The 2022 Africa Journals, Ch. 1: What Just Happened?

 

Chapter 1:

What Just Happened?

 

Life is a mess…

Let’s jump into it!

-Abnormal Vibes

 

 

So there I was in late September, less than enthusiastically muddling my way toward the long season of winter.   All the outdoor pre-winter chores were done.   Firewood split and stacked, lawns tended as best I can, a wee bit of remorse that fun stuff pulled me away from doing some semi-needed sanding and re-staining on parts of the house.

 

Sure, the windows outdoors needed washing again, but relentless rain since mid-July easily got me out of that onerous chore.

 

File this under "Things you See in Airports"

Inside, however, was a different matter.   I was actually dreading spending the next five or six months indoors without a major project to occupy my mind.  Plus, I was spending too much time browsing Facebook on my iPad, too much time noticing that my pal Marg Wood was once again posting stupendous photos from Africa.

 

It all hit me when she posted unbelievable photos of seldom-seen animals taken while in a night hide.    A caracal???   An African porcupine???  They make North American porcupines look like the pin cushion in your mom’s sewing basket.

 

FOMO!    I was hit with a massive case of FOMO (Fear of Missing Out).  I wasn’t jealous of her being there; I wanted to be there, too.

 

It was my fault.   A year ago, when I had my 80^th birthday within days of returning from Africa, I decided that it would be my last trip.   It was just getting too complicated.   COVID restriction meant frequent tests and extra days spent in hotels to meet the time restraints.   One test made out in the bush of the Okavango Delta in Botswana cost $450!   Why?  Because a tech was brought out in a helicopter to take it.

 

No, I thought.   I’m getting too old to manage all the airport nonsense.   Too old to be spending that kind of money to take photos.   It was all just too much.

 

I thought it a wise, mature, responsible decision.

A molded seat with footrests built into a rolling suitcase.   Brilliant!

 

There was one thing I hadn’t factored in:    How very much I would miss it.   My golly, how I missed the birds and animals of Africa.   How I missed traveling and laughing with my pals.

 

Marg and I bantered back and forth this late September and before I could quiet the mature, responsible voice of my better judgment, she made airline reservations for me!!!

 

Well, now.  One can’t say "no" now, can one?

 

I had less than a month to get ready so October went by in a frenzy.  

 

Sunday, Oct. 30, I drove into Anchorage and stayed overnight at the Dimond Center hotel.   Staying overnight in Anchorage the night before a trip has become my habit.   It guarantees that I won’t be held hostage to avalanches, rock slides, and traffic accidents that might close the highway.

 

The next morning, at a reasonable hour, I flew to Seattle on Alaska Airlines, arriving, also, at a reasonable hour.  

 And then I slept 12 hours.

First, a connecting flight to Nairobi, Kenya, through Chas. De Gaulle airport in France, 

 a day at Tamarind Tree Hotel in Nairobi, and then aback flight to Ambolseli National Park.  The park location is shown in red south of Nairobi, close to the border with Tanzania.

 

 

 

Fur and Feathers 2022, Chapter 4

 

Watching puffins run across the water to get airborne is a kick!

FINALLY!!!

INCOMING!!!

Common murre on takeoff.

A group of puffins is known by a range of names – a colony, a puffinry, a circus, a burrow, a gathering, or an improbability. 

Martha is worried about John talking to her rival, a horned puffin.   "I don't know what John sees in her.    I have better hair than she does, my outfit is classier, too.   She uses too much makeup on her bill."

"Martha, C'mon.   I was just being neighborly."

"They went that-a way!"

"No, I don't want a copy of the Watchtower.   I can't read."

"Looks to me like the neighborhood is going to heck, Jessie."

And a bald eagle flies above the fray.

Fur and Feathers 2022. Chapter 3

The light was poor one day when we went out to photograph the Coastal Brown bears digging for razor clams on the beach.   It was just enough to create glare on the skim of water still running off the sand.

• That glare, however, made for reflections and an almost pure white background, especially because I had my exposure compensation cranked way open in an effort to get enough light onto the camera's sensor.   From there, it took only a little tinkering in post-processing to create the images below.

 

In photography, this is called high key.   There is also the opposite, or low-key photography, in which dark tones are brought out to emphasize a subject or to create a silhouette or rim-lit effect.   In both of the below photos I darkened the background and brought out the puffins.

Third Things First

 I need to finish the Africa 2021 Journals.

 

 

I need to finish the Denali Highway 2022 Journals.

But first, I just returned from a trip to pbotograph the large Coastal Brown bears of Southcentral Alaska and as those photos are now foremost in my mind, here we go:

Fur and Feathers 2022

Note:   If these photos look as if they were taken from behind a waterfall, that's close.   We were in a sideways deluge and a strong wind.

 

 

It's been four years since I traveled to Silver Salmon Creek to photograph the large Coastal Brown bears that frequent that area, far, far too long a time.    Coastal browns are the third largest bears, after Polar bears and Kodiak bears.   After that are the grizzlies and black bears.

Last Tuesday, I was called by a friend who was looking for someone to fill the third spot on a trip she had booked to a place that is really hard to find a vacancy in.   The original third person had to cancel.

That was Tuesday late afternoon.   The small plane would leave from Soldotna early Thursday morning.

I was there.   Weather was iffy, but we made it across Cook Inlet and farther south before it closed in entirely.   A brief check-in, gear prep and we were out on the tidal flats in in a deluge and strong wind.

 I've seen bears of all kinds during my 75 years in Alaska.   From a distance.   Then seven years ago, I went to a place  where I could get quite close to wild bears without fear of being mailed, as long as I minded my bear manners.

Two things surprised me when I had time to watch them closely.   The first was their hind feet.   I've seen lots and lots of bear tracks but never thought much about how an animal would make them.  Those hind feet are so human-like and watching a bear walk so flat-footed is like nothing I've seen any other animal do.

Our first outing was onto the tidal flats during an almost minus 5 tide.   We were hoping to see bears digging razor clams.  Two juvenile bears were there, keeping an eye on each other.

This beautiful 2-1/2 year old boar was one of them.

 This 3-1/2 year old sow was the other.

Inevitably, they met up and spoke bear to each other.   This was the second thing that surprised me about bears.   They love to play!

 

 

 

After that initial greeting, it was  game on!!!

 

 

Chase me, chase me!

We were about fifty feet from our cart and as soon as the bears crossed in front of us, I knew they were headed right to it.

After being shooed away from the cart, it was into the surf for more fun.

Can these expressions be anything but pure joy and zest for living?

 

Well played, bears.    Well played.

Where am I?

 I know.   I know.  I've fallen behind on the Africa Journals.

I have a good excuse:

 

 

BEFORE: 

Jerome Lake pullout along the  Seward Highway.

 

AFTER:

Plus about five miles of highway ditches before the nice weather turned nasty.