'Coming close to death, celebrating our lives, seeing the issue up front!'

While remote areas of Siberia have kept some of us from accessing the very-much-in- demand computers and remote internet devices, I am happy to report that their has been quite a bit of excitement over the past while. To start with, it was great to meet up again with Professor Fred Strebeigh from Yale University as he was close by Lake Bakal doing some work on environment protection for the area. As the deepest fresh water lake in the world, it was an honor to run by the great Lake Bakal - 1 mile deep with another 4 miles of sedament below that! Water truely is life. On other fronts, I was sent to a different team just after my previous blog to cover another runner overcoming some injuries and this had both myself and Taeko feeling a little sad. Running through Mongolia and the Gobi Desert is up next and has everyone nervously brimming with joy. Speaking of nervousness, while being on Team Silver we went through two accidents that could of been the worst possible kind. It sure is a reminder of how precious our lives are and each and every moment. For me in celebrating the moment in Ulaanbaatar, today I presented Taeko with her official Engagement ring that was made in Russia - our original place of engagement! For such remote areas in Mongolia the task of finding, getting and securing safe drinking water is really bringing the issue to our eyes.