We started our morning wet and cold. Covered in sand that had began to turn to mud and in a panic to get our camping gear inside the dry car as quickly as possible. We were awake 3 hours before we needed to leave so we spent an extended breakfast

Today was our toughest day yet! We slogged through 300km of rough off-road, most of it completely off course. We took a wrong left turn and went down 100km of dirt road and incomplete highway finally ending in a rock quarry with a large log blocking the entrance. Our stubborness

Today was our rest day. We started the day with a decision to reorganize the car and clean some of the dust we’d accumlated over the Gobi. I went downtown to look around for duffel bags and found a nice street market with some great deals. We got two

We left Jiyauguan in the direction of the mountain range we could see on the south side the previous day. It’s strange in China that the plains seem to come right up to the base of the mountains with no gradual slope. We followed that immediate transition into a

We awoke today looking forward to the hotel later that night. Two days of camping in sand and driving in the heat makes dusty men. Unfortunately there was an accident with one of the competitors at the sporting time control so they cancelled the route and sent us directly to

The worst day yet. We woke up covered in sand to an unbearable sewage smell. I lost my lucky bracelet and we decided to just throw the broken tent away. The route provided no relief either. With bumpy offroads and large stretches of soft sand, we got stuck a few

A welcome break in intensity for the day. Nothing much to report on the road other than that we made our way into the Gobi Desert today and into the dunes of our camp site. Some police officers invited Alican and I inside the enjoy some melon with them. Everyone

We started the day off with another crack at the race course we did yesterday. Beat our time by a full 10 seconds. Then we headed off for Ordos over a few nice highways. Along the way we saw nuclear power plants everywhere. Also, it seems like many buildings in

We left in the morning from Datong, finally able to see the skyline of the city. Along the city streets there are only a few types of tall buildings that look homogenous. Each of them perfectly even in a grid, like the whole city was built in a short time

The first day of the race! We started the day with an early drive to the great wall, just outside of the city. There was a ceremony to start us off complete with timapani drums and a dragon. It was nice but we were too eager to get started to

What a busy week! We’ve had some posts prepared but with the scurry to get the finishing touches on our car we were too exhausted to get them out. Here's a large update from us on the beginning of the rally. May 13th We started the cloudy

We’re at the hotel airport now looking out over South Vancouver and the third runway. Grandma Kinahan loves to tell the story of how her moms family farm sat where the eastern section of the third runway is now. They buried horseshoes in the gravel there before leaving to