Peggy and I came on this overgrown kitty washing his face in Chobe National Park, Botswana on our African safari in October and couldn’t resist using him in our Christmas Card this year. He could have very well been saying “I can’t believe it’s already Christmas!” or “Yikes! Where did 2023 go?” Anyway, here’s Leo the Lion for your enjoyment. Peggy and I want to wish each of you and your families a great Holiday and a happy and healthy New Year. (Back to elephants next week.)
Peggy and I, along with our traveling companions, her brother John and his wife Frances, spent a lot of time watching and photographing elephants on our recent safari to Botswana, Zambia, and South Africa. Most of the time, they were doing something with their trunks. These marvelous appendages are used in breathing, smelling, eating, drinking, bathing and communication. Today’s post will focus on the trunk. My next post will consider other interesting facts about elephants, including their tails.
Our opportunity to watch and photograph elephants took place in four different locations. The first was Chobe National Park in Botswana. One of the Park’s claims to fame is that it supports the largest herd of free-ranging elephants in the Africa. Since we were at the end of the dry season, many of these elephants were located next to the Chobe River where they could get water and food. Viewing them was easy, particularly from boats. (Ours was docked at our safari lodge on the edge of the river.) Chobe is an excellent area to see wildlife. The only downside is that this means you will be sharing your experience with lots of other people.
Hwange National Park and Matusadona National Park in Zimbabwe were the other two areas we watched wild elephants in their natural setting. Both parks had far fewer people on safari and were far less crowded. Slightly different, but excellent for meeting elephants up close, the Wild Horizons Sanctuary and Orphanage for Elephants just outside of Victoria Falls allowed us to interact with these giants of southern Africa’s velds. All of the elephant photos in this post and the next one were taken by Peggy and me in these four locations. I’ll start with the Sanctuary since we were able to get close ups of the trunks.
In addition to eating, drinking, bathing and smelling, elephants also use their trunks to communicate in a variety of ways. One is a gentle touch to provide comfort to a fellow elephant or baby. They will even put the tip of their trunk in another elephant’s mouth. They also force air through their trunks to produce a variety of sounds. One is as a loud trumpet to express displeasure. They did that a couple of times when they were crowded together drinking out of the swimming pool. It certainly caught our attention.
Peggy and I have been going to Burning Man off and on since 2004. We definitely aren’t virgins, which is what Burners call newbies. In fact it’s hard to be much more veteran than we are although there are old timers around who have been going since its San Francisco beginning in the mid-80s. Over the past 19 years, we’ve seen everything the Black Rock Desert has to throw at people who come to this unique event north of Reno, Nevada. The worst is usually high heat, strong winds, and blinding dust storms where dust rules your universe. The only thing you can do is put on your goggles, wrap your bandana around your face like a bandit, and proceed. If it’s a white out, you hunker down until you can see where you are going. Not doing so is a recipe for disaster.
Rain has been relatively rare compared to dust storm and requires a different response. The Burning Man Organization (BM Org) shuts everything down until the rain stops and the Playa dries out. It’s quite dramatic. There is no driving except for emergency vehicles. Driving tears up the desert floor and getting stuck is almost guaranteed. Since Burners are required to park their vehicles when in camp (except for mutant vehicles), it isn’t much of an issue unless you are driving in or out. That happened to us once when we were coming in and we had to wait for three hours— along with the thousand or so other vehicles entering at the time. It turned into a party. Typical Burning Man.
This time it was different, as you have undoubtedly seen or heard about on the news or through social media. It just kept on raining. What was normally a 2-3 hour wait went on for three days. Burning Man was featured in headlines around the nation and around the world. 70,000 people were literally stuck in the mud. Even the President was briefed on the situation. We managed to escape yesterday. Our story is best told in photos. All of these are taken by either Peggy or me.
As of today, some 64,000 people were still at Black Rock City and I am pleased to report that the weather is behaving itself. At 1:00 PM, Burning Man told everyone that the road was open. I suspect that it is a slow journey out. Many have even chosen to stay. BM has said the Man will burn tonight and I expect the sewer trucks are out in full force.
We truly enjoyed our trip to Burning Man, even the weather. It was an adventure! And the art was great, which will be the subject of our next several posts.
Like many public projects, Mt. Rushmore was conceived as a way to encourage tourism. The project was thought up by Doane Robinson of the South Dakota Historical Society in the early 1920s. Peter Norbeck, who was serving as South Dakota’s Senator at the time, gained Washington approval and funding for the concept. Robinson then proceeded to hire the sculpture Gutzon Borglum to implement the vision. It was Borglum who selected the specific location, chose the four presidents to be featured, designed the sculpture, and oversaw the work, i.e. just about everything.
As might be expected, an incredible amount of work was involved in creating the massive sculptures shown above. Started in 1927, the work took 14 years to complete. Over 400 tons of rock were removed— around 90% by carefully placed dynamite charges and the rest by jack hammers and facing bits. The latter designed to smooth the rock. Over 400 workers were recruited to do the work, among them local miners, lumbermen and ranchers. Going to work involved first climbing 700 steps to the top of the mountain. Workers weren’t paid for the climb. The carvers would then be lowered by rope to do the job.
Next post: It’s back to Egypt with a focus on Memphis, a giant statue of Ramses II, and a look at one of the first pyramids created.
Today Peggy and I are continuing to post about the trip we took up the Rhine River last summer to celebrate Peggy’s 72 birthday. All photos are taken by either Peggy or me unless otherwise noted.
Whenever our riverboat stopped at towns and cities along the Rhine, Peggy and I would go exploring if we had the time. Wandering on our own, traveling at our own pace, and making detours whenever something captures our attention is our favorite way to travel. We also feel that it is also the best way to experience an area. This is true whether we are hiking in the wilderness, exploring a small town, or visiting a large city. We found Boppard, Germany to be an ideal walking town. It was picturesque, historic, and easy to explore in the limited time we had.
Its roots date all the way back to Celtic times. It became a Roman fort during the time of Julius Caesar. Bouncing back and forth between the various powers that occupied the region since, it thrived during the Middle Ages and has maintained its medieval charm down to today where it is noted for both its wine and tourism.
Farther up the Rhine we came to Speyer and its massive cathedral. The Speyer Cathedral was built in 1030 and added to in 1077. It is considered to be an outstanding example of Romanesque architecture. Eight kings and emperors of the Holy Roman Empire were buried in its vault over a period of 300 years. They’re still there.
Next Monday we will be visiting Grand Teton National Park and one of the world’s most beautiful mountain ranges.
Peggy and I just returned from our visit to Egypt and trip up the Nile River. Wow! What an incredible experience. We are excited to share it with you. I’m now putting together an introductory blog which I will post later this week. Several more posts will follow as I go to work on sorting though our experiences and some 3000 plus photos. Grin. My apologies for my absence the last three weeks. We had really thought there would be time for reading and commenting on posts. Ha.
Erupting geysers are one of Yellowstones best known features. In fact, half of the world’s active geysers are located in the National Park. Peggy and I photographed lots of them when we visited last fall on our four month trip around the US.
The reason behind Yellowstones record breaking number of geysers is that much of the park is located in a giant caldera, a collapsed volcano. Semi-molten rock exists in some areas as close as 2-5 miles below the surface. This extremely hot rock heats ground water flowing near it and creates Yellowstone’s hydro-thermal features including geysers, hot springs, fumaroles and mud pots. We featured hot springs two weeks ago. Today is the geysers’ turn. They erupt when the super hot boiling water creates pressure in channels leading to the surface that erupts as steam out of a vent. As the pressure is released the geyser subsides until the process is repeated. They come in all sizes. The most famous is Old Faithful, given its name due to the regularity of its eruptions.
My blogging friends Linda and Karen from Texas called yesterday and wanted to know where in the world were we. It was special for them to check up on us. They caught us between Death Valley and Las Vegas.
Peggy and I hadn’t dropped into a black hole and simply disappeared from WordPress as people sometimes do. We had forgotten how much work goes into moving and selling a house. It’s number three on the top-five list of stress producers— right after the death of a loved one or divorce, and before having a major illness or losing a job! There was no time for blogging during the day, and by night, I had reached zombie status. Sitting and vegging were about all I could muster. I had gone beyond couch potato; I was a couch turnip.
Anyway, long story short, two weeks ago, Peggy and I made a final walk around our house, hooked up Serafina, the trailer, to Iorek, the truck, and drove up our road, honking as we had promised our neighbors we would in a final farewell. Beep, Beep, Beep-Beep, BEEP—BEEP.
Saying goodbye wasn’t easy. We had lived in our little home in the woods for 11 years— longer than either of us had ever lived anywhere since heading off to college. We had come to love the five acres we were responsible for with its irrepressible wildlife and even gotten used to the deer pressing their noses up against our windows to see what we were doing inside. Or leaving their babies sleeping on our porch as the moms went off to browse. That speaks to how much the deer trusted us. It gave a whole new meaning to baby-sitting. Then there were the squirrels and foxes and bob cats and cougars and bears. Oh my! Bald eagles flew up and down the canyon and soared into the air where they were joined by osprey and hawks. Numerous other birds lived on our property or stopped by on their way elsewhere. Watching them gather at our bird feeder and determine who was boss provided endless entertainment. Having a national forest in our backyard and a river in the front yard wasn’t half-bad either. Nor were the views of the Siskiyou mountains, a scant ten miles away with their snow-covered peaks and incredible sunsets.
Last, but certainly not least, Peggy and I had great neighbors. They were a diverse group that came from widely different backgrounds but genuinely liked each other, almost a miracle in this age of irreconcilable differences. On Friday we had them all over for a going away potlatch party, which, in case you don’t know, was a tradition of the Northwestern American natives where the chief would call everyone together and give away most of what he owned at an opulent feast.
Our potlatch didn’t quite qualify. For one, we weren’t chiefs; for two, our opulent feast was a beer, wine, booze and pizza party. Papa Murphy’s did the honors on pizza and we cleaned out our liquor cabinet for the beer, wine, and more serious alcohol, like 98 proof rum and Tom’s Blackberry Surprise. The surprise was the amount of vodka he added to juice from the five-gallons of blackberrys we had picked last summer. Drink a little and it tastes good; drink enough and it is the best concoction you had ever downed. There was plenty of alcohol to make everyone happy. An opulent feast wasn’t necessary and the pizza was scarfed down.
And finally, we didn’t give everything away. Hardly. We’d already sent a 16’ x 8’ packed moving pod off to our daughter’s home in Virginia with our treasures— mainly books, book cases, a buffet, art, a couple of comfy chairs and some heirlooms. We had also made numerous trips to Goodwill and the dump. And, while we had shipped 30 boxes of books to Virginia, we had also given 15 to Friends of the Ruch Library to sell to benefit the library. Peggy had been the president of FORL for six years. To top it off, Serafina and Iorek were loaded to the gills with everything we might need for the road— Plus. Peggy kept stuffing things into Serafina or showing up with bins for me to find room for in Iorek. Even with all of that, none of our neighbors went home empty handed. There were still couches and beds and chairs, and kitchen supplies, and lamps, and food, and sporting equipment and left over alcohol. There was even a 24 roll pack of TP from Costco. That would have brought a fortune at the beginning of the pandemic. People would have killed for it. We could hardly give it away.
As tough as saying goodbye was, Peggy and I were more than ready for our new life of full-timing. After all, the name of this blog is Wandering Through Time and Place!
With two weeks on the road behind us, we are almost human again. What we did, actually, was drive down to Reno where we camped out for a week while we relaxed and reacquainted ourselves with life on the road and our new trailer. And then we drove on to Death Valley, getting there four days before they closed the campgrounds for the season. A blog is coming.
We’ve now moved on to Las Vegas and are getting ready for our next National Park, Zion Canyon. We have four travelling companions along: Bone and Eeyore of course. They’ve travelled with us for over a quarter of a million miles. This time, however, they have been joined by Goofy and Iorek’s avatar. Goofy has been hanging out with me since the 70’s when a friend learned that one of my in-law relatives had been responsible for the creation of Goofy and, I might add, Bozo the Clown. I identified more closely with Goofy. Yuk, yuk. Iorek’s avatar was sent to us by Chrystal Trulove, one of our close blogging friends, as a Christmas Tree ornament. He told us that he would much prefer to be on the road with us than be packed away in a moving pod.
I’ve been a fan of Jimmy Buffet’s ever since I went to see him and his band, The Coral Reefer’s, at Harrah’s Lake Tahoe in the early 1980s. As I recall, we even had a ‘reefer’ (or three) in preparation for the concert. By we, I mean Tom Lovering, his Aussie buddy, Trevor, and me. It was a guy’s night out. Cheese Burger in Paradise and Son of a Son of a Sailor are still floating around in my mind. As is Margaritaville.
I’ve been thinking about another one of his songs from that era, Changes in Latitude, Changes in Attitude, over the past three months I’ve been taking a break from blogging. These lyrics in particular struck a chord:
Oh, yesterdays are over my shoulder, So I can’t look back for too long. There’s just too much to see waiting in front of me, and I know that I just can’t go wrong with these changes in latitudes, changes in attitudes…
I could hardly blame you for thinking, “At 78, there is a lot more over Curt’s shoulder than there is waiting in front of him.” But Peggy and I don’t view things that way. Life is an adventure to be lived— one day at a time— for as long as you can. So, when Peggy casually mentioned to me a few weeks ago that she was ready to wander again, I was right there with her. We did that in 1999/2000, taking a year off from work to travel extensively in North America for a year. And we did it again in 2008 when Peggy retired. That time it was for three years.
There is something incredibly freeing about life on the road, as many of you who read this blog know from your own travels. Each day brings something new to see, to experience and to learn. Everyday life and concerns fade into the background. While we have travelled using just about every mode of transportation possible over the years (minus the four-legged type), our North American road trips were accomplished in two different Pleasure Way vans, Xanadu and Quivera.
Our goal this time will be to do a more thorough job of exploring North America than we have in the past— traveling relatively short distances to the next interesting/beautiful location, settling in for 1-3 weeks, and exploring the surrounding country. It will require a slightly different approach. We are buying a small trailer and have already bought a new pickup to pull it. The trailer will serve as our base. The pickup will serve as our exploration vehicle. It even comes with 4-wheel drive and off-road capacity! The trailer is designed for either living in campgrounds with hookups or boondocking (living off the grid) with solar power.
As for our schedule, we have yet to decide how long we will be on the road each outing before we return to our home base. Neither have we decided where each trip will take us but we are thinking warmer when it is cold up north and cooler when it is hot down south. Both Canada and Mexico will be included in our plans depending on conditions. Our goal will also be to avoid some of the worst problems associated with global warming. Anyway, I’ll keep you posted as our plans develop. And, of course, you will be invited to travel with us as I blog along the way.
Tom wanders in and out of these posts frequently. I first met him in 1974 when I walked into Alpine West, his outdoor gear and clothing store in Sacramento. I was planning my first 100 mile Sierra Backpack Trek as a fundraiser for the American Lung Association and was seeking a sponsor. After telling me that the trip was crazy and that people would come off the hike hating me and the ALA, he immediately offered to promote the event through his store. That’s Tom. We’ve been friends ever since and have had numerous adventures together that have included backpacking, boating and Burning Man, among others. He was with me when I found Bone on a backpacking trip in 1978. In the photo below, Tom has Bone woven into his hair on an 18 day raft trip down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon he led in 2010 that included Peggy, me, and other friends.
Three years ago, he and his friend Lita were deglazing a pot that they had used for cooking blackberry jam. Tom threw in a dollop of vodka to make the job easier. Naturally he couldn’t waste the vodka. Much to his delight, the sugar-enhanced blackberries combined with a generous helping of vodka went well together. A new drink was born: Blackberry Surprise! Over the next couple of years, he and Lita made pilgrimages to the Fort Bragg area on California’s Pacific Coast each summer to pick blackberries to mix with vodka as he refined his recipe.
I told him that lots of blackberries grow where we live and invited the two of them up to join Peggy and me in making Blackberry Surprise. To seal the deal, we sent him a photo of plump blackberries a week and a half ago.
Tom called immediately. “We’ll be up tomorrow,” he told me. I hadn’t expected the photo to elicit such a fast response.
“Um, Tom,” I replied, “we are having dinner out with our friends Don and Nan.”
“What time will you get home,” he asked. “Eight-ish” I replied. “Great, we’ll see you then.” I could hear Lita in the background suggesting you don’t call someone and show up the next day. Ha. Tom and Lita drove up the 320 miles from Sacramento in their Pleasureway van and were waiting at our house when we got back from dinner.
Tom immediately broke out a battery operated blender with the power of a professional Vitamix that he had invented and whipped us up a generous helping of Blackberry Surprise. We all went to bed happy.
NOTE: This is one of the occasional blogs I am posting this summer as I take a break.