian Theater, visit the somewhat laughable Mongolian Museum of Natural History, and, most [...]

The evening of the race we all crawled back to camp to nurse our wounds with food and beer. The more experienced runners among us weren’t doing so bad, but the rest of us were left with extremely sore muscles and blisters a plenty. Even though I was running in hiking shoes I somehow managed [...]

We awoke around 6:30 and had a big breakfast together in the restaurant ger. After that we prepared ourselves by getting into our race gear (which for me consisted of putting on my normal clothing and hiking shoes), slathering sunscreen over any exposed flesh, and doing a bit of stretching before getting into the minivans [...]

I woke up early Friday morning to get ready for the trip. Brigitte was heading out in a separate group, so I would be traveling without her for most of the journey. I met up with the other “bus’ers” around 11:30AM near the MIAT Airlines office. There was a French (now American) lady and her [...]

She wasn’t hard to find, as she was the only white lady walking around with a dog. Brigitte is the founder and member of the Rotary Club of BayanZurkh, which my Rotary club (West Bloomfield, Michigan) had partnered with in order to assist in building a kindergarten in rural Mongolia. Munich-born, Brigitte attained U.S. citizenship [...]

Having nothing better to do than sleep for the time being I decided to explore what would be my surroundings for the next three days and nights. I walked the narrow hall and found car after car looking exactly like the one I was in. I went on for about six cars or so before [...]

The flight on Air Astana to Novosibirsk was pretty uneventful. I arrived in the early afternoon, very tired, and set about on my first mission: finding a bus to take me to the train station. Unfortunately, I didn’t have many Russian rubles on me, I had no idea where the bus stop was, and the [...]