We began the new year in Fredericksburg Texas with half our complement down with what turned out eventually to be the flu.  Fortunately Carol and I were among the lucky who had flu shots over a month ago and they covered the particular flu we were exposed to.  We stayed healthy!  On New Years day Yechiel, Josh, Azriel and I went to the National Museum of the War in the Pacific.  After more than four hours they were turning off the lights to get us to leave.  Even with two more hours the next day, Yechiel and I never got passed the Leyte Gulf battle (preliminary to retaking the Phillipines).  Lesson, if you are a history buff and interested in the War  in the Pacific allow two full days or more to take in this museum.  I have not even talked about the Battleground site just down the road from the museum.  Check out their web site http://www.pacificwarmuseum.org/index.asp

The second day of the year Yechiel and I were active, Carol and Miriam were the healthy ones staying behind to care for the sick ones.  By the 4th we were mostly up and around and we packed up and got back on the road to San Antonio KOA.  We arrived mid afternoon and after basic set up I got busy setting up the eruv for Shabbat (here is probably more information than you want on eruv).  We had set one up at Admiralty using a kite line and clothesline to link the back of our coaches and an open area from the door of Yechiel’s coach to ours. As I checked with Yechiel before climbing on the back of his coach to hang the rope, he told me that the KOA was entirely fenced with a river along one boundary, problem solved the entire campground was declared an eruv.  The kids were delighted because as they were recovering from their flu they could romp and play ball wherever they chose – so long as they stayed out of other’s sites.

Saturday Leigh and Pat revisited and after a great visit on the coach we went off without Yechiel’s family to a Mexican restaurant “Guajillo” for lunch.  We treated Josh to a margarita to celebrate his 21st birthday (a day early).  Sunday began the end of the Gathering.  Dan and I took Yechiel and family to the airport and said farewell.  On return to the KOA we decided to go to Mission San Jose where we took in the introductory film and toured the grounds.  Originally we had planned to celebrate Josh’s actual birthday with dinner on board, but Dan and Malena suggested that we take the Riverwalk boat ride and have Josh choose a restaurant for his birthday dinner.  Great choice!

Monday was a marathon of sorts.  Dan and family had an early flight so we let them take the rental van and drop it off.  We then left in Dan’s rental motorhome- me – and the Jeep – Carol with Josh to go to the airport.  Carol then found her way to the rental agency and picked me up so we could pack lunch and drive Yechiel’s motorhome in convoy with the Jeep to the rental agency in Boerne.  We returned to KOA and proceeded to spend the rest of the day cleaning everything in sight and preparing to continue on with our travels, alone.

Today, Tuesday, we headed out to Rainbow’s End in Livingston Texas where we will get new driver’s licenses and Texas plates for the vehicles.  The drive was uneventful if damp.  It took three different mapping packages and the use of a paper map to find a reasonable way to drive from San Antonio to Livingston without going close to Houston.  We did it and it only took 6 miles and 30 minutes more.  Upon arrival it started to rain for real with thunder and lighting and as I got out to disconnect the Jeep and guide Carol backing the coach into the spot it poured.  By the time the coach was spotted we were both soaked so I just finished hooking everything up in the rain.  In the morning I will double check my work.

After note: If anyone reading this is considering renting a motorhome from CruiseAmerica have second thoughts, then rethink if you are still considering it.  The list of unserviced items and failures is too long to make a ten day rental comfortable.  If I had not been along with my RV knowledge, it could have been a disaster.  The furnace failed and the propane/CO detector went into a failure mode I had not seen myself.  Add leaking roof vents and you begin to get the picture.  The 24 hour emergency service did not answer the phone for over 30 minutes and finally responded 12 hours later.  The rental from American Dream Vacations was not without some issues but the coach was new and well maintained and there were no major/show stopping failures.

Our route to San Antonio for the Gathering got a bit obtuse.  I was struggling to find a way to get there without going through Houston.  Call up a road map of southeast Texas entering on I 10.  We have struggled with this every year.  Usually we go north, but that was too far out of the way.  We elected to drop down to Bonaventure Island and take the ferry to Galveston Island and stay at the state park past the still devastated city of Galveston.  As we drove along Sea Wall it was shocking to see how many places were gone and no sign of restoration so many years after the storm.

We arrived at Admiralty RV on Sunday as planned and found no surprises.  Miriam, Yechiel and there boys arrived on schedule, the boys stayed on board for two nights and the parents in a Holiday Inn until they could pick up their rental unit in Boerne (rhymes with journey), about 30 minutes from where we were staying.

As we settled them in we got a call from Dan that storms in the East were impacting their ability to travel as scheduled.  Josh flew on from Rochester to Dulles only to miss his connection to San Antonio.  He spent the night in a hotel and caught an early flight in the next morning.  Dan and his clan flew in on Friday morning and by mid afternoon we were all together.

Shabbat, Pat and Leigh Rainwater came down from Austin to join us for the day.  She and Dan had not seen each other for 30 years and Yechiel had not seen here even longer.  It was quite a reunion.  For lunch we left Yechiel and family to a relatively quiet Shabbat while we went off to lunch and a tour of The Alamo and Riverwalk guided by Leigh and Pat.  We gathered back at the coach late afternoon for extended conversation and meal that the three women put together for all of us.  Leigh and Pat were moderately anxious to get on the road before 8:30 as the Longhorns were playing in the Alamo Bowl and half of Austin was in town for the game (If they had not been with us, the entire event would have passed unnoticed by us.)

Sunday was moving day and I lead the convoy of GeeWhiz pulling Ruby with Yechiel in his rental and Carol in the rented van out of the park.  About 20 minutes later Dan in his rental joined up from an early morning shopping side trip and we proceeded north on 16 into Hill Country toward Fredericksburg.  The road proved to be a beautiful drive with just a touch of roller coaster.  I was leading through the twisty climbs and descents at 15 mph with Josh at my side to read the map and watch for signs while I wrestled the steering wheel.  I think we will need to let Carol have her chance to drive that road someday.  It is our kind of fun.

Monday the 31st we took everyone, minus Malena who was down with a cold, in the van with packed lunches to the Johnson Ranch State park AND National Historical Park.  It was a full day with the Sauer-Beckmann Farmstead, the grounds of the Ranch and eventually the Ranch House itself.  By now Cory was too sick to participate and Carol stayed behind in the van with him while we took the Ranch House and Western White House tour.  Much more of the house has been made available for touring since we toured five years ago.

New Years Eve was a bit dampened as there were three kids down with the cold as well as Malena and Dan was not feeling great either.  The relatively healthy gathered in Gee Whiz and we ate and had some Port in our tea and then just the port and retold old family stories until midnight eastern time.

I can;t believe I have let three weeks pass on the road without a post.  Oh well, we were busy, not much of an excuse and not a lot has happened that will be of interest to most readers.  We made it to St Petersburg easily and set up in Fort Desoto as planned in our reserved spot.  We had visitors, squirrels and raccoons.  We know because a) we were there b) they left foot prints all over, including on the side of the motorhome.

We visited with Carol’s brother and sister-in-law as well as with our niece Erica whoi helps out with her parents when her work schedule permits.  As a retail store manager her life is not her own in the pre-Christmas craziness.  We had several meals with them both in their apartment and out.  On Sunday morning Erica brought them to the coach where we had a lovely brunch at the picnic table on our site. This brought out THE SQUIRREL.  It knew there was food and it wanted some. It would not be easily deterred.  I have seen begging dogs, even the rare cat, but never before have I seen a “wild” squirrel so determined to participate in the meal.  I resorted to pitching stones as it to no avail, well my aim was not good enough for it to know they were headed in its direction.  As we cleaned up after the meal it seemed to realize that there was not going to be any leftovers.

On Saturday we had a day with the Topfs, which we had planned well in advance.  It was a lovely day catching up with many life changes for both couples.  In the evening we joined two other couples at the Bradenton Yacht Club Lighted Boat Parade.  We do not need to do that again.  Of course we have never been boaters and maybe if it had been motorhomes decorated and driving past us, we would have been more interested  – or not.  The company was fun and as things wound down we headed out for dinner.  This was a mini adventure as we were in two cars and we followed the Topfs with no real idea where we were going in the dark.  We all found our way to Carrabas where we ate and continued schmoozing until time to head back to our respective home,.

We also had a day in Sarasota.  First we met Bert Rapowitz and Judy, a lady he is seeing, for lunch at the Dry Dock Cafe.  The food was fine and the company was very good.  It has been a long time since we have seen Bert and it was wonderful to catch up and see him so happy.

From there we drove to Erica’s apartment.  By some miracle we had planned this event on a day when she was not working.  We have been hearing about this place and “Mr Brown” since she moved in.  Situated across from a country club this wonderful old former hotel looks like something from the Old World.  Mr Brown was most intersting to meet as was Dean.  This is more of a community than an apartment house and would seem to be a wonderful place for our niece to have as her home.

The visit to the area did not end with these personal visits.  We moved on to Lazy Days RV on Friday and stayed in there campground adjacent to the dealership and service bays.  I would not consider this my favorite campground.  The sites were short and the sprinkler certainly keeps the grass nice, but it means that the sites are wet every morning and the coach gets water spots from the spray.  Oh well most campgrounds have some draw back.  On Monday, as scheduled we moved the coach into a bay for a lot of minor issues. There were drawers that wouldn’t open fully and doors that would stick and a night shade that didn’t work well.  They worked their way through these items with timely reports back on progress.  The first hitch we ran into was the backup monitor which was blinking.  They reported we needed a new one to installed under warranty, but not available for 7 days.  We said stop work and put the old one back, we will deal with it when we get to the Lazy Days in Tucson.  Miraculously they found there was a monitor available after all and they installed it the next morning after we spent a night sleeping in the coach in a service bay.  “Free camping” close the blinds and we could be anyplace.  The next hitch was with our supplemental braking system.  This is supposed to apply the Jeep brakes when we apply the coach brakes.  It failed as we left Rochester.  Part needed was located and shipped in – wrong part! Over night (another night in the service bay) the part arrived and turned out to be part of the problem but not the entire problem.  The short version is we rolled out of there at about 3 PM with everything working!

We spent that night at Elks Lodge 990 in Gainesville.  Getting in their parking lot was scary.  It was a 180 degree turn and the driveway was obstructed with a portico with less than 10 feet clearance (we need 12’6″).  After some backing and filling with the Jeep disconnected we got it parked.  I walked in to see about make a contribution to the club for the permission to stay and found that they refused to take anything and insisted that Carol and I have drink on them.

Up early the next morning, well early by our standards, and down the road for 300 plus miles to stay in Rainbow Plantations, the Escapee CG near Foley Alabama.  Today another 300 plus miles put us in Sam Houston Jones State Park north of Lake Charles LA.  San Antonio is another 330 miles down the road.  Maybe we will take it in two days, we are not used to multiple driving days without a break.

I may go silent again for a week or two while we spend time with our family in San Antonio and Fredericksburg.

Somehow we disentangled ourselves from family in Covesville on Monday and set out for Florida.  We planned on three nights on the road.  The route was south on 29 through Greensboro NC then over to Florence SC then across to I 95 on to Jacksonville with a stop in Brunswick GA at the Flying J for diesel. propane and DEF (Diesel Exhaust Fluid).  This is the latest way of cleaning up diesels, one could say housebreaking them.  There is no diesel stink coming out the tailpipe so I guess it works.  This has turned out to be a major gouge.  At the pump on the truck side of a fueling station DEF is $2.79 a gallon.  In the shop they sell it by the gallon jug for about $8.00 a gallon!  Unfortunately most places I have looked the only DEF hose is on the driver side of the coach and the filler and tank are on the passenger side.  We can’t just go through the pump the other way on the truck side.  Trucks are lined up two or three deep waiting their turn at the pumps every time we stop.  There is strict one way policy unlike the car side where it is a free-for-all.

I bought a 2 1/2 gallon fuel jug and filled it at the DEF pump and carted it around to the other  side of the coach to pour it into the tank, three times.  This is not too much of a hassle as I added about 7 gallons after driving about 3,000 miles and burning 400 gallons of diesel.  I am now more experienced at how to make this happen and maybe I won’t have the truckers staring at me the next time we have to go through this exercise.

We spent the first night at Swamp Fox RV Park, just off I 95 out side Florence, just south of Darlington if there are any NASCAR fans reading this.  This is NASCAR Country, most specifically Richard Petty Country.  The place was fine for a Passport America overnight stop, it is not anyplace I would consider a destination.  The second night, after the aforementioned stop at Flying J in Brunswick GA, we continued on to Pecan Park RV, again Passport America, just off I 95 with the added benefit of the being at the end of the runway for JAX – Jacksonville Airport.  It wasn’t bad except at 7:20 AM when a flight of F 16s took off directly over our campsite.  That was four planes and by the time we heard them they were overhead and then gone.  We enjoyed the morning serenade so much that we opted for a second day there since we were less than five hours from Fort Desoto. This gave us time to putter around the coach and make some changes and do some other computer work, oh yes and get to meet neighbors who were also just passing through.

Thursday I let the Dawn Patrol wake up -Carol was up early exercizing – we set out on the road with mostly interstates ahead of us.  The drive was uneventful and we settled into site 171 in Fort Desoto.  We have not been on this particular site before, but have been on similar sites and it is quite nice with a view of the water through the windshield and plenty of privacy provided by the shrubbery between sites.

This may be one of the least exciting posts I have written.  I suppose I could include a list of the repairs and adjustments we plan on having done at Lazy Days in Seffner FL when we leave here, but that too is not particularly interesting. consisting of loose screws I cannot figure out how to reach and doors that need some adjustment.  Oh yes, we discovered that the tray meant to catch the condensate in the refrigerator is not in place.  Gone!  Probably taken/misplaced at the dealer.  A phone call to Dometic, the manufacturer, has assured me one is on its way to us this very minute, no charge!  How’s that for excitement?

We had a thankful Thanksgiving and the days seem to be flying by without our doing anything.  The occasional trip to Amerigas to refill the gas grill tanks and the larger auxiliary tank we keep here for the motorhome, it gets cold here.  Well, if you are in Vermont or Rochester, it gets cool here.   We are burning plenty of propane to keep the place warm.  We had dinner out at Whiskey Jar on the Mall in Charlottesville and a pizza dinner at Dr Ho’s – best pizza in the area and only 15 minutes from the house.  Mostly we play with the boys, take a walk, do some work on the motorhome and read, NYTimes, books, magazines and online forums.

I have set up temporary wiring to operate the macerator while we are here.  When we get to warm weather I will take the time to make it pretty.  Other chores have mostly been day to day stuff as most things in the coach are operating as we like.

Yesterday brought great news.  The closing of the sale of 1482 East Avenue has left us landless.  For the first time since April 1966 we do not own any real estate, anyplace.  This happens as we work to divest ourselves of our linkages to NYS.   The paperwork for all these transitions has been keeping us busy as we gather what we need to register our vehicles in Texas and transfer our health insurance to Texas.  Not sure how long this will take but once the kids fly away from our gathering in San Antonio we will take what time we need in Livingston to do what we can.

 I am working with Alex from time to time to begin thinking about writing his bar mitzvah speech for May.  Somehow reading Beha’alotecha in November is confusing me.  Don’t we have to get to Egypt and then make our Exodus in the Spring before I read these chapters?  If you don’t follow the Torah Portion of the week, as we do, I am sure the previous statement is meaningless to you.

It looks like we will be having dinner with the Freedman’s tonight and lunch tomorrow with Malena’s Dad, David, and his wife Carol.  Always fun when both women at the table are Carol.

Being thankful:
Thankful for an uneventful drive from Rochester to Covesville, VA.
Thankful for warm family and neighbors in the Hollow with their warm welcome
Thankful for our wonderful friends in Rochester and around the country and the world
Thankful for our health and the ability to pursue the RV lifestyle we love, also for the health of our friends and family.

Hopeful for a resolution of the ongoing strife between Israel and Hamas that permits people to live in peace both in Israel and in Gaza.  I know I am hoping for a lot, may it be in my lifetime.

Wishing strength to the people in New York and New Jersey whose lives have been torn asunder by the super storm.

We are settled in our favorite spot in Dan and Malena’s yard until December 3.I have participated in a minor construction project in one of the bathrooms, it was indoors and warm, I don’t think that counts.  I have continued to make minor modifications to the coach, installing hooks and other projects that make it more comfortable for us.  Why don’t manufactures install a key rack? a towel rack? anyhow in many ways it is good that they didn’t, It makes me feel useful and like I have personalized the coach.

Carol has rearranged the cupboards again.  She is having trouble figuring out where she wants things, so I have to relearn where everything is when we get on board.  Maybe after 6 months things will settle into their necessary spaces.

We have changed our route yet again.  We are not going to Red Bay, AL.  I remembered that Lazy Days is a major Tiffin dealer and we will be less than an hours drive from there.  So after we leave Fort Desoto we will move to Lazy Days and have our work done there before rolling towards Texas.  So we will be rolling along the Gulf Coast starting sometime after December 19 until our scheduled arrival in San Antonio on the 23rd.

Tomorrow, Sunday November 18, we will roll out of Rochester for the beginning of a six month wander.  This trip has a lot of special things happening along the way.  As I write this we are New York residents   I expect by the time we come to Rochester to spend some time in our summer residence on St Paul St we will have Texas domicile.

After we stop in Virginia for a couple of weeks with Dan and family for Thanksgiving we will visit Carol’s brother and sister-in-law in St Petersburg, FL.  From there we will route to Red Bay to get a list of minor items taken care before rolling out to San Antonio TX.  There we will be met by our boys and their entire families who will fly in and rent RV’s and join us for two weeks in San Antonio and Fredericksburg, TX and anyplace else we may decide to stop.  Some birthday present for both of us!!

After that we will go to Livingston to do what paperwork we need to do to become real Texans.

From there we have no idea, although we do need to see people in Dallas and Austin.

This is the culmination of a bunch of planning that started as we returned from our 2011-12 wander.  We have barely slowed down to breath.  You have seen the blog on our trip to Tanzania.  Since then we have been to a rally of Tiffin Travelers in Bath NY, driven to Foxboro (Foxborough) MA where we stayed at the lovely Normandy Farms CG only an hour from our nephew Ross’s home in Cambridge.  There we visited with Ross, Kristin and their three children and also went to Yom Kippur services at the synagogue they belong to almost as close to them as Yechiel and Miriam’s is to them.

On the way there we took advantage of our Harvest Host membership to stay at Bowman Orchard just outside Albany.  That might have been considered a mistake as we arrived late afternoon on a gorgeous Sunday in September.  The highway was backed up a mile when we got there and we couldn’t enter the driveway they were using for people to enter.  Fortunately, they were expecting us and the guard at the exit waved us in and parked us on the grass alongside the driveway until the mobs left.  Then we pulled into the main parking lot and spent the night.  We did buy some apples.  It was really quite lovely.

On the way home from Cambridge we stopped at the RV park that is tied to Turning Stone Casino.  They were celebrating Halloween!! which completely messed me up for the month of October as I thought Halloween was past already.  We did go into the casino and walk around and had a very nice dinner in one of the restaurants.  On to Rochester.

We stored the coach and started shopping for a new car.  The RAV4 had served us well, but is was 8 years old and in addition to the 56,000 mile on the odometer, it had been towed 90,000 miles and it was due for new tires, again.  We bought a Jeep.  We bought a car that was delivered from the factory ready for serious off road play.  It is a 4 door Wrangler Unlimited Rubicon.  Some of the capabilities we may never use.  I am not sure I want to be someplace where I need to electronically disengage the front sway bar, but then you never know.

It is now play time!!  Our last activity before leaving is to attend the Perlman’s 50th Wedding Anniversary Party.  We were at the wedding.  Last night we sat at dinner with another couple who were at that wedding who will be at the party.  We do live in a small community in a large city.

Tanganyika became an independent nation in 1961 when the British Empire left.  Zanzibar, which was an island nation off the coast of Tanganyika became independent in 1963.  In 1964 they decided to merge to become one nation.  They took Tan from Tanganyika and Za from Zanzibar and added nia from Swahili for united.  Thus we have the nation of Tan za nia, accent on the “za”. The northern border was drawn, by the British, to keep the “Roof of Africa” Kilimanjaro in Tanzania rather than in Kenya where it might more rightfully belong, if you were into drawing straight lines.

Within Tanzania there are National Parks, National Reserves, Game Reserves etc.  I lost my concentration at some point, but the most protected areas are the National Parks where vehicles must stay on established roads and are permitted only during the daylight hours.  No one is permitted to dismount from a vehicle except in certain controlled areas.  This made planning to “check the tires” (the accepted euphemism for toilet stop) very important.  It became clear to us that the reason for these limits had two important purposes.  The first is to prevent poaching.  It is harder to poach if it is a crime to dismount your vehicle and any vehicle moving around after dark is also in violation of the law.  The second reason is safety of tourists.  We saw lions that were upset with each other within touching range of our vehicles.  We had to stop to let elephants and Cape Buffalo cross the road and in one instance we had to wait for a spotted hyena to get out of a puddle in the road in its own good time.

Our first national park was Tarangire.  After a visit to Shanga Shangaa a sheltered workshop located in the middle of a coffee plantation

 outside Olisiti our in town lodge where we had an opportunity to shop and see the way the locals in Arusha, the third largest city in Tanzania with about 1,500,000 population and two traffic lights, lived we had a second night in Olisiti.  Then we headed out for Lake Burunge Tented Camp.  We had our first game drive as a complete group in Tarangire on  the way.  The next morning, bright and early, 5:30, we were awakened to have an early breakfast and get away for another game drive in Tarangire.  The only cat we had seen so far was cheetah.  We saw one mother with two cubs and the second day we saw a single cheetah somewhat distant.  Elephants were plentiful and right on the road as were baboons and of course gazelles large and small, Hartebeast to Dikdik.  Our guides were calling the smaller gazelles Cheetah Snacks.  We also saw plenty of warthogs.  I’ll get to the birds later.

Cheeta with cubs

Leaving Lake Burunge Tented Camp we headed through Ngorongoro Conservation Area to Serengeti National Park and our Mobile Tent Camp located at Prince Charles Campsite.

  We were to return to Ngorongoro after 4 nights in Serengeti for a game drive in the Ngorongoro Crater (really a caldera geologically).  When the national parks were created, initially the Masai were the only people permitted to continue to live in the park.  They are a nomadic people whose livelihood is based on cattle, goats and sheep.  They do not hunt wild animals and have centuries of coexistence with the natural wildlife.  Eventually it was decided to move them to the Ngorongoro Conservation area where there was more water and better grazing land.  They were agreeable to this move.  We visited a Boma in this area and were greeted by the women dancing and singing to welcome us.

 Our ladies were swept up by the women and wrapped in kangas, the native cloth and jewelry.  Carol participated fully and they all helped with the refurbishment of one of the lady’s houses.  This entailed carrying the materials to the house, thatching the roof and plastering the walls with a useful mixture of mud and dung.  The men did what men do, stood around and watched, mostly.

An aside on the Masai culture.  Men may have have more than one wife.  They create a Boma which is walled with brush to keep wild animals out and domesticated animals in at night.  The wife builds her house with tree limbs, mud and thatch.  The first wife may recruit her friends to become additional wives.  She also has approval over any wife the husband may introduce.  Each wife builds her own house in the Boma.  On occasion brothers may share a boma and two groups of wives may live there, or a son may take over leadership of his father’s Boma.  The Boma is a temporary camp.  If the grazing is depleted or the water is short they may move on, generally to another Boma that they have left for similar reasons in the past.  We did visit a temporarily abandoned Boma in the north.

Before we left the Masai we presented them with the four water filters we had purchased earlier in the trip.  Eli set one up to show them the process and later, before we left I tasted the water which had been filtered.  We hope that this gift is a gift of health for the community.  It is only a shame that it is only this one small community that will benefit.  We are going to do more.

Finally we got the the Mobile Tent Camp we had been talking about.  It is indeed tents, under canvas covers with a dressing room space and a shower and toilet.  The shower water is supplied by a staff person who works behind the tent where there are no windows.  The process begins by one of us calling out, “ready to shower” and the staff person pours 20 liters (about 5 gallons) of shower warm water into a bucket with a hose in the bottom and raises the bucket on a hoist above the tent.  We then take a “Navy Shower” (wet down, soap, rinse) which Carol and I are used to doing when we camp in the desert.  When finished we call out “second shower” and the scenario is repeated.  Although it was possible to ask for more water, we never had a need.  The toilets left a lot to be desired.  They are normal commodes set in wooden crates for transport and it appeared that they emptied into a hole in the ground.  Enough said.  The entire camp is packed up and moved about once a month as each area needs to be left fallow so as not to disturb the normal movement of the animals.  We were not permitted off the path from the central dining tent to our tents and we were not to be out of the tent after dark without an escort.  We did have to watch for fresh droppings on the path after any period of inactivity.  One night Fred and June could not get to their tent until the staff brought up a car to scare off a Cape Buffalo that was on the path.  At night we heard elephants tearing the trees and lions calling in the distance.

Our third morning five of us were awakened extra early to be picked up to go on a hot air balloon ride. For those who have been on a balloon I do not need to go on about the silence of drifting with the wind and the roar of the gas heaters that keep the balloon aloft.  The take off was interesting as the basket, for these very large balloons holds 16 passengers in 8 compartments.  The basket was on its side and Carol and I had to get into an upper compartment lying on our backs such that when the basket became upright we would be standing in our compartment.  All 8 compartments were filled on three balloons while the balloons were being inflated by fans.  Finally the pilot boarded and lit the burners to heat the air and the balloon rose taking us with it.  We drifted over the Serengeti at altitudes as high as 1,200 feet to a low of 7 feet which put us at eye level with a giraffe that happened to be in our path.  The flight landed after an hour on a road where our chase team was waiting and we were served champagne on the spot followed by a white tablecloth breakfast served by waiters in white turbans.

Sultan picked us up after breakfast and we rejoined the group for another game drive.  By now we had seen all of the “Big Five” elephants, cape buffalo, lions, leopard except for rhinoceros.  The designation of the Big Five was by trophy hunters.  In Serengeti there are reported to only be 18 black rhinoceros left.  There are many more in Ngorongoro, but we hoped to see one in Serengeti before getting there.  And we did!

Our trip was approaching departure day and we returned to Tloma Lodge with a lengthy game drive through Ngorongoro Crater National Reserve which enabled us to see two more rhinos and to run up our lion count to over 50.  We also saw vast herds of wildebeests and dazzles of zebras.  Finally we got to the lodge and settled in for our last two nights in Tanzania.  The next day was devoted to meeting the people.  We went to Tloma Primary School which was not fully in session as the faculty were traveling the bush to complete the national census.  Only 7th graders were attending, preparing for the national exam which gives access to secondary education.

Ely wanted to show us more of the town so we walked through the local market where we attracted every hawker and vendor of beaded wear and cloth within running radius.  They were hard to fend off and we ended up adding to the collection of material we were carting home.  Finally we were directed to “Culture Bar” where we were treated with banana beer and music.  This bar was located on a side street and clearly was not a tourist destination.  Before long we were dancing with the locals and spending more money on more “stuff” that the very persistent vendors continued to push on us.

Our final day saw us returning to Olisiti Lodge after a stop at the Tanzania Culture Center where we had only 30 minutes to run through exhibits of art from ancient to modern.  Carol and I needed another hour, at least, and some of our cohort really needed more time to shop!  Different folks, different strokes.  We had a break at Olisiti with day rooms to freshen up for the flight – we were 33 hours on route home – and on the drive to Kilimanjaro International Airport the clouds that had covered Mount Kilimanjaro whenever we were in a place to see it finally lifted to reveal the mountain.

Just typing the title is thrilling.  We have seen our friends pictures and heard their stories and somehow it never seemed reachable.  In June, with our townhouse on the market and plans to lease  an apartment beginning August 1, it seemed perfectly reasonable to plan an adventure for the latter half of August.  The fact that Carol has a show to hang in October seemed beside the point.  We did not know where we wanted to go even.  We started with Ireland, but none of the trips with openings seemed appealing.  I remembered that Overseas Adventure Travel (OAT) had a fine reputation and we had drooled over their catalogs in the past, so I started to search their site.
There it was, a Serengeti Safari in Tanzania with pretrip to the Kilimanjaro area and even an option of a dawn balloon ride over the Serengeti.  So August 16 we disembarked from a KLM/Delta flight at Kilimanjaro (JRO) International Aiport about an hours drive from Arusha.  I must admit that before planning this trip I was not aware of the existence of Arusha with a population of over 1,500,000 and two traffic lights.  In the airport parking lot we sorted ourselves out realizing that fellow travelers we had been talking with were on other OAT trips departing at the same time with different itineraries.  Eventually we found ourselves in Eli’s “Bush Limo” in convoy with Luca headed for Oliciti Lodge.  Before we got there we were to witness a collision in which Luca’s vehicle was rear ended by a drunken driver with no damage to his vehicle or to his passengers.  However the drunk did not get off so easy.  His hood was doubled and steam poured from his radiator.  He had hit the two spare tires mounted on a roll cage on the back of the Toyota Landcruiser.  We were to learn that these vehicles are among the strongest we have had the joy of riding in.

Carol and I thought we ought to have one for our tow’d.  Base price $78,000, too much to drag behind us over good roads where its capabilities are not really needed.

After a night at Oliciti Lodge  we set out for Sinya Tented Lodge near Kilimanjaro.  We made a stop to see the manufacture of water filters out of ceramic. 
 The only place in East Africa where these household filters are made.  The process is primitive yet very sophisticated.  Clay is mixed with sawdust and colloidal silver.  When it is fired with appropriate changes in firing temperature, the sawdust is burnt out leaving fine passages for the water to flow through and a charcoal layer to serve as another filter medium along with the silver to extract heavy metals.  We bought two to deliver to a family we would visit later in the trip.  On to Kilimanjaro.  Eventually we left pavement behind and got our first African Full Body Massage.  Later we were to experience the Deep Massage as the roads deteriorated.

As we approached the tented lodge we saw some zebras 
off the road.  A little later we saw giraffes.  Then we saw a lot of giraffes (a tower of giraffes) and then a dazzle of zebras.  As so it went.  We arrived at our first tented lodge and marveled at the open air main lodge and our “tent”
 
which really was a tent under a permanent roof with a complete bathroom at the back with mostly solid walls, the whole is raised on piers to keep the animals out.  As we approached ours with our Masai Warrior guide we saw a zebra peering around the brush just feet from our stairs.  Our instructions were clear, from sundown to sunrise we were not to leave a building without our warrior guide.  After dinner we were escorted to our tents and our instructions were to wave a flashlight from the deck if we wanted an escort to another part of the facility, such as the bar.  This became the theme for the trip whenever we were in a tented lodge or mobile tent camp (more about that later).

Our first day at Sinya we went on our first game drive with the roof hatches removed and we added elephants and wart hogs and Thompson and Grant Gazelles to our growing list of sightings.  We saw congresses of baboons, Yellow Tail, and many birds.  We were way in the north of Tanzania, so far north that we eventually came to the border with Kenya where we got out and took a nice long walk which brought us to the border, you could tell, there was a marker.

After lunch and siesta we resumed our drive headed to a Masai Boma, a household consisting of a husband and several wives and their children.  Several Boma constitute a village, but each is independent.  We were in for a special treat as the Masai circumcise their males children between the age of 13 and 20.  This is only done every seven years, which accounts for the age variance.  This day was the day for the Masai in the region and we were invited to a pre circumcision ceremony.  The boys were in seclusion for the cutting the next morning, but the rest of the tribe gathered to dance and sing.  We joined a small group in the kraal where the cattle are penned at night with the women singing and dancing and eventually the men arrived to begin their singing and dancing. 

As we were encouraged to participate it became more and more crowded and it became clear that Masai from  neighboring bomas were walking in to join the party.  Eventually the women set up a small market of their bead work and after some intense shopping and bargaining we were on our way.

Eli, our guide, talked about a meat eating ceremony that follows the circumcision.  All the men gather in the bush and slaughter a meat animal (domestic cow, goat or sheep) and make a stew with herbs that are said to encourage an appetite for meat.  This goes on for a month!  As we were on our game drive the next morning, Eli spotted a group of men in the brush and made an approach to see if we could see what it was like, he had never participated himself as his tribe is Pare not Masai.    After an initial rebuff we were welcomed in.  This was an opportunity to taste the concoction.  I don’t need to do that again and it certainly did not make me ravenous for more meat.  The drive across the dry lake bed we were on gave us a chance to get really close to the elephants.

and

There are more pictures on my Picasa Web Album which is open to the public to view.  To my new friends from the trip please let me know if you are having a problem reading this or viewing the album.

I will be writing and posting pictures from the rest of the trip soon.

Whew, we are really here!

This wll be telegraphic as the keyboard is dreadful and the connection very slow.

After landng in Kilimanjaro airport we drove to Arusha for  our first night.  The only excitement was watching a drunk drive into the rear of our other Bush limo.  Totally destroyng hs own front end and not leavng a mark on our other car.  We drove on without incident.  The next day we drove to Sinya Tent Camp in the Kilimanjaro district.  On our way into the camp we saw towers of Giraffes and dazzles of Zebras.  They were practically in the camp.  Oh yes Roughing it Smoothly, applies here too.  More when  I have time. 
The next day we went on an early morning game drive and then we went to a Masai Bomba (village) where we witnessed a precircumcsion ceremony.  The boys 13 to 20 were not present as they were in a secluded cabin awaiting the surgery in the morning. 

By the time we left Sinya we had seen giraffes, zebras, elephants, yellow tail baboons, warthogs, and too many birds to recount.  Oh, I missed Grants Gazelles, Thompson Gazelles, Impala, and many monkeys.  Next we stopped back in Arusha and then on to Tangira National Park where we added Cheeta and Lion  and waterbuck and baboons and . . .

Add another Masai vllage where we delivered water filters we had bought to provide clean water for the family and on to Tloma where we are now.

The meter is runnng out and the day is hot so more the next time I fnd a live connection.  I have 600 pictures and Carol has over 1,000 and who knows how many mnutes of video.