So... Ummm...Yeah

Hi there! So its started. Nick and I (Sean) flew to Liverpool the other day to begin the preparations for the start of the Mongol Rally. Flight seemed rather uneventful... except of course for Sean's usual "extra special" security pat down.

Upon arrival in Liverpool all went well and the two of us managed to not only navigate the English rail system unscathed but also found time for beers. All in all we made it down to our new car no problems... thats where the fun starts.

After some rather dodgey driving bits around the neighborhood and a QUICK good bye from the cars previous owner Nick and I headed down the highway wind in our hair and a piss poor map in my lap. Until it stopped. The car that is. Ten miles out of town from where we picked it up, the damn thing went kaboom. The long and short of it all is.... the car had no clutch. The water pump was leaking and corroded, the cam belt was about to slip, there was approximately 1/2 a liter of black sludge for oil and the air filter had been changed never. (We will go more into detail at a better time). Our good buddies, from team Skip Lizard, set us up with their mechanic who graciously housed us fed us gave us parts at cheap and helped us more or less rebuild the motor. God bless ya Steve Theobald of ST Engineering, Surrey, England.

After all was rebuilt we got on our way and cruised to Heathrow to pick up our very own paper pusher and get ready for the next days start off.... with NONE of the preparitive shopping we had planned to do. Fun laughs and good times.

SO for all you box holders out there- If you are the first box you win (I know that means Gerry Cass and Barry O') . We will be letting the bars know. Just so ya alls know.... the total cost of repairs and recovery and parts has come close to just about everything in our bank account. If you're a winner and so inclined.... (shameless shameless panhandling here) feel free to hit our PayPal account at the bottom of this page. We are also still excepting donations for the charities as well (whom we have met and are so pleased with the amount we have raised and how much it surpasses a good deal of the other teams! Thanks guys!!!!!)

We have loads of photos that we will be posting over the next few hours as well as posts from Nick and Amy to fill in rest of the trip thus far. Cheers to everyone!

-Sean

ps- we are also included in an article on MSNBC.com about the rally- hit it up and search Mongol Rally.