Introducing the Cast...

Minwah Leung and Karen Noiva Welling
Minwah and I chose some pictures that we felt were representative of the personalities of the people in the group, to familiarize our lovely readers with members of the cast they may not know. To the left is Minwah and myself in the midst of gorging ourselves on spareribs and German chocolate cake in Pomeroy, WA on our last bike trip.

Minwah returned Dec. 18th to the States after 14-months of traveling, working, and wwoofing in New Zealand and Australia. Immediately before that she was on a 3-month-ish cross-country (US) bike tour with me, Mike Seager, and Ariel Welling. We're planning to be on the road in Africa until August, so she'll have been on the road for quite some time! She thinks she may like to work for a non-profit upon her return, settling down for at least a little while. Minwah's working nickname (courtesy of Seager from the cross-country bike trip) is Admiral Misses-the-Point.

My working nickname (also courtesy of Seager) is Captain Obvious. Will we live up to our titles? Will we be laid off from our jobs in the faltering economy and take on new roles? Will the other cast members acquire nicknames? Stay tuned to see how group dynamics play out on this trip.

I am not sure what to say about myself. It is exciting and intimidating to be visiting a continent and experiencing cultures that I have only had intriguing glimpses of through readings and other media. I'm looking forward to drawing a few pictures, learning some new recipes, and seeing so many new things.

Quinn Baumberger
Below we have chosen a picture of Quinn. I hope he doesn't hate us for choosing this picture of him, which Minwah and I unanimously agreed was one of the most excellent of his goofy pictures on Facebook. Quinn rode from Alaska to Argentina the year after Orian did. He is also a snowboarder par-excellence, and judging by his Facebook photos will be an entertaining member of the cast.






Orian Welling
A master of many things including funny hairstyles and train riding. He has ridden many miles on a bike, beginning at the age of four. He completed his first century ride at the age of 10.


Totaling up the mileage from his two cross-country US rides and his Pan America tour (Prudhoe Bay, AK to Ushaia, Argentina) Orian has ridden the length of the circumference of the globe.


Orian hopes to document the trip with video footage using a sweet little camera some MIT friends gave us for our wedding in June 2008. He plans to send this footage back to BJ in Wisconsin so he can edit it with the fancy video editing software he has, and then post the footage to youtube. Look for links to videos on this blog.

Orian expects to eat meat at points throughout our trip. Orian is normally a vegetarian by taste, but during travels will eat meat out of courtesy or extreme hunger. He has eaten: sea cucumber, pigs' ear, feet, and hoof, deep fried maggots, road kill rabbit and deer, and cold, boiled llama meat with fur on it. I wonder what sort of meats we will confront during this trip?

Nate Hurst
Nate Hurst is putting his ultimate frisbee career on hold to bike with us in Africa. He had an entertaining escapade on the way back to Wisconsin for Christmas this year involving a blizzard, locked keys, a locksmith named Wally, a closed highway, and a towed car.

Nate is hoping to chronicle our adventures in a book. Orian and I have had visions of something like that, too, and I hope this inspires us all to more prolific writings that will leave our blog readers with some meatier stuff.