The First Week of January

The first week of the New Year was a busy one. After getting over that nasty stomach bug, scrubbing down the house, and putting away Christmas, we made our annual trek to the big city of Dallas for the Dallas Safari Club Convention

and survived the chaos that is big city traffic. We stay in the really nice hotel that is attached to the convention center simply to avoid having to deal with the traffic.

Rooms are highly sought after. They open up reservations on a particular day in February for the following January and every one of the 1001 rooms are snapped up in less than 15 minutes so you really have to be on the ball. It always surprises me how many people we know when we go and I love that DH gets to spend time with his brother. You might be thinking that I go for DH, but I enjoy it as much as he does. It's always good to catch up with these 2 on the left. This is the organization that we chose when we went to Africa. Buzz and Miles are 2 of the genuinely, nicest people you'll ever meet. Buzz, center, is barely recognizable because in his natural state he is barefoot and stalking elephant. :)

They recently got into ranching so they were eager to discuss that with DH.                    
I'm not a shopper, but you can spend a lot of money here very fast.

(Photos snagged from Google images because I was too captivated by everything to remember to take pictures)
The only thing we bought this time was some hearing protection. DH shoots so much and he's always worn hearing protection, but his hearing has diminished some and we want to protect what he has left. They are not cheap and he didn't want to get them. He said he wanted to get ME something for my birthday and anniversary and I told him that these WERE for me. LOL.

We spent from 9-5:30 walking through the booths and visiting with people and we still did not see it all. We had to get back home on Friday, but we spent the morning seeing the rest of the convention and revisiting a few of the booths before heading out. When we walked outside, it had started snowing. That doesn't happen a lot in Dallas, but Dallas traffic is scary enough without adding snow into the mix. It took us 2 1/2 hours to drive 65 miles

Most people were driving sensibly, but we passed at least 10 accidents. Thankfully, by the time we arrived back at my BIL's house, the roads were clear. We stopped in to pick up this:

Our taxidermy from Africa has arrived! We cannot wait to dig into it, but we also arrived home at 9:30 on Friday night to 3" of snow. The first thing I reached for were my flannel jammies:

 and this morning it was a whopping -1 below 0:

Chopping ice and feeding come before anything else so the crate will have to wait. We might get to 32 degrees today, but at least the sun's out and it promises to be a beautiful day:

Just ask Skeet:

I don't know if his cause for celebration has to do with us being home or the snow,

 but he is jubilant:

And everyone knows that the best treasures are always buried beneath the snow:

I pulled out some stew meat from the deep freeze and it's simmering away, making the house smell awfully good. Hopefully we'll be able to unpack our crate this evening and begin planning our Africa room. There will be moving of various mounts because we didn't want to mix continents and Africa deserves a room all to herself. LOL

Adventures in Africa : Part 8

Welcome to the last installment of our adventure in Zimbabwe. I can hear your collective sighs of, "Finally!" LOL

edited: Warning: today's post contains trophy shots. I had an unhappy reader leave me a comment and let me know that this post was inappropriate so I have moved the photos down in case you do not wish to continue reading. I apologize for not doing so initially.
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On the evening of day 10, as we were heading back to camp, we spotted a warthog close to the road. DH made a good shot and it all happened so fast that no one realized just how big of a warthog he was:

Yes, I know he is ugly, but he's kinda cute in his own warthog way and those tusks and warts are huge!

On day 12 we moved to the main camp, Camp Pedza to explore a different part of the concession.
 Camp Pedza is very nice:

                              

We slept well, but missed our tent and the accompanying hippo and elephant sound effects although we traded them for hyena laughter:

Our dining facilities:

                             

I would love to have a spot like this at the ranch, but I can't imagine keeping it clean. The way the dirt and wind blows, I don't think it would work.

Plus, we don't have Bushbabies!

                            

This camp has a few resident Bushbabies that entertained us around the fire in the evenings, but capturing them with a camera is a challenge. Popcorn is placed at the base of a tree and you sit and stare at it and then, POP. They jump from the neighboring trees and snatch a kernel and before you can say Boo, they catapult a good 10 ft.back into the tree with their treasure.

                                    

So we have lots of photos like this:

                           

The pictures I did get aren't great, but I was tickled to get any at all. I would just point the camera and see nothing but black and DH would lean over and whisper, "NOW" and I would press the shutter.

                           

We spent some time sitting in the shade of a river bed

  where we spied some Bushbuck tracks and were treated to some playful Baboons gallivanting about in the jungle of trees across from us:

They were hard to see through the camera lens so I just pointed it in the direction of the tree and hoped there would be baboons when I loaded them:

We were surprised to run across a pack of African Wild Dogs:

                        

They are indigenous to the area and generally nocturnal:

                        

And we closed out our phenomenal hunt with this handsome Impala:

                       

And so we have come to the end of our journey. Thanks for sticking with me as I documented our African Safari! DH and I will no doubt be revisiting our experience again and again, but y'all won't have to suffer through that although I do have this panel

and have plans to turn it into a quilt, but hopefully you won't mind one more nod to Africa if its in quilt form. I don't usually pick up panels, but I bought this one probably 4 years ago, hoping we would one day get to see the real thing and it'll probably be another 4 years before it becomes a quilt. :)

The following translates to 'goodbye mate' or 'stay well my friend' in Shona. Thank you.

Sarai zvakanaka my shamwari! Tatenda for joining us!

                           

Adventures in Africa: Part 7

Ready to spend a little time on a boat?

cruising the Zambezi?

                   
We never have the opportunity to spend time on the water so this was quite a treat.

One little boat

One big river that was half a mile wide in many places

                             

filled with crocodiles

and hippos.

                           

We went out 3 times and one day the winds got pretty feisty. Not a place you want to capsize and the whitecaps, known as white horses, were kicking up their heels. The new friends we met, who had also lost their luggage were on the river a few days before we were and they actually experienced engine trouble while on the river. They said they had to improvise with a fishing pole and a flip flop for a makeshift paddle. LOL. And don't ask me why there aren't oars in the boat to begin with.

I will admit that I was quite taken by the hippos:

They were everywhere:

And they were so cute:

                           

and that cuteness is deceiving because when they are on land, they are HUGE and incredibly dangerous:

                           

We often just floated by them and watched them lounging in the water. The river wasn't very deep in those places because they are standing on the bottom, but in other places, it was deeper than I wanted to know. That was the case when we passed through  "The Gates" where the river narrowed and ran between 2 mountains - Zimbabwe on the left and Zambia on the right.

                                  
                 
We saw a bushbuck and a waterbuck from the boat and pulled up to the bank to track them a couple of times, but we were right on the border of Mozambique and couldn't follow them.

Anyone up for a trip in a dugout canoe?

                       

Mozambique was on the other side of the river at this point and of course we saw a monster Kudu on that side one afternoon:

                        

Gorgeous! These are the Red Cliffs :

When I saw one photo on the computer screen, I cropped it and realized I had captured a pair of rare black eagles in flight:

Such a beautiful place! We even baited a couple of fishing hooks and threw our lines in the water in hopes of catching a Tiger fish or two, but no such luck.

                             

It was incredible to experience some time on the river

                            

and top it off with an African sunset on the Zambezi