Day 1/March 22, 2009 (Sunday) The first steps are some of the hardest

"Every journey begins with a single, critical step. Once in motion, keeping your heading and inertia becomes much easier, the goal more in focus. I am now thankfully very much in motion, half a world away from home, blogging from the comfort of a cafe in the Frankfurt (Germany) airport, ABBA playing somewhat annoyingly the background. Ten hours ago, riding to the airport with Gail, Luke and Jenna, I had a tight knot in my stomach, trying to make light of the "quick trip" I had planned to Everest's summit and back, and otherwise trying to remain upbeat despite the anguish of separation we'd soon face. A curbside drop-off with two enormous and overweight duffels made the goodbye hugs pass too quickly, but once inside the terminal I pushed away any uncertainty I might have had and strode with confidence towards the Lufthansa counter. With just under 4 hours of sleep last night and weeks of planning and training, plus months of daily dreaming of it, I was finally on my way back to the Himalayas!"

With a few hours of down time here in Frankfurt, I attempted to latch onto the GPS satellite network with my cool new SPOT Satellite Personal Tracker unit. While GPS devices do quite well through glass (as I verified driving around Houston last week), metal-framed buildings are not their friends --- and the terminal is partially covered in corrugated metal to boot. I'll have plenty of opportunity to show SPOT the whole sky once I get to Nepal, and allow family, friends and other followers the ability to follow me step by step up the flanks of Everest...

Full Report

News from Commercial Space Watch