Kruger National Park, 2015: One Final Post. Hey, it's a free country. You don't have to look.

Sunday, November 29

0400

Home. At the kitchen table listening to the heater blow and the clock tick. Drinking a cup of instant decaf (I know) and fighting off a headache. Feelings are tangled and mixed and not thinking too clearly.

Thanksgiving dinner was perfect. We cooked a steak over an empty fire while lightening flashed and thunder boomed around us. Packed. Filled up the car with fuel and checked air pressures for the last time. Slept that night with the fan on but woke up once to look out the door because I thought I heard lions in the distance. The last time I’ll do that for a while.

Up in the morning, corn flakes and yogurt for breakfast. A last drive down the H7 in the dawn, with Gina in the front seat this time as all of the cameras are packed and done. During the drive, we saw a couple of figures walking down the road which turned out to be a mother hyena and a small cub, followed loosely by a teenager. They were completely relaxed around the car so we just rolled down the road with them as the mother and cub headed back to their den site in a small drainage culvert in the road. The mother first picked up the cub and carried it, but the cub clearly wanted to do it on it’s own and so mother put it down and the cub tried to keep up, running and resting and then running again. Any mother would recognize what was going on here.

It was a perfect way to end our morning and our time. We packed everything into the car and were on the road at 0700.

It’s a beautiful drive and we made it without drama. Actually got through Johannesburg traffic to the airport without issue. Arranged to return lens and cooler to Gerry, who rolled through International Arrivals to pick it up. Then waited, shopped, waited.

Plane left on time. No drama. Long flight. Watched movies. Peed in all of the different bathrooms on the 777 (all of the bathrooms open to the cattle that is, not the ones in business class). Slept a bit. Sixteen hours in the air. Then Atlanta. No drama. We downloaded a mobile passport application before we left and it worked great to expedite coming through customs. Smart move by US Customs and Border Protection. Re-check bags, back through security, train, flight to SLC. No drama. Land in cold SLC, walk to E72, run into my friend Megan, who’s traveling with her daughter and has been to Africa several times herself. Board plan, small delay while de-icing is done, land in Redmond. Take cab home. So much snow since we left and Aislin’s been visiting family so no one’s shoveled the drive. Cab driver drops us off at the curb and Gina and I drag our luggage through the snow, down our long driveway. In sandals.

Warm up. No fresh food so a bleh frozen dinner, but at least it was hot. Napped from 1500 to 1930. Up for a couple of hours and then back to bed. Lots of strange dreams and then awake at 0230. Gina’s still sleeping. I wish I could sleep like G.

Traveling to Africa is, for me, different than being ‘on vacation’ in that there’s kind of a re-entry process. Some of it’s difficult and some easy. It’s nice to be back in our own bed. It’s nice to be look forward to preparing our own food. It was very nice to see our little cat Tunzi, who just won’t leave us alone now, and we hope to see our daughter Aislin tomorrow.

But it’s also difficult. Some of that is that it’s just so damned beautiful in the bush and that being able to be around that wealth of animal and plant diversity is so rich and stimulating. Some of it is the fun from not having rules (not many at least) and getting to make most of our choices in the moment. You can look the way you want to look. You can choose to have the hygiene of a six year-old boy if you want. You can spend as much time as you want watching warthog piglets playing. You can sleep in or be the first one out on the road. You can eat pizza for breakfast.

There’s also a part that’s about having so much time in your own head, thinking about life and choices. In my regular life, I’m so busy and the focus is so much on all of the balls I’ve got in the air that it’s difficult to spend time and reflect on life. Making that transition back into a world of busy-ness feels like a loss to me. I’m sad to leave a life of having to decide whether to turn right or left on a road to one where every day is booked and structured and that I’m not doing my job if I’m not 100% focused. And exhausted at the end of each work day, with weekends that are consumed with doing all the other stuff necessary to keep a life going. That stress feels unhealthy for me but I don’t know how to undo that in my ‘real’ life.

Saturday, December 5

1200

And back we are. Mostly sleeping now. Still some weird headaches, but over the worst of it. It’s gray and dull outside but we’re picking it up and starting to run again.

Here are a few photos (and video) shot with my iPhone. Didn’t really have a way to upload whle in the bush. May give you a bit of feel of the look of the places we’ve been.

This sign was at our hotel in Johannesburg. Maybe we should adopt this signage at St. Charles -