did you know?

the heart of the giraffe weighs about 46 lbs.  

it has to be large because it takes so much force to pump blood all the way up the neck to their head. 

monday = new desktop backdrop!

what's more peaceful than this carnivorous kitty?  

New level of "pit"-tiful

Ezra has definitely been soaking up every extra ounce of attention. Yesterday he got to go to the p-e-t s-t-o-r-e and get a new toy. While we were there we noticed a giant dog bed sized heating pad. It was of course, a fortune, and I wasn't going to buy it unless he liked ours at home first.

love/hate relationship

i love facebook.

it is the only way i am able to communicate with some of my friends

i hate facebook.

what a waste of time

i love facebook especially today, because,

the following picture was posted and

 it was the first time i laughed out loud all week.  

some kid's halloween costume.

 don't know who this is?  

 shame on you.  

watch more college gameday.

some ksu parents pretty much nailed it on the head

 

why did the elephant cross the road?

el-if-i-know

ha ha ha!

ok.  lame joke.  i did actually say that to one of our fellow safari-ians.  :)  

meet rambo.  he's about 30 years old

elephants have 2 noses.  one is their trunk.  the other is right where the guy is pointing in the 2nd picture.  it's called the jacobson's olfactory.  so elephants will sniff something with their trunk, "hold the smell there" and then blow it into their jacobson's in order to determine what it is. 

cheetahs

did you know?  the black "tear drops" under a cheetah's eyes are similar to that of black under a football player's eyes.  it is there to absorb light so nothing is reflected back up. 

princesses and castles

i'll pretend to be the princess and here is my castle. 

normally this is surrounded by the alps.  instead, we got fog.

 this is Neuschwanstein Castle built in the late 1800s by king Ludwick II.  He was nuts and would regularly walk around the castle dressed like the swan king.  He only lived here 174 days when the townspeople he was taking taxes from decided to have a doctor check out his mental status.  He was raided in his bedroom and told he was no longer able to be king because he was declared insane.  A few days later both he and the doctor were found dead in a lake.  6 weeks later the castle opened up as a museum and has 1.3M people visit regularly.

this was one of kim's ideas.  kim is my awesome friend who lives in germany and was kind (& patient enough) to hang out with us a couple days as our tour guide.

 

hippos, part II

did you know?  hippos can open their mouth up to 150 degrees.

this week's screensaver

i'm very sure these have a scientific name.  at our house dallas would call them splineball ionizers (chelsie- you know what this is!) and i call them bad hair days.... and i'm very sure that neither of those are their actual name. 

click on the image so it's bigger, right click (for my fellow non-mac users) and choose as desktop background.

today i ordered our vacation book.  my only saving grace was that it was >50% off otherwise i would have never been able to afford it.  basically i have sorted through our 2600 pics (collective between dallas and i) and narrowed it down to 351.  phew.  this will make it much easier to show everyone our trip, in the small case that you are interested in seeing that many pictures!

Happy things

One of my major highlights from the trip was seeing the African penguins. I took video on my iPad (like dorky tourist) and Dallas told me to watch it whenever I was sad. It definitely helps but still a somber weekend here. 

Did you know? They have pink glands above their eyes, which are used for thermoregulation. The hotter the penguin gets, the more blood is sent to these glands so it may be cooled by the surrounding air, thus making the glands more pink

Gretta Jean. 2008-oct 2012

Tonight we made a generous donation to heaven. Our poor gretta lost a heroic battle to aggressive cancer. She was a lover, loyal friend and faithful kitchen shadow. She will leave a hole in my heart but I know she's much better off now. It makes me feel better knowing all dogs go to heaven. Go get your squirrel Gi-Gi!

i saw the sign.....

while driving around simonstown on our cape town tour we saw these signs, in this order.  i find it so funny....

those golfers are a breed of their own!

Rhino poaching

today we are going to talk about rhino poaching.  this doesn't affect any of us in the states, but it is a big area of concern over in africa where one rhino is being poached every 19 hrs.  keep this rate up and rhinos, especially the black rhino, will be extinct in just a few short years.

white rhino

rhino are being poached for their horns, which bring $65,000 US/kilogram.  put that into foreign currencies and you've got a fortune.  most of the market goes to vietnam as they believe the horn, ground, will have some sort of medicinal purpose.  also in china, rhino horn knives are a symbol of "coming to age" (or something like that)



when we were there-- poachers were out and about and killed 2--a momma and a baby.  the poachers go onto the reserve, shoot the rhino in pure daylight and literally hacksaw the horns off and run.  why can't they catch the poachers?  these reserves are huge.  imagine tracking down a poacher if you have 220,000 acres of bushland to go through. 

although hard to see, this guy was poached a couple of weeks before we were there.  you can't see its nose--which is just sawed flat off.  now hyena, dog, lion---anything is fair game to feed on this.

reserves also just lost all of their government funding as well.  this puts much financial stress on the reserves to keep their properties lined and safe.  (what happened--govt officials were going on game hunts as "company parties," and the reserves were rather angry about it.  the reserves took the govt officials to court and won.  in return, the officials decided to take away the govt funding).  tourism alone will not support these reserves.  anyone want to donate?

1 month old baby white rhino.  his momma was poached 

.

normally i'd blow off rhino poaching as it doesn't affect my life one way or another making chocolate.  but once you see a poached rhino--it's a different story.  one that is completely heartbreaking.  if a momma is shot the baby will stay by it's side.  at one of the reserves we went to they had a 1 month and a 2 month old with poached moms.  they're still bottle feeding at this age and drink about 9L of milk/day.  although there is hope for these little guys it would be better if they were out in nature- not in the bomas (holding pens) with humans.     stop rhino poaching!

did you know?

the pink on a hippos' body is pink because their body has secreted an oil in that area that works as a sunscreen

backdrop images

last night, before our very early bedtime of 7:35 (we were fighting to stay up until then!) we went through our 2200 images of the trip.  there are some by the beach and in the gardens that would make for spectacular backdrop images.  just click on the picture.  once it's big right click and then choose:  set as desktop background. 

i'm going to start going thru them with a fine tooth comb and slowly start posting them....stay tuned!

Curing jet lag Costco style

Close only counts in horseshoes....

We have been traveling for what seems ages. It has been at least 24 hrs and will be more like 36 by the time we arrive at our front door. Cape Town to London was a breeze. We slept nearly the whole way (almost 12 hr flight). Once we were in London Dallas promptly got Starbucks. Even a tall size feels massive to hold compared to what we had for the last 2 weeks. A small layover and then 9 hrs to Chicago. Here we got in late, had delays in security since there was a tornado warning. Then our gate got moved twice, delayed..... To us this feels like midnight. Can't wait to board our plane and sleep. Or maybe we shouldn't sleep.... Who knows. Chicago is close to home but not close enough.

Andi

(sent from my phone, most likely there are errors)

One last coke light.....

Not they are any different than sodas in the US. We went to the waterfront today and hung out. Walked all the way back and ate at di vinci's....again. (It's only our 3rd time here). Tonight we leave for London..then Chicago....then home and the dream will be over. Reality will be good but it will hit hard on Monday!

Day 14

Today we hired a guide to take us around Cape Town. We went to cape point (where the Indian and atlantic oceans meet) and then around to Simons town for this....I've only been waiting to see the penguins for 10 months...they are adorable. The water is beautiful and the penguins were great. We ended up with a wine tasting at the oldest winery in Cape Town (founded in 1692)

Tonight we went to a funky little restaurant down the street from where we are staying. It was recommended to us by fellow safari people. We ran into other people from seattle that were at the lodge the same time we were and had dinner. What a small world!

Purple......

The color of ksu (and American college football...not soccer, or cricket, or rugby)....the color of home.....

Its time. It's time we get to thinking about reality and home. It's so fun being abroad. But it's about time to come home. There is always this little "moment" in which you know it's time to head back. Maybe it's because you don't feel comfortable walking down the street and people are looking at you funny. Or maybe it's because you feel uncomfortable when every house has a wall and fence, completely surrounded by barbed wire and security system. Or maybe it's because every store front has bars on it and some you have to ring the worker in order to come in. For us though..... I was when we were hungry and both of us gravitated towards: Hudson's...a burger place. Beer and juicy hamburgers, acdc, the counting crows......it felt good. Very good. Tomorrow we are hitting cape point and then leaving Saturday...... And America, despite beng election time and all, will never have looked so good. (Did I mention we are craving huge-ly sized coffees? Like we are going to get ventis and suck down every last drop)

(Cape Town is nice, but I'm a country girl and loved the reserve and its wide open spaces so much more)

Shark diving

Today we were picked up at 5 to go shark diving. Apparently they are more active in the mornings. It took 2 hrs to get here, at gansbaai, sa. After a quick safety briefing (basically, don't stick your appendages out of the cage) we took off. Once out there we put our wetsuits on and hopped right into the cage. They baited the water and stuck some tuna out there. Then they yell "down" and your hold your breath and hang on to the hand rails and watch the sharks go by. They are huge. Even the small ones are huge. Since there were only 6 of us on the boat and one person didn't want to be down, we got to stay in the cage the entire time. Then we got out, and was so glad that we had nurses on board who were wise enough to bring zofran. We are definitely land people and the swells were getting to us. I would have grabbed a few shots of the sharks or the seals on dyer island but Dallas and I were both too busy staying in one spot trying not to puke. We do have a video instead. I'm usually anti video of the gimmicks but we needed proof.

Cape Town day one

We really need like 2 weeks and a wad of cash to do everything we want to do here. But, we don't have either of those. Today we went to the Kirstenbosch gardens. They have around 4000 varieties of plants here. Usually I'm not a plat person but this was beautiful. They say if you are on vaca here and the sky is clear you go to the mountain. We have been begging to do some sort of physical activity since we left Germany.....so today we climbed table mountain (ironic since we hike one at home all the time). It's the tallest place down here in Cape Town. The lady at the front told us we shouldn't go up since there were some clouds. They also said it would be 6 hrs. Being young, dumb Americans we defied both. It was beautiful. This is the kind of place my mom would love....birds of paradise everywhere. Tomorrow: shark diving!

Lion king

Actually we are lion king-less since we never got to see a lion here. I was ready all week to burst out in"oh i just want to be king" song for our group but never got the chance. I seriously haven't seen the lion king since high school, er, uh, 3rd grade (ok! I watched it in college!!) but could sing you just about anything from the entire movie. Today was our last little safari drive and then we drove to Durban and am at Cape Town now. It was hard to leave. There are so many places I could see myself living and this is one of them. Ask me how our trip was and I'd say "incredible" and would be speechless after that (yes, I realize that is quite a concept for anyone that knows me). It has been the trip of a lifetime, something that I can't put into words. I can tell you facts about all the animals but its something you really have to experience for yourself.

we will have to call Manie, our A+ guide and have him take us out just to see lions on a different trip. I guess we will come back if we have to. :)

Dallas is a special child. Since we missed octoberfest in the states he decided to wear his Liederhosen for our last group dinner tonight. This way when someone ever randomly asks "have you ever wore Liederhosen while dancing to Zulu music in South Africa" he can proudly be the only person in the entire world to raise his hand. The resort staff actually really liked it. When we were leaving tonight they chased our group down with a cell phone. One guy from the group is Iike, "no, no one at our table left this" when in fact it belonged to one of the staff members and they actually wanted a picture with him! I was dying laughing. In an odd way it was like they got their own German safari tonight. Ha!

Day 10

Holy smokes. We have been gone for 10 days!? It feels like we have been gone a whole month. We learn so many new things daily and am always doing something. It's really crazy to think we will drive to an airport tomorrow. Although we will still be in South Africa I have an idea that it will be nothing like it is here. We have had such a good time with our group and have made some really good friends. Even some from Denver. I really don't feel like coming back. I could stay with these animals forever. I'm sure it is second nature, being from here, and seeing zebra on your way to work every day. I guess I'll just have to appreciate it for 12 more hours. In the morning we are doing a walking safari for 2 hrs and then am headed out. We will drive 3 hrs to durban and then fly to Cape Town for 4 nights.

Today we visited both the elephant and cheetah rehab facilities. It was a very interesting tour. W got to stick our hand on the elephants tongue and the pet a cheetah. I was fortunate. The cheetah really liked me and I got to pet it for twice as long. I didn't take my iPad into the cage so will have to wait to upload my picture of it when we get home. I can't wait to make my mother completely jealous. :)

it is 11p here so headed to bed. Tomorrow morning our group is pulling a prank on our ranger. If we all participate and pull it off will be great.

No lions.

We tried. We drove for hours and hours today looking for them. Instead we got quite the treat. It is a long story how this little guy got here (momma was poached) and a long story of what is going on in South Africa at the moment. More on that to come later. Here is a one month old little rhino sucking on my hand. It's like a a baby calf. Adorable!

Nice view from the office

Would be better if I hadn't of picked up a cold with sneezing and congestion....but it will do. :)

St. Lucia

Today after our safari Dallas and I braved the South African driving again and went to st Lucia, a 85 km estuary to see the hippo and crocs. We only saw 2 crocs but it was evening, starting to cool down, and the hippos were starting to become more active. They sure do make funny noises. (I got it on video). Dallas has some great shots of them yawning....I can't wait to get home to upload them! Did you know hippos kill more people in South Africa Yearly than the big 5? They come out and eat at night so at st Lucia it's not uncommon to find one roaming the streets. I guess last week a hippo bit a guys leg off. Tomorrow we are leaving at 4:30 to go to another game reeve and hopefully see lions!!!

Dallas has very advanced forms of mosquito protection.

Twiddling thumbs

We get 2, 2 hr safaris a day. I asked one of the couples who was leaving what you're supposed to do with all your extra time. She said, "oh, just eat, sleep, do nothing....you'll get used to it really fast". Apparently we are from different planets. This is driving me crazy. I might make Dallas take up tennis while we are here (there is tennis court).

We hung out w these two while drinking coffee this morning.

Today we had a full tour car, so there were 10 of us. I was stuck in the middle. Note to self- try to sit on the outside for pictures. Dallas is using our Nikon and I'm the dorky tourist bringing out the iPad. I'm sure I look ridiculous but oh well. The reserve we are on is one if the smaller ones and can only support 3 elephants as they eat 250 lbs of food/day.

Momma cheeta

So we figured out the free wifi system here! Here is momma cheeta. She is gorgeous and has 3 cubs following her

We went for our first safari this morning. It was nice knowing
everyone... But we have it too good here and probably won't come back.
:). We left at 6 with money
(Prounced mon-ee) our tour guide and one other couple. Right away we
see a giraffe. Then we saw the cheetah from yesterday. She did not
have her cubs with her and she was stalking some nyala, which is like
a deer kind of thing. We tried to track her down but only saw the herd
of nyala running thru trees. Not many people see her I guess. Then
more giraffe, african buffalo and some hippo heads sticking out of the
water. The giraffe horns have hair on top, which I never knew and the
males lose their hair (funny) and females keep it. You can relatively
tell their age by the number of warts of their body as they get more
warts with age. When we were eating breakfast a little pack of wart
hogs went by. Signs here say not to feed the monkeys so hope we get to
see them! We will head out around 3 this afternoon again for a couple
of hours

we made it!b

I'm going to apologize for lack of pics here and brevity. Will post a
good site when its ready to go (in effort to save money). This is all
off dallas phone.

Its been a long day. Yesterday dallas bought himself some liderhosen
and then poor kim drove us 5.5 hrs back to the frankfort airport. From
there w sat on a plane from 8.30p to 7.20a. Then we got thru customs
and money exchange and ready to hit security again when dallas
realized he left his computer under his seat on the plane. although we
went and put a report in for it, I'm sure we will never see it again.

Then we waited until 1 to hop on a turbo prop plane and landed at
richards bay. Then, after dallas narrowly missed running over monkeys
in the parking lot, we drove us on the left hand side of the road with
left hand manual skills, while managing to avoid: bicyclists,
hitchikers, oncoming traffic, chickens, goats and pineapple stands. I
did a horrible job routing him but we are here and we head out at 6
for our first safari drive tomorrow. Yeah! On the way to our
(beautiful) lodge we saw deer things, momma leopard with cubs and
zebras!

Is been foggy and cloudy all day. Kim has yet to convince us that we are in the alps and the mountains in all the pictures aren't just photoshopped in. The hills are just starting to turn yellow and its beautiful. My "big" purchase was a cowbell. I love that all the animals wear them here.

Today we drove partway thru Austria and then back into boveria (spelling? I'm not a good German) to see the neuschwanstein castle. It is what Disney used to model after. We did take the tour but were disappointed we only got to see 1/3 of it because the dude died early and it was never finished.

After the castle we walked downtown garmisch and then went to the Olympic ski jump and then to this gorge. I'm sure it has a great German name that I can't spell. It was beautiful and after walking up and down we were damp from all the waterfalls overhead.

Then we went to eat at this little Italian restaurant. We were sitting in our booth when across the isle this couple heard us speaking English. The conversation went like this:

Them: are you from Kansas?
Us: (we are all laughing) yes......
Them: are you a holste or a ludders?
Us: (laughing hysterically) holste
Them: really!? Do you know where Atwood is?

(At this point I'm dying.......cannot believe it)
Come to find out they actually know where Ludell Kansas is, and have had dinner with iur pastor, and know other people from our church, and are related to some holsters. In fact, he remembered that their first road trip ever was to Atwood. It was so crazy. We ended up having dinner together and wished them safe travels on the way. So funny who you'll meet in Germany. I think we might go buy a German lotto ticket tomorrow. (Honestly we would be lucky if we could just see the alps).

Tomorrow: 5 hrs in the car back to Frankfurt and then will be in route to Johannesburg.

Goats and their bells

Edelweiss

Since our friend Phillip is in the military we are staying at edelweiss. It's like a nice hotel thing for US citizens. It's very much like a ski lodge in Colorado, Starbucks (which I am boycotting!!!) and all. Apparently there are only 5 places like this in the world. Still foggy and wet this morning. Hope it will burn off later. This morning Kim and I went to go run in the gym. So weird seeing the tail end of the late night nfl game on in the morning. Taking this picture you can hear the sounds of cow bells in the back. I'm going to make Kim drive me by them. :)