Almost Home Again

Friends, we have to tell you it was bittersweet today as we crossed the border from Idaho into Washington state. We are staying the night in one of our favorite places, Leavenworth, and will head home tomorrow. We are expecting our cats to be furious at us...either ignore us for a few days, or let out that hell-possessed yowl that could wake the dead. We are looking forward to spending some time in our own house, cooking with our own dishes, eatting food we make, and relaxing in our space.

Tomorrow we plan on picking up 40 lbs of apples to bring home with us so we can make some applesauce again like last year...homemade sauce is so good!

Glacier National Park

Our original plan was to camp at Glacier National Park, but when we found out that it had been down in the 20's at night we changed our minds and booked a hotel in Whitefish instead.

We headed to the West side of the park and nearly immediately saw a huge black bear trying to get berries out of a tree right by the road! We tried to get a picture but couldn't get the lens on the camera fast enough before it ran into the woods on the other side of the road. We headed up the road to Avalanche Creek and stopped for a beautiful hike to Avalanche Lake. We were inspired not only by the hike's beauty, but also by how much the lake itself reminded us of our own familiar alpine lakes in the Cascades. We are so looking forward to seeing them again soon!

On our way back down we stopped by the Lake McDonald Lodge to catch a boat ride, only to find it was booked for the last two trips. So instead we decided to have a late lunch on the shoreside. We attemped to skip rocks on the water...turns out we aren't so very good at that...especially Margaret, so instead we just threw rocks in the water...tried to skip some again, and went back to just throwing them in.

On Monday we went through the East side of the park and saw a mountain goat! We went through Many Glacier, up to Logan's Pass and hiked up to the Hidden Lake Outlook, stunning!

For dinner we went to Pescado Blanco, which means "Whitefish" in spanish. I don't know what it is about Mexican food, but when done with 'fusion' cuisine, it always turns out so well! This was "Gourmet Mountain Mexican", so they had elk tacos, and bison enchilladas. It was SO SO good, truely the tastiest meal that we have had in a restaurant on our entire trip.

Yellowstone National Park

We had a lovely time in Yellowstone National Park! We camped for three nights at Grants campground. We were there just as the campsites were closing down for the year, most of the families with school aged children and retirees had headed for warmer climates. The first day we arrived we didn't have much time for exploring, and spent our evening setting up our camp and trying to stay warm (it was pretty cold at night!). The first full day we were there we went to see Old Faithful. We were rained out in the afternoon and retreated to our campsite to relax and do the crossword in the local newspaper.

The next day we set off to explore the Geisers of the Upper, Lower and Mid basins near old faithful. The colors of the pools were phenominal, as were beauty of the geysers. We saw hundreds of buffalo, and found this one hiding behind some bushes...note to self...don't pee behind a bush, you may not know what is on the other side!

We enjoyed a ranger-lead program at the fishing bridge and learned about the drama of the Yellowstone Cutthroat trout. Seriously, Desperate Housewives could learn a thing or two about drama from this little fish and it's fight for survival!

On our way out of the park the next day we went and saw Canyon and Mammoth on our way to Whitefish. Our drive was mostly uneventful (minus the high-winds and unbanked crappiness of Montana's poor excuse for I-90), and beautiful with the rolling waves of grasses, and high mountains.

Sunday September 13 - A Day on the Farm

Today was surely one of the highlights of our trip. We started off the day being so lucky, Grandma made us buttermilk biscuits and gravy for breakfast, it was SO good.

We powered up Grandma and Grandpa's four wheel drive, and went for a drive around the farm. The farm is separated into four areas, the hay meadow, the house part, the pasture with the pond, and then a third pasture has all the farming equipment. We drove through the part of the pasture with the pond, and then wound our way through the hay meadow. We decided to 'hunt' cows, and found about a dozen of them spending the warm morning in the cool shade. Unlike Grandma's previous cows, these particular bovines don't chase ATV's (One of the creapiest experiences of my life the last time I was here on an ATV was being chased by 8 cows thinking I had food for them!), and instead just kind of stared at us. We didn't get too close as many of them had calves, and we didn't want to make them mad! We then went through to the house part of the farm, and Sean tried to see how fast he could make the ATV go. I thought we were going to die. Sean used to have ATV's and needless to say is much more comfortable on them.

Uncle David and his wife Angie, and their two daughters arrived just after 3 pm. Uncle David is actually closer to my age than my dad's, just 11 years older than me, so we had a lot of fun catching up about issues that we are both experiencing, home improvements, going back to school, buying a house, etc. Grandma made a GIGANTIC dinner (I can see where Aunt Debbie gets it!), we had pulled pork, potato salad, coleslaw, and about 5 different kinds of BBQ sauce including the one Grandpa made last night (Whoo Hoo!). Dinner was absolutely wonderful!

After dinner Uncle David, his 3 year old daughter Jessie, Sean and I went out to the fishing pond to see what was there. And by fishing I really mean that Uncle David taught Sean and I how things were done, and could barely fish himself because he was so busy helping out Sean, Jessie and I. We had a wonderful time catching blue fin, big mouth bass, Croppie and cat fish. Two fish actually broke the line because they were SO big, approximatly 28 inches, our little lines couldn't handle it. Uncle David even hooked one that was more than 36 inches long, and it broke the line above the bobber. We laughed as the bobber went around the whole pond, being dragged by the one that got away. We could see the bobber go around from one side of the pond to the other for over an hour =).

Uncle David and family headed home, and Grandma, Grandpa, Sean and I rounded out the evening with some wonderful peach cobbler and the Lord of the Rings.

Saturday September 12 - CowTown

Well CowTown...the name says it all! It's actually a museum in Wichita that wonderfully captures the essence of the 'Old West' in the mid-1800's. There are approximaly 30 buildings that have been moved to the site and restored to how they were during the 1800's, employees dress in period costume, and are walking encyclopedia's about early Wichita history. We enjoyed watching bank robber's being 'gunned down' by a group of angry townswomen, and going into each of the old buildings and learning about their roll's including the pharmacy, the grain elevator, train station, meat market, and our favorite...the saloon! Our favorite quote of the day was from one of the 'townswomen' "Men may have settled the West, but Women civilized it".

We stopped by the Kroger grocery store, Fred Meyer and QFC to us is Dillans here, and got all the things we needed to make up a gigantic pan of enchilladas. We headed home and cooked and enjoyed a great dinner together.

Friday September 11 - Drive from Indianapolis to Augusta

Today was a long driving day. We are learning to better break up our time, and switched drivers every one to two hours instead of doing longer shifts. The most shocking part of the day was the drive from Kansas City to Grandma's house, as we drive through the Flint Hill's (the prarie) we were amazed at how beautifully green it was. We didn't know how much rain Kansas had been getting, and were so lucky to see this area which is normally card board box brown to be so full of blue-green waving grass. We found out from NPR while we were driving that this is actually one of the best years for Kansas for corn and soy bean farming.

We arrived at Grandma'a and Grandpa's around 6:30, just in time for BLT sandwiches with home-grown beefsteak tomatoes!

Thursday September 10 - Drive from Syracuse to Indianapolis and Maid of the Mist

We were sad to leave Marissa this morning, I wish that we lived closer! We had such a lovely visit! We headed out to Niagara Falls and had a wild time going on the "Maid of the Mist" which is the boat that goes by all the falls. The Horseshoe falls on the Canadian side were absolutely breathtaking. The American falls, and Bridal Veil falls were also stunningly beautiful. We enjoyed wearing our gigantic blue poncho's =). After Maid of the Mist we would our way to Indianapolis and didn't arrive until about 9 pm, and we quickly crashed.

Wednesday September 9 - Happy Birthday Marissa Part I

We mostly relaxed today, enjoyed playing Mafia Wars, Mario Brothers. We went to Starbucks and planned our route to Grandma's house.

After Marissa got home from work we headed out to Target to get a few things for our road trip. As a belated birthday gift Marissa generously got us a cooler for our cross country adventure =). We then headed to "The Saucy Swan" for dinner. The best way to describe the restaurant is to say it's like the Red House in Renton, but they specialize in Italian food. We had a lovely dinner to celebrate Marissa's birthday a few days early.

Monday, September 7 - New York State Fair

Whoo-Hoo. This is where we began to get our 'middle America' on with starting off the fair with a wine slushy. Well I guess it could most appropriately be described as red neck, but it was also delicious, so much in fact that we ended up getting two of them! We had a lovely time at the New York State Fair, and got to even pet a giraffe!

September 6 - Yuppy Road Trip USA

Today we begin our great drive across the country. I felt a little yuppy headed down the coast of the Atlantic in our pretty subaru, our keen sandles and with a tasty starbucks. Last time I went on a road trip it was with my entire family piled into a car, Dad threatening that we would have to pee in a cup in the back seat, and Mom trying to get us to eat our homemade sandwiches so we wouldn't stop and spend money on fast food. We've enjoyed the music so far on our drive to Marissa's in Syracuse, started off with 70's folk and have just now found a station with seattle grunge music, a little taste of home!

We left Auntie Ellie's this morning after breakfast, our visits with our east coast family are always way to short. Today is Auntie Ellie's birthday HAPPY BIRTHDAY AUNTIE ELLIE!!!

We plan to arrive at Marissa's this evening about dinner time.

Quote of the day: "Moose Crossing...Holy Crap...REALLY?...I want to see a Moose"

September 5 - Chauncey Creek

September 5 - Chauncey Creek

Sean and I walked into Portsmough today from Auntie Ellie's house, about a 3 mile walk. We stopped by the farkers market and got some lovely tomatoes and headed into the small town for brunch. We met Mom and Auntie Ellie at the glass studio and then headed across into Maine for some outlet mall shopping. It was glorious. The first stop was Villeroy and Bach, who makes our every day dishes pattern. We walked out spending $54, and the sum of the original prices was $495. Thank you factory store!

We went back into town and Sean became very concerned that the local ice creamery had run out o ice cream, so Auntie Ellie, Sean and I went to Annabelles just to check, and each got a scoop.

As fun ans shoppng and ice cream were, they were by no means the highlight of the day. The best part of theday day was dinner

After ice cream we went back to Auntie Ellie's and started getting things together to go to Chauncey Creek for dinner. Chauncey Creek is a lovely restaurant in Kittery Maine. The only thing that they really serve is Lobster. So everything else you have to bring yourself. We set out a beautiful sea themed table cloth on a large picnic table on the pier. Auntie Cathie and Uncle Wayne drove up from Boston, and my Grammie's friend Irine came to join Sean, Mom, Auntie Ellie and I. We lit the candles of the center piece that we brought and set out a smorgesborge of wine, green salad, cheese puffs, black-eyed-bean salad (Mississippi Cavier). The lobster came out after a while, and we enjoyed teaching Sean how to eat it the Maine way, dipping it in butter, breaking the back, eatting the claw meat, sucking all the meat out of the legs like a straw all while wearing a plastic bib.

For dessert we dined on funfetti cupcakes, chocolate dipped strawberries and chocolate truffles. We caught up, chatted, sang Happy Birthday to Auntie Ellie.

After dinner Mom went back to Boston with Auntie Cathie and Uncle Wayne so that she could catch an early flight out the next day. Sean, Irine, Auntie Ellie and I headed back to Ellie's house for a cup of tea. After Irine headed home we made some popcorn and watched two episodes of "the Tudors" and then hit the sack!

September 4 - Exploring Portsmouth

An early morning we head into downtown Portsmouth with Mom and have breakfast at a lovely cafe in the town square. We then head to a museum called "Strawberry Banke". In 1623 the first settlers came to New Hampshire and set up their first permanent residence at the mouth of the river between what is now Maine and New Hampshire. The village existed primarily on the fishing industry. Strawberry Banke has many of the towns original homes which are available to go inside and explore with period furniture. Staff dresses up in period costume and share with the guest the way that life in the 1600's and 1700's were in what was to become the United States. We learned about the roll of the Nutter family in the Portsmouth society of the time (that is Sean's Paternal Great - Grandmother's maiden name).

After a tasty lunch back at Auntie Elli's we headed to Dover to learn more about the Nutter family in this area, which dates from 1633. We went to the Woodworth museum, and learned about the Nutter's which were some of the original settlers of this area. One of the real treats of the day was when Mom found a decree written by the 'City of Dover' signed by both Sean's ancestors, and my ancestors, espeically fun because there were only three signatures of the document.

We were pooped and headed back to Auntie Ellie's and made dinner, when she got home from work we ready to eat our tasty salad and lasagna. We made popcorn and watched the first two episodes of the "The Tudor's" on DVD.

September 3 - HAPPY ANNIVERSARY SEAN AND MARGARET

September 2 - Freedom Trail

September 1 - Duck Walk

August 31 - Good Bye World - Travel Day

After a tasty breakfast in our hotel we headed out for some last minute souvenier shopping. We found ourselves in the Munich market, and enjoyed looking at all the beautiful fruits, vegetables, and hand made crafts. We found the Starbucks, and headed around the corner to a 'bavarian' store where we found a nice Christmas ornament to add to our stash. We were walking back to the hotel in search of a chocolatier when we stumbled upon a department store and the entire bottom floor was chocolate from around the world...well we used up all our Euros and as we didn't want to pull out any more we headed to the airport lounge and waited for our flight.

We arrived in Boston in the evening and were met by Mom and Auntie Cathie who took us to my Auntie's house for dinner (Taco's!!!!). We really enjoyed exploring the world, but are truely ready to be in a place where everyone speaks English, and we can buy drugs that we can read the labels too.

August 30 - Munich Tour and Englicher Garten

Early start today, we headed to Starbucks which is conveniently where our tour was meeting for the morning. We enjoyed the history lessons about the old town center, but bailed out on the tour about half way through and went to the Houfbrau house for bratwurst and beer for lunch. We walked up to the Englicher Garden and enjoyed the beautiful garden. Luckily we had been in Europe for a while, and Megan warned us, so we weren't so surprised when we stumbled across the clothing optional portion of the park. We enjoyed sitting by the lake in the park, and eating ice cream, and called it a day and headed back into town for dinner.

We went to Weies Brauhaus for dinner again. As a tribute to all things German, Sean had the 'butchers' plate which involved 5 large sausages made in different styles, a mountain of saurkraut, and three large potatoes. Margaret on the other hand got the 'vegetarian' plate which had lovely things, spinach schpatzle, mushrooms in cream sauce, cooked red cabbage, roasted tomato, etc

August 29 - Duchau Concentration Camp

We headed to Duchau Concentration Camp today. Although not the largest camp, it was the first, the model for all the others, and the only one to run the entire 12 years of Hitlers reign. At the beginning of the Concentration Camp the prisoners were all political prisoners, and after they had been 'reformed' they could actually be released. That only lasted about a year though before more and more people came, and the prisoners were there because they were Jewish, Political Opponents, Homosexual, Jehovah's Witness, etc. Dachau was interesting because all the Catholic Priest that opposed Hitler were went there as political prisoners, the only camp to hold priest.

Seeing the concentration camp in person was nauseating, educational, eye opening.

We had dinner Weies Brauhaus for dinner tonight. It's a lovely beer hall with none of the gimic of Hofbrau House, and double the authenticity. Our waitress was a burly frau, she was incredible...we would have called her the beer nazi had it been more politically correct.

August 28 - Travel Day

Today we went from Murren to Munich. On the train down we overhead some students practicing their English. After hearing "Howdy Partner", "Suburb's", and "Good MoRRRRRning" they got to making fun of english and were trying to see how many times they could roll their R's in Good Morning. Well that was just about the time that they realized that Sean and I were sitting there...after a little 'un schiesta' from one of the gals, a rush of German, we all ended up busting out laughing, great fun.

We headed to Zurich for a light lunch, and to see another city, and then headed on to Munich.

In Munich we went to the Hofbrau house for dinner, that was wild! There were a surprising large percentage of folks walking around in Bavaian style clothing, and everyone was singing along with the songs that the band was playing. People were dancing, yelling, and wearing liederhosen! We each managed to polish off a liter of beer (Margaret had never finished an entire liter on her own before!). I think pleanty of other people were also finishing off their own liters of beer because we actually saw someone in a bear costume dancing the polka with a whole bunch of different gals..What a great way to start our stay in Munich!

August 26 - Shiltorn Hike

Today we set out with the goal of climbing to the top of a 10,000 foot tall mountain called Schilthorn. We started off at Murren which is 5381 feet tall and started climbing upward. At about 3.5 hours into our hike up we came across a restaurant on our map called Schilthornhutte and popped inside to use their WC. However it was just so cute once we got there that we decided to stay for soup and gluvine (spiced red wine served hot).

This little hut was just just a gem and is by far the highlight of our day! A man outside in 'traditional' swiss (like something you would see in the movies) clothes was working on winterizing the wood shed. Inside his wife took our orders and made our food. We were the only people in the entire place, which I assume must be more busy during the winter when it stands in the middle of a large and popular ski run.

After our lunch we continued 1.5 more hours up to the top of Schilthorn. And by top I mean "almost" the top. As we grew closer and closer to the rotating restaurant and lift the clouds became thicker and thicker, the path grew more and more narrow, the rocks became more and more loose, and the cliff markers were making us nervous, so we turned around about 100' from the top because we really couldn't see where we were going.

We came back into Murren and Sean made a tasty spaghetti for dinner, we went to our hotel bar (listed under "nightlife" in Rick Steves) for a beer and dessert.

August 25 - Gimmelwald and Murren

This is the view we started with from the door to the little chalet we are staying in in Murren, Switzerland. Today we decided to go on a hike through some of the nearby villages. We stopped first at the local grocery store to pick up some things to make lunch with, and then headed down hill to the very small village of Gimmelwald.

Rick Steves raves about Gimmelwald like no other, Sean and I have to dissagree, it is possible to visit a place that is TOO small. So despite his ravings, Sean and I are quite happy with our choice of Murren. Murren is a resort town like whistler, but about 1/10th the size, and is everything charming, nothing stuffy like Whistler. We enjoyed a lunch on a quiet bench overlooking the Berner Oberland Valley, and then continued on hiking.









We are in love with this stop on our trip. The only sounds around are the quiet crunch of gravel under our feet, the distant roaring of glacial waterfalls, and the occasional cacophony of a herd of cow or sheep and their bells in the hillsides (ironically better sounding than some bell choirs we have heard!). The air smells clean, with just the slightest scent of grass. Everywhere we look we are awed at the beauty of the mountains, and the meadows.

On our way back into Murren (in picture) we stop by the grocery store again and get everything we need to make chilli for dinner (we thought chili would be good as it has just started raining and is a bit cool). After a tasty dinner we are so tired from our travels the day before that we hit the sack!

August 23 and 24 - Longest Travel Day Ever

Today began the longest travel day that we have had thus far on our trip. For those of you wondering how long it takes to get from the middle of the Serengeti to a little village nestled in the alps, the answer is about 36 hours:

Here is our adventure:
8:30 – Land Cruiser, Lodge to the Grumeti Airstrip (dirt runway...watch out for the wildebeest and baboons)
10:30 – 12-seat Sesna Airplane
11:35 – Land Cruiser, Arusha airport to lunch
14:00 – Land Cruiser, lunch to afternoon day lodge – REI scheduled about 3 hours of down time for all of us at the day lodge in case of early flights out or late flights into the local airports
17:30 – Land Cruiser, day lodge to Kilimanjaro airport
19:45 – ATR 72, Kilimanjaro to Nairobi – say good bye to all our new friends...quite interesting, this plane took off 40 minutes early, good thing we were there early. Upon inquiry found that it's normal for this flight to leave that early
22:20 – 747, Nairobi to Amsterdam – Sat next to funny Dutchman
6:03 – Starbucks at Amsterdam airport...ahh a mocha, a taste of home
6:44 – Train, Amsterdam to Utrecht
7:29 – Train, Utrecht to Frankfurt – free chocolate
10:54 – Train, Frankfurt to Mannheim
11:36 – Train, Mannheim to Interlaken – So cool that they have Belgian beer for sale ON the train, also more free chocolate...We like German trains!
16:00 – Train, Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen
16:30 – Cable Car, Lautebrunnen to Grutschalp
16:45 – Train, Grutschalp to Murren
17:30 – Laundry in a real laundry machine (woot).
19:00 – Fondue made with swiss cheese by swiss people...yum!
21:00 – Sleep

August 22 - Serengeti

Today was a full day with two game drives in the western corridor of the Serengeti. The morning drive took us to the Grumeti River, famous for it's many freshwater crocodiles. But along the way we were delayed by an encouter with a newborn Topi which had stumbled into the road. It couldn't have been more than 10 minutes old -- the umbilical was still attached and bright red, and it could just barely walk (our guides told us they take 10-15 minutes to learn to run and keep up with Mom). We were pretty worried that the baby would become Hyena chow, because Mom was nowhere to be seen, but there was nothing we could do about it; that's just the way life goes in the wild.

At the river we saw dosens of crocodiles. We even saw one move :p. The crocodiles were large, but some were hiding in the tall grasses of the riverbank, so we had fun competing to spot the most (we topped out at 11). A couple of them look fierce with their mouths open, but it turns they were asleep and that's just how they cool off. We had a real treat when we saw four black and white Colobus monkeys, which our guides told us really only live in that area and tend to be more elusive than they were today. They were beautiful, with shiny black coats, white stripes, and a long black tail with a puffy white end. It was fun to watch them eat and move around the trees.

On our way back to the lodge, we had our eyes peeled searching for the baby Topi, hoping beyond hoe that it hadn't become Hyena chow. Incredibly enough, we saw an adult Topi in the treeline near the road, and baby was right there alongside her! As our cars approached, they trotted away from the road, but we were happy to see that they had been reunited.

We had a nice lunch back at the lodge, and some time to explore the grounds and send a few emails. Yep...satellite internet service deep in the Serengeti.

Our afternoon game drive was all about finding a leopard. One hour forty minutes into the drive, our truck hadn't seen any leopards, but we had seen quite a few elephants, zebras, warthogs, wildebeest, ostrich, buffalo, baboon...the usual but exquisite fare :) Then we heard the radio call from the other driver, and they had found the leopards. We sped along "I-5", the less-bumpy main road of the western Serengeti, until we met the other truck. Then, at 5:41pm (credit to Margaret for writing down times!), our drivers switched and we took off even faster. After 40 more minutes we were at the spot of the leopard sighting, and sure enough a leopard was asleep in a tree branch about 200 meters from the road. Even the bazookas had a hard time getting recognizable pictures. We caught a glimpse of another leopard, long enough to snap off a picture or two, but then it hid from us in a culvert under the road.

So, during the final moments of our final drive, we completed the "big five" animals of safari fame. The term comes from classic hunting safaris (Englishmen with muskets, not assault rifles) and describes the five animals which, if you attack, but don't kill, will without a doubt kill you.

We were maybe just a tad behind schedule after seeing the leopard...so Ndasekoi gave us a really fun, white knuckle, rally-race-winning demonstration of the land cruiser's high-speed dirt road cornering capabilities. The Serengeti rangers are pretty strict about returning to the lodges by nightfall, so we were in a hurry. It was fun to see the animals sort of "heading to bed" along the ride back, and made for a very memorable end to a very memorable week.

Tonight at dinner we had the treat of eating with our guides once again. We learned a little more about their lives and shared some about our own. At one point Ndasekoi was telling us about the way the Maasai hunt lions as retribution for taking the easy kills of Maasai cattle. He was giving a lot of detail about the tactics of hunting. For example, when you are encircling the lioness you have to keep eye contact (stare her down), because if you glance away she will think of you as prey and attack; when you throw your spear, you run immediately behind the person to your right. So Margaret asks him "have you done this?" and he responds with this "yeah, of course!" like it was silly to ask at all -- as if we had asked "Is the sky blue?". We were pretty stunned that this was part of his upbringing as a Maasai warrior.

August 21 - Transit to Serengeti

This day was a very long drive, punctuated by three of the best experiences of the whole trip.
In the morning, we toured a Maasai village (they must rake in the dough for this, at $20 US/pp) and joined them in their warrior dance (basically, it's quasi-rhythmic throat singing and a high-jumping competition; I didn't win). Margaret joined the ladies for their welcome dance. Video's will be posted on You Tube.

By just after 3 pm we had entered the Serengeti. It is clearly the inspiration for the movie 'lion king' complete with the 'pride rock' where the lions like to hang out. We drive out around a popular water whole to see if we can find any lions. We saw two females with about 5 cubs hiding in the tall grass so we decided to stop and watch a while. Then we realized that there was a big male lion, and another female. All of a sudden another male appears out of no where and starts walking towards us, clearly the 'let's go' signal, as two other male lions, his brothers, approximately 5 female lions, and 7 cubs start moving in the grass, and passing our vehicle both in front and in back to congregate on the other side of the road (the cubs stayed hidden in the grass). It was incredible being surrounded by lions!

In the afternoon, just as we were giving up on seeing a cheetah or leopard while transiting the central Serengeti, we came upon a couple trucks who were watching a leopard chew on a gazelle up in a tree (leopard drags his kill up into the tree before eating). We saw the leopard run down the tree just as we approached, and hide in the tall grasses and scrub nearby. We waited and waited, and searched with our binoculars. After about 20 minutes of waiting, a troupe of baboons wandered into the area. They immediately checked out the fresh kill, then spread out in a slowly expanding circle, searching for the leopard, hooting and hollering their status. It took the baboons as long as it took me to find the leopard, about 10 minutes. When they found it, all the big male baboons chased the leopard out and down a creek bed. The leopard was visible and gone in such a flash that nobody captured a picture, though we all saw it flash by. It is very rare to see the baboons team up on a leopard, and our guides were so excited to see this rare occurrence that they jumped up and down in their seats while waving their arms and shouting fragmented exclamations! We watched the baboons track the leopard for another 15 minutes or so (we never saw the leopard again – probably hiding under another bush), before leaving out of necessity to reach our lodge by nightfall (85km distant).

The rest of the drive was beautiful. We drove through grassland and forest, full of zebra, baboon, elephant, giraffe, gazelle, topi, waterbuck, wildebeest, impala, and various birds.

We arrived at our lodge just before 7 pm, it is the Best. Lodge. Ever. Seriously, it's the nicest 'hotel' I have ever stayed in. Imagine from an old Indiana Jones movie, or Tomb Rader movlie the 'rustic' safari tents that they stayed in, complete with lanters, book cases, four poster bed, etc. Our lodge was kind of like that. We had our own chalet in the Serengeti park, two of the walls were canvas with mesh windows. The lights were old english style lanterns with modern light bulbs in them, wood floors, gigantic bathroom with old claw foot style tub, it was incredibly luxiourious (in the middle of the Serengeti, go figure).

After dinner we were walking back to our chalet and we shined our flashlights down the hill towards a noise we had heard. A set of BIG eyes about a foot apart from each other stared sparkled in the dark back up towards us. Fear crept over us as we realized that it was a cape buffalo, and that we had no land cruiser to protect us. We didn't dilly dally as we picked up the pace back to our chalet, but we sure did feel better as the cape buffalo went back to eating bushes with his buddy.

August 20 - Ngorongoro Game Drive

This morning we met the rest of our group at 6:30 am so we could have a full day in the Ngorongoro crater. We made box lunches, and piled into the cars and made our way to the gate of the park. The Ngorongoro Conservation area is actually adjacent to the Serengeti, but don't let that fool you, both areas are HUGE. At the gate we learned that we learned that the crater was formed by what used to be a volcano. The volcano erupted, and lost so much mass from inside itself that it collapsed inward, making it technically a 'caldera'. Ngorongoro is the largest fully in-tact, not full of water, caldera in the world. This is t,he area (not the exact park), where the skeleton of Lucy was found, as well as many other very old ancestral human remains.

As we descended into the crater around 8:35 am the biggest thought that went through our heads was “If Jurrasic Park could exist anywhere, it would be here”. There were so many different types of areas to see and explore for animals. There were grass plains which were so thick that a cape buffalo could lie down and be hidden from view. There were jungle like twisted trees and vines along the edge of the crater, a lake inside the crater (with a fun view of some flamingos!). And many marshy areas filled with hippos.

By 8:50 we had seen our first new animal of the day, called a jackal. After lunch we saw a cheetah stalking a group of gazelles (or as Donald likes to call them “Cheetah Chow”). As the cheetah grew closer, the gazelles caught sight of him and all ran away. The cheetah didn't pursue because, according to our guide Ndasikoi he was already a little chubby from already having eatten. However the cheetah experience made us realize that safari's have a lot in common with deep sea fishing. The drivers (sea captains) call each other to let each other know when they have found a unique animal (a place with fish), and then all the drivers (sea captains) go there with their land cruisers (fishing boats) so that their passengers can take pictures (catch fish).

We soon found ourselves at a pool of water with many hippos in it escaping the heat of the day. There was a baby hippo, so tiny...well by that I mean roughly the size of Mom's dog Fea, who was trying to climb up on the momma hippo, it was impossibly cute!

By 4 o'clock we were beginning to be a little disappointed that we hadn't yet seen a rhinoceros. As we approached the rim of the crater our driver spotted one off in the distance. Our camera's couldn't quite take good pictures, but we were all able to see them with our binoculars! We were so excited, we have now seen four of the BIG FIVE. The reason that the lion, leopard, elephant, cape buffalo, and rhinoceros are called the big five, is because if you shoot one and don't kill it...it will kill you. So here is our picture of the rhinoceros, we hope you are able to find him ;).

Today was a great day, and was marked by seeing lions, lots of cape buffalo, herds of wildebeest, and more along with the animals mentioned above. We climbed out of the crater in the evening (I think Sean left permanent dents in the arm rest with his white knuckles) and headed back to our hotel for dinner.

On the road to Ngorongoro - August 19

We started off today by doing a wee bit of shopping en route. The first store we stopped out had all the profits go to support a local orphanage. However the prices were absolutely ridiculous for a third world country, we quickly had trinket overload and ended up getting nothing at all even though we did want to help the orphanage.

After our overload we went to a lodge near where we were staying for our hike. The hike turned out to be more of a mild nature walk led by the head gardener of the lodge/plantation through barley fields (see pictures) and the coffee plantation. Interesting, but not what we expected.

We arrived at coffee plantation where we will be for the next two nights, had some time to relax. Sean and I went on a run, but then got nervous about lions hiding in the grass, decided that we were wimps, two miles were enough, and turned around back through the fields, the lush gardens, and arrived back at our beautiful duplex.

Transit to Lake Manyara and Game Drive - August 18

Today we went for a drive on “Toyota Road” to Lake Manyara built by Toyota to save the company money, the original road was in such bad condition that it would break all the vehicles still under warranty. We made our way along "Toyota Road" through villages, and through the area we would soon be exploring called 'Mosquito Creek'. At first we were a little bit nervous about driving next to 'mosquito creek', but we still didn't see any...beginning to think we won't come home with yellow fever...caused contemplation about why prostitution, and marijuana are legal in the Netherlands, but not Permethrin, a chemical we put on our clothes to protect us from diseases like Malaria.

We had lunch at Serena Lodge atop escarpment of Great Rift Valley, the views were stunning, we could see forever, and our lunch was wonderful. After lunch our drivers picked us up and we headed out on our game drive through Lake Manyara National Park. There were so many white butterflies, about 2 inches big, that in many of our pictures it looks like it's snowing. There were hundreds of them in each picture we took, it was magical! The farther we went along in our day the more we felt like we were in a zoo designed for grown-ups, so many animals, so many birds and plants. The afternoon ended with us arriving at the famous Hippopotamus pool where we watched for 20 minutes as hippo's yawned, entered and exited the water,and played.

After the Hippo Pool we headed to our lodging for the night. We drove through several Maasai villages on the way. Our lodging for the night was also Maasai themed, stunningly beautiful, it's very nice...surprisingly they have a website MaasaiVillage.com. We also had our first good look at the way Maasai people dress. Women have shaved heads and white beaded earrings which go down to their shoulders, and wear more blue than the men. Men wear up to three square pieces of clothing tied in knots over their shoulders, and they have a beaded belt and beaded ankle bracelets, and wear more red than the women. The area of the Great Rift Valley was very lush and tropical compared to the somewhat dry tarangire

Tarangire Game Drives - August 17

We saw so many more animals and wildlife today in beautiful Tarangire Park. During the dry season Tarangire is second only to Ngorongoro in concentration of animals because of the fresh water springs in the park. Today we had our first giraffe sighting. We also saw a Whistling Acacia; a particular type of acacia which has a symbiotic relationship with a type of ant. The tree has large thorns which protect the ants from birds, and the ants keep giraffes from eating the tree (I'm not sure how, that's what the guide said).

We continued to see lots of birds, zebras, impalas and gazelles. We had a special treat seeing an entire pride of lions that just ate a zebra and dragged it under a tree to guard while they snoozed. As the afternoon wore on we saw playing baboons, gigantic cape buffalo, and rounded out the day with a great sunset. We took hundreds of pictures with our 'bazooka camera' as our guide Donald calls it.



One of the best highlights of the day was seeing a baby elephant, approximatly 6 months old, weighing 500 pounds. And yet even with 500 pounds that baby elephant FROLICKED in the grass, just like a puppy or kitten, it was the cutest thing EVER! Our entire Land Cruiser let out as simultaneous sigh as it skipped towards us.

After sunset we headed back to the lodge and had dinner. While we were walking back to the tent tonight, we shined our flashlight down the hill and saw a dozen set of eyes looking back up at us (why did we have to do that?), and after freaking out determined they were the small deer-like animal called dik-dik.

Margaret has self-determined that she is a Tse-Tse fly killing machine. Tse-Tse flies are known to carry Dengue fever, a disease that one of Margaret's co-workers has, and we are determined not to get ourselves. Today's kill list = 9 Tse Tse flies, 1 bee and 1 house fly. Good thing Donald had fly swatters in his Land Crusier!

During the night an elephant went by our tent and woke us up, it trumpeted lightly to find the rest of it's herd. When you are sleeping in only a semi-permenant structure with canvas and mesh sides it can be pretty creepy!