Home Safe and Sound

So we made it home safe and sound yesterday and after downloading over 1,200 pictures from Amy and I's camera last night and I am going to be working on a slide show of the highlights of the trip. I was able to get some pictures saved down in lower res for the blog. So over the next couple of nights I will be posting pictures from the different segments of the trip. First and probably the best part of the trip was the 5 days/4 nights we spent on safari at Tanda Tula.

Below is a picture of Amy & I with Allister our ranger beside the Land Rover we rode around in the back of for 5 days. As you can see there are no windows doors or a roof. Keep in mind when viewing the animal pictures below as you can see how close we were and how easy it would be to have a lion leap into the truck with us.
Below are a couple of pictures of the "tent" we stayed in while on safari, as you can see not shabby accommodations.
And finally some of the animals we saw. And this is just the beginning, we saw not only all of the "Big Five" but we saw all five multiple times each, as well as many other very amazing and cool animals.

Baby Elephant- probably about 4 months old we were told.
Another couple of Elephants, we must have seen nearly 50-60 over the 8 game drives - very cool creatures and so different in the way they act vs. the ones you see at the zoo, which always seem to move so slowly.

Cape Buffalo - does not look like you should be afraid, since it kind of looks like a cow, but one killed a worker at another camp the week before we got there - very dangerous.
And this is one of the coolest things we saw, a leopard with an impala she had killed two days earlier in a tree.
And here is a White Rhino close up - this shot is without the zoom lens.
This one uses the 300mm lens. That bird is a red billed ox pecker.

And here is a family of warthogs that came walking up the road one afternoon as we were driving along.
We did see 2 prides of lion, here are a couple of shots. As it turns out lions for all thier fame as King of the Jungle, sleep about 22 hours a day. So catching some of them awake, even if they were laying down was pretty lucky.

And we did see Zebra, they might have been the most skittish of all the animals we saw in the bush.
And to leave Tanda Tula our first plane was on Chili Pepper Air, a 6 seat Cessna plane, Amy actually did quite well on the flight even through Ian, the pilot was text messaging during the flight.
So that is some of the very quick highlights from Safari, next is Cape Town.

Finally Pictures

So finally we were able to get to somewhere that allowed us to upload some pictures. We saw all the big five and many more. Take a look at the pictures below. Will post more later, but the process is VERY slow, these two took 20 minutes. And we have better things to do.

Lens upgrade

So the reservation for the lens got screwed up and they did not have another 70-200 mm image stabilized lens. Instead we got this upgrade (120-300 mm) for the same price.

Sign at the gas sation

So this is a sign at the gas station, and while I may be a bit of an aggressive driver, I believe that this program places the blame on the wrong group of drivers. Instead it should be the ''I'm a crappy slow driver, and I'm going to speed up!" Just my thoughts for improvement for this public service campaign.

Although the video on the website is pretty good.

New Camera

So I did end up buying a Canon Digital Rebel XTi for the trip to Africa, but for good zoom I am renting a 200mm 2.3 image stabilized lens. But to practice I rented it this weekend and Saturday morning, which was very foggy here, I went down to the river a took some shots of singles and the dragon boats. See below. I can not wait until I am snapping pictures of lions in less than a week.

BW3 - Best Wings Ever

So to counter Amy's book club which meets on a nearly monthly basis I have created a wing club that is open to all male significant others - or really anyone that wants to attend. And for the last two months we have made a pilgrimage to Delaware for the best wings on the planet BW3. If you live in the mid-west and have one of these fine establishments down the street from you - shame on you for taking it for granted. We drove over 2 hours to partake of the many delicious sauces, boneless and bone-in wings, cheese fries and hamburger dippers (a truly great invention).