27 Friday Mar 2020
Posted in Metea Valley, Portraits, Sports Photos
Friday March 13th – Metea Valley High School – Girls Water Polo Team – Freshman
Prior to leaving school on the 13th with a break in the water polo season for an undetermined length, rather than have a practice we had a picture day. The images below are of the team members that are freshman in their first season on the team.
27 Friday Mar 2020
Posted in Portraits
March 26th 2020
Finished work on our basement and set up my home studio. Becky was willing to be the subject while I balanced the lighting for portraits.
27 Friday Mar 2020
Posted in Travel Photos
Feb. 11th 2020 – Hamiltons – and departure – After our final game drive in the rain we had dinner. In the evening were escorted to our tent as the camp is not surrounded with a fence as our two previous camps were. This was the same routine that we experienced in 2008 at our camps in Botswana. This evening was an example why. The guides when driving back to camp during evening game drives search the road, nearby bushes and trees with a spot light and locate game which have been is some of our photos. When you are in the vehicle the animals see you as part of the vehicle. When you are out of the vehicle, such as walking to you tent then you are viewed as food. The guide leading you to your tent does the same scanning with a powerful torch (flash light). On this trip to our tent the guide spotted a female line not more than 30 yards away. Once exposed she slowly walked behind a bush. In the daylight hours we had observed many other animals in the same area.
Feb. 12th 2020 Because of the departure time for our flight we were unable to do a morning game drive. Also because of the rains our transfer to the airport was unable to pick us up and as a result we were taken to the National Park gate nearest the airport to meet our transfer in the game drive vehicle. During breakfast were visited by the local monkey who wants to steal food from you. After breakfast it was about an hour and half drive to the gate and this really ended up make our trip into a game drive. We saw some storks, ran into giraffes and elephants on the road. The giraffe started running away from us down the road. The elephant held his ground for a period and then also started running down the road to a point where he stopped and turn to face us. He did not charge but turned back and headed down the road again and finally turned off to the side.
Our transfer met us at the National Park gate and took us to the airport. The airport was quite small and most of the waiting area was outdoors. We flew to Johannesburg to board our flight to Germany. Getting to the gate they could not find our name on the list of passengers. As is turned out our flight was booked for a day later. Feb. 13th What to do? The Lufthansa people were very helpful. As it turned out there was an hotel at the airport you could walk to. It was located on the top of a five story parking garage. We got a goodnights sleep before leaving the next afternoon to complete our trip home. We arrived home on the 14th and we need a few days of rest and recovery.
27 Friday Mar 2020
Posted in Travel Photos
Feb. 11th 2020-Hamiltons Tented Camp Afternoon Game Drive-Light Rain
Unlike the 18 hours of torrential rain that quickly filled the creeks and rivers this afternoon it was just a steady rain – more than a light rain but also one that never let up. Because the real heavy rain had let up we were able to pass some of the creeks in the Land Cruiser. While is seemed like all of the animals had hunkered down out of site there were still some to see. This was our last formal game drive as we were due to leave for home the next morning.
27 Friday Mar 2020
Posted in Travel Photos
Feb. 11th 2020-Hamiltons Tented Camp Morning Game Drive-Still Raining
Hamiltons Tented Camp Morning Game Drive-Still Raining – Our afternoon game drive the day before was canceled because the riverbeds and creeks were flooded. During that afternoon the local baboons were jumping off the trees and using the wet tent covering as a slide. We did not go out to have a look as we saw them near by and could hear the pounding as the landed on the roof and see them as they climbed away from our tent. At dinner it was people from a neighboring tent that told us they was them sliding down the canvas. We woke to the same pounding in the morning but this time we peeked out the door to take some photos. When time to leave for our game drive they were still having a great time and we considered walking to the dining area. We felt it would be safe except for the very large dominant male with big teeth walking in the middle of the walkway. We used our two way radio to check and were told to wait until they came to get us. It was still raining and continued through our game drive. We saw very wet animals.
27 Friday Mar 2020
Posted in Travel Photos
Feb. 10th 2020-Hamiltons Tented Camp – Morning Game Drive – Afternoon Game drive
Arriving yesterday we went on a game drive and it rained some. It continued to rain all night -at times very hard. It was still raining in the morning and continued while we went on our game drive. We saw a lot of very wet animals. Cheetahs are a rare find in Kruger. Normally they are found much farther north than were our camp was located. Some people decide not to go for the game drive in the rain and they missed the wet Cheetah. Across the water from our camp is a where a group of baboons have their home – or at least sleep at night. We ran into the group as we neared our camp – some trying to hid under bushes doing their best to keep dry – it didn’t work. The rain had been going non-stop for over 18 hours and at times extremely hard. The rain continued on all day and into the evening. The result was that the dry riverbeds were full and the water was moving fast. Guest due in to our camp were unable to get past the river beds and were put up at another camp and brought in the next day. Guest due to leave the next morning had to leave their rental car at the camp and were taken out in the 4 wheel drive Land Cruisers. It was not a surprise that we were told that the afternoon game drive was canceled because of the continuing heavy rain. We learned that the baboons were unable to get back to their normal sleeping area and remained near the camp.
26 Thursday Mar 2020
Posted in Travel Photos
Feb. 9th 2020-Hamiltons Tented Camp – EVENING GAME DRIVE
After we checked in and put everything in our tent we went out for a game drive. We can say that on this trip we have been lucky with leopards. Near the end of this drive, we came across a leopard, which meant that we saw leopards at all three of the safari camps. As we headed out you could see storm clouds forming. It did rain and the animals didn’t seem to like it any more than we did. Becky and I had rain jackets and they give you real big rain ponchos that we put over our jackets. The rain was on and off so we took fewer photos today. At the end of our drive near the camp we again saw the same lion that we did earlier when arriving.
26 Thursday Mar 2020
Posted in Travel Photos
Feb. 9th 2020-Hamiltons Tented Camp
Transfer to Hamiltons – After our morning game drive at Jocks we headed off for Hamiltons. It was about and hour and a half drive or more and it was Lions coming and going. As we were leaving Jocks there was a lion on the road and just before we came to Hamiltons there was a lion on the road again. On the way there were elephants crossing the road and at that location we saw the largest group of elephants at any time we were in South Africa. This camp was not fenced so our tent came with a two way radio and an air horn. Our tent was the one farthest from the dinning room and it took a little over 5 min. to get there. In the evening after dinner we were not allowed to walk on our own to the tent.
25 Wednesday Mar 2020
Posted in Travel Photos
Tags
Jocks Safari Lodge, Kruger National Park, Leopard, Mongoose, South Africa, White Rhinos, Wild Dogs, Zebra
Feb. 9th 2020 Drive-Jock Safari Lodge
This was our final MORNING GAME DRIVE at Jock’s Safari Lodge. In the afternoon we will be traveling to Hamiltons Tented camp.
We were lucky in that we again ran in to Rhinos in a dry river bed. You are going to hear later that in a few days there were no dry river beds. Leopards are the big cats that you can find in trees. In 2008 we saw a leopard that had pulled its prey up into the tree. They do this to keep their catch away from lions, wild dogs and hyenas. In 2008 we had 6 days of game drives and saw one leopard the last 5 min. of our last game drive. Today we saw a leopard in a tree – no prey this time but looking like he just woke up. Something totally new was a mongoose.
25 Wednesday Mar 2020
Posted in Travel Photos
Feb. 8th 2020-Jocks Safari Lodge AFTERNOON GAME DRIVE
It had rained earlier in the day. On our game drive we came across some young lions and it is safe to say that they didn’t like getting wet any more than our house cats do. Lucky for us our cats only get wet if they fall in the bath tub when it has water in it which. Best I can remember that happened one time with our current cats. Again after dark on the way back to the lodge we came across young hyenas.
