I believe that there is something very special about the Mongolian skies. Out of all of the countries I’ve been to, the skies in Mongolia are the most memorable. They are vast. They are the most perfect color blue. Even when they get angry and dark, they are perfection. They make me feel small. And [...]

“What’s that smell?” asked Deb. “I don’t know, but I smell it too.” said Dave. “I don’t smell a thing.” I said from the back seat. We stopped to investigate under the car and the hood. We had already had a tire repaired again today in a little ger truck stop…but now we had only [...]

The first thing we did when we woke up was check the rear tire to see if it still had air. We already had one flat from the day before and had to put on our spare which had a slow leak in it – but it seemed to hold ok overnight…whew. We had 100km [...]

We slowly moved deeper into Mongolia where the foreign landscapes, people, and towns started to become normal to me. We were moving from western Mongolia into Central Mongolia and the Gobi Desert; from Altai to Bayankhongor. The landscapes changed dramatically as we left the Altai mountains and hills behind and had nothing but perfectly flat [...]

Mongolia is flat…and so are our tires.  A little photo essay on our tire changes…and there were many.  The roads in Mongolia are brutal on tires…especially when you start out with rear ones that are bald already!  I seemed to be bad luck on the tires as we only got flats when I was driving.  [...]

We get in the car, adjust the seat so that the pedal distance is just right, buckle up, and put two quarters in the slot. I choose 3 players, level of difficulty, my route, start the engine, hear the rumble of a muffler-less rally car, and I’m off…as if I’m in a video game. Driving [...]

Once the sun came up they started appearing. They were just puffs of dust off in the distance and as they got closer you could see 3 or 4 people squeezed on the motorcycle. They were curious about what 2 little tents and a car were doing in their flat rocky landscape they call home. [...]

When I was a kid I used to have this thing called a ‘bubble’; it was made of Styrofoam in the shape of an oval about a foot long.  It was used for swimming…actually it kept me from sinking.  The bubble was strapped around my waste and basically kept me afloat in the pool. I [...]