Kruger National Park

Kruger National Park, to me, seems like a kind of a do-it-yourself safari. I think of it as the Denali of South Africa. It is utterly teeming with wildlife and gorgeous scenery and vast open lands around the roads. You can drive your personal vehicle through the park, but the big rule there is that you are not allowed to get out of the car once on the road for your protection from the dangerous animals: lions, hippos, crocodiles, etc. I have to mention, that while I love Denali National Park, and would be happy to go back there to visit anytime, in terms of the variety of wildlife, it actually pales in comparison to Kruger.

We spent two days driving through the park. And during those days we saw: lions, zebra, countless impala (which I learned are refered to by South Africans as “alweerbok,” which means “not again buck.” It became almost tiring to see them… “oh, look, more impala…”), giraffes, warthogs, bushbuck, duiker, hippopotamus, white rhinocerus, elephants, buffalo, baboons, blue wildebeest, ostriches, crocodiles, a monitor lizard, African fish eagle, saddlebilled storks, an unidentified snake or two, hornbills, rollers, and a huge list of other birds. Unfortunately, no kudu, cheetah, or leopards were on our list. However, the list is undoubtably impressive and the experience unforgettable. And either the lions, the rotting giraffe carcas that they had been feeding on, or both really stunk.

On the first day driving in Kruger, Walter stopped the car so we could watch a dung beetle rolling his dung ball across the road in front of us. However, just as he was passing our car and into the next lane, we saw another vehicle approaching and worried that our little friend was going to be mushed. So, we sat, nervously watching, and cheering the little dung beetle along, “Go, dung beetle!!! Go! Go Go!!!!” He made it, and we all cheered.

I should mention that I am trying to improve my Afrikaans vocabulary. It also now includes the names of several animals, butcher shop, good night, and a few other random words. Though, this surprisingly did not help me much when Owen and I walked to the local butcher shop to look for ostrich steaks. I had no idea what much of anything in the store was because I can’t read the labels, so I had to just resort to asking for help. We did get the ostrich steaks, which were delicious. And my limited vocabulary was also not of much use when we went to see a concert by Nataniël, a South African performer, who apparently beyond being a talented singer, is also just hilarious. But, I enjoyed the performance anyway, despite not being able to understand much of it. I think he made some joke between his songs that refered to an ostrich. Oh, and chickens. I know that word too.

Zebras

There are moments in life that are timeless. When put to words, they sound trivial, insignificant. But remembrance is alive with all the senses and the senses are not dulled with time. It is this that makes those moments powerful beyond words. They burn themselves onto the soul and forever leave their mark. Instantaneously, there is the feeling of knowing; like knowing that a dream is more than a dream, the way a vision comes. For me, these moments are always associated with solitude in nature. They are moments during which thoughts disappear into the wonder of the world around me; like reaching a higher spiritual plane through medidation, without the medidation (what a gift for someone as undedicated as me to experience those moments without the dedication!). I believe that the universe sends us those moments of clarity for reasons that will remain a secret for now; but, as such, they are rare. Perhaps the rarity is what allows them to remain so vivid in the mind through time, because they are not overly clouded by trying to retain far too many of them.

I have a handful of those experiences in my life. Two of them are associated with two of my favorite places in this world and part of the reasons that they are my favorite places: Alaska and southwest Virginia. And now, life has seen fit to send me one to associate with South Africa. On a hot afternoon during our weekend “in the bush” with Walter’s parents, I took a walk so I could look around one last time before hitting the road. Owen was happily playing in a sprinkler, so I left him in the care of Walter, An, and Okie, and went out. During the walk, I saw several zebra standing in the road ahead of me. While walking in to get a better look, the rest of the herd ran in and I stood in the midst of them. And at the same time, a family of warthogs jumped up from their afternoon nap and ran into the middle of the scene. That is one of those moments, and as I said, it sounds trivial when put to words, but there it is, and it is one of them. Zebra are truly beautiful animals and warthogs, well, they are just adorable.

Speaking Akrikaans

Apparently, I learn slowly and my pronunciation is abhorrent. Or I am just enjoying my lazy vacation-mode, sipping coffee all morning and alcohol in the afternoons through evenings. Owen's pronunciation, in contrast to mine, is perfect and he seems to remember new words in volumes as compared to me. I wish we retained the sponge capacity of our brains as we aged.

After about 5 days in South Africa, I added three words to my Afrikaans vocabulary: bug, liquor store, and butterfly. Useful, huh (well, the liquor store term really is undeniably important)? I feel more than slightly pathetic.

After about one and a half weeks, I have added several animal names, a few odd other words, butcher shop, and goodnight to my vocabulary. So has Owen.

Owen's favorite Afrikaans word seems to be volstruis, or ostrich. We stopped at a butcher shop one afternoon to buy some lamb (Walter makes fabulous lamb steaks on the grill and Owen absolutely loves eating it) and I pointed out that there was ostrich meat for sale. Since that moment, Owen has been telling me over and over, "Mommy, I really want to eat volstruis. I've never tried volstruis yet." He's an adventurous boy, with an adventurous appetite. I'm proud of that.

On Being Ill-Prepared

It completely goes against the nature of my upbringing with my being the product of excessively prepared parents, but I flew halfway around the world with Owen, with not the slightest idea of what we were going to do once we got here. And not only did I have absolutely nothing planned, but I hadn't taken the time to learn anything about the history and/or culture of the country I was going to stay in, learned no more than 3 words of the language, and hadn't even remembered to write down Walter's phone number to put in my bag in case of something unexpected happened. The weeks before the road trip had been just beyond hectic, and there were a lot of things that suffered. Planning for the international vacation was one of these things.

On our first day here, Walter went off to work, and Owen and I slept in and basically just bummed around, spending most of the day sitting on the deck and enjoying the sun. We load up on sunscreen everyday (I at least prepared for that one), and Owen has taken to telling people that he meets that "Our Alaskan skin isn't used to the sun, so we wear lots of sunscreen." At least he hasn't yet forgotten where he's from.

At some point during the day, we decide to walk outside of the "compound" (Walter lives in a high security community, enclosed with electric fencing and complete with security personnel who patrol the community, day and night) to the nearest convenience store to buy Owen some juice. I brought my camera to take pictures of flowers and Owen and anything else interesting that we came across. One of the community guards actually stopped me during the walk, pointed to my camera, and informed me that I am not allowed to take pictures of the houses. I smiled, told him that I was only taking pictures of flowers and the kid, and we walked on. Still, it was a curious encounter to me.

At this point and during the course of this walk, I became aware of how ill-prepared I was several times. First off, people are very friendly here and everyone smiles, waves, and often stop to chat. They generally seem to start the conversation in Afrikaans too. I was wishing that I had at least learned simple friendly greetings and responses. One man laughed and told me, "I just asked you how you are doing." I really should have learned something other than the Afrikaans words for: chicken, thank you, and hangover (hoender, dankie, and babelas). So much for my communications. Luckily though, everyone generally speaks English here as well.

The other thing that I had no clue about was the currency here. I had at least picked up somewhere on the term "rand," but I had not bothered to look up the exchange rate and had no idea what a rand was worth. So the 5.80 juice that I bought for Owen seemed outrageous, but later Walter told me that it was equivalent to 58 cents. I am seriously amused at myself over this.

I should mention that the highlight of the walk home was that as we walked past the golf course, there were some golfers sitting at a table next to coolers of beer and sodas. They stopped me and asked if we'd like drinks, so Owen got to try his first soda ever (an orange soda) and I got a Castle beer. Castle beer is The National Beer of South Africa, as it says on the label. I'm hooked. So, we finished our walks with soda and beer in hand and sat on the deck at home and consumed our treats. I like this place.

Getting to Nelspruit

Our African Adventure story begins, of course, with the first flight, which took us directly from Dulles, DC to Johannesburg, South Africa. Obviously this is an excessively long flight. But, to kill the pain, the booze is free. I tapped into this method of pain relief. Owen handled the flight very well, drawing and coloring, watching movies, and eating. As usual on our travels, I was told by several people that I am very lucky for having such a well behaved and quiet boy. I do appreciate this fact very much, though usually there is a spell of roughly a half hour every time where I am not convinced of this fact. But, realistically, this is a really small percentage of a 17-plus hour trip, given that Owen is only 4 years old, and has just dealt with an excessively long road trip, so I should really just quit my inappropriate whining. Things could always be worse (and as I frequently say, this is the greatest form of beauty in the world: the fact that things could always be worse).

I realized during the course of this flight, the potential dangers of traveling internationally as a single parent with a young child. At some point during the flight, I had some sort of an attack that included dizziness, nausea, heart palpatations, sweating, and the general feeling like I was near passing out. Owen was asleep at this point, but as I tried to focus on breathing as settling my racing heart, all I could think about, other than trying to control my heart, was that I had no idea what would happen to Owen if something happened to me. That is a very scary thought. At least on this trip, we have "family" where we were headed, but it is something that I will be very mindful of in the future. I did manage to sleep through the attack and it went away, so I think in some way, it was just a message from the gods to remind me to be very careful.

When we got to Johannesburg, I also realized, for the first of many times to come, how completely ill-prepared I was for this trip. I had no idea what I had to do when I got there and different airline employees kept giving me different information. Plus, the flight was late and the connection to Nelspruit was tight anyway, so what this meant was that I had roughly 30 minutes to get my luggage, go through customs, go through security, and find the flight gate. And the Johannesburg airport is huge and confusing, and I had to navigate all of this while dragging a sleepy 4-year old around. We managed all this, just barely, thanks in no small part to South Africa's excessively lax customs and security. And as I proudly ran up to the gate, just barely on-time, and showed our boarding passes, we were then informed that the flight was late and would board in 20 minutes. Oh irony, you appear in my life yet again. But, this gave us time to change out of our winter clothes into more summer appropriate clothing. So, thanks South African Airways for your late departure, but it would have been nicer if I hadn't managed to work up such a sweat in getting to that point.

Arriving in Nelspruit, was, of course, wonderful, mainly because Walter was there waiting for us. And he, of course, had plenty of alcohol waiting at his home. It is so good to see him again!

Washington DC

After an all too brief settling in at our new home in Blacksburg, Owen and I drove up to DC to visit with my little sister, Alyssa, before flying out to South Africa. We enjoyed the short visit there, so I think it is worth some mention. Alyssa lives near Dupont Circle, in the middle of the gay part of the city. It's a great neighborhood to walk around, because it is full of "eye candy." The streets are full of beautiful men. Who doesn't enjoy great scenery?

Owen got to experience several jaunts on the Metro and has learned all about walking around cities and how to read the crossing lights. Experience is always good. We walked through the National Zoo, though it was slightly cold and there were nearly no animals out, except for the red pandas. Red pandas are exceptionally cute, so we have about 40 pictures of them...and nothing else. But, still, walking is always nice. Alyssa and PJ (Paul) took us out to a great Ethiopian restaurant for dinner. All that really needs to be said about that is "YUM!!!!" And Harar is a good beer. Sushi will have to happen on the return visit. And more Ethiopian.

The next morning we had breakfast at Ben's Chili Bowl. Again, YUM! Ben's Chili Bowl is a great little restaurant, and we have now joined the ranks of all the famous people who have enjoyed the food there, including Barack Obama and Bill Cosby. The atmosphere of the place is fantastic too, and I enjoyed the cultural experience of being the only white people in the joint that morning. It's good for Owen to experience that too. I apparently found myself a new boyfriend while there. Actually, I had no idea what he was talking about most of the time, but, it's in my nature to smile and nod, so I now have the guy's phone number and I think he was offering to pick me up sometime and make cheesecake for me. Well, there's a weak spot for me, because, well, I LOVE cheesecake. However, I'll just add that to the list of phone numbers I'll never actually call. Still, the guy put some money in the juke box there and let me help him pick a great selection of music - Jackson 5, Sam Cook, and Bob Marley - so it was fun. I can't wait to go back to Ben's when we return to DC! We also enjoyed walks through the Air and Space Museum and the Museum of Natural History before we headed back to Alyssa's place to get ready for the long, long flight.

HOME??

And then, enter…Virginia!!! Owen and I hooted and hollered and high-fived…the end of the journey! Owen, being an enlightened little 4-year old, knew full well that the journey was an epic one and he is proud to have made it. I am proud that he has gotten to experience it and hope that it will forever leave something of a badge of courage and a mark of experience on him. He was an absolutely amazing companion.

We stopped and bought produce at the little gas station at Newport, Virginia, on the corner of Route 460 and Route 42 (which winds out to the little area known, by virtue of its little general store, as the community of Sinking Creek, and is the place where I made my home on that 300+ acre farm for four years). The produce is cheap, fresh, and everyday sits outside under the awnings of the little market. Owen picked some peppers and cucumbers, and I bought a bag of those wonderful little Stayman apples that I have been longing for over the years.

The new home is little, old house with a grape arbor and a huge field. It is a good little house.

Though I joke, every place (aside from a handful of cities) between Fairbanks, Alaska, and Blacksburg, Virginia and a few side-journeys, holds its own sense of beauty, every part of it wonderful and special in its own right. The journey leads me to one final thought of self discovery…I am a wanderer.

Almost South

Kentucky has its own beauty. It is full of rolling hills and horse farms. The scenery is beautiful. However, I was painfully reminded of the reasons that I am not all too crazy about Kentucky, when, overtired and desperate, I stopped at the Super 8 of Dry Ridge, Kentucky. First off, the place was dingy and it was one of those hotels where everything smells like smoke. Secondly, when I inquired about taking pets into the room, the conversation with the woman at the desk became unpleasant, to say the least. I was not at all in the mood to be criticized for the number and size of the dogs that I was traveling with. At this point, I had already been thousands of miles with them and only hundreds from the end of the journey, and I responded with, something along the lines of “well, I suppose I should have shot one of them before I left…” I’m not usually that rude to total strangers, but it’s something that only a Kentuckian can bring out. I thought of adding, “Well, no one in Canada said anything about it,” but I bit my tongue on that one. I did, however, appreciate the reappearance of the Southern politeness, listening to a young man who was checking in before me, as he used “m’am” at the end of every sentence. I had at some point, taught Owen to refer to adults as “sir” and “m’am,” but then realized that since he was not growing up in the south where this was custom, it would probably have the effect of making him seem a little weird to his peers. And since weirdness is already a strong genetic trait in this family, I really feel like I should do my best to not add more to it and force him into a life of suffering. I’ve already doomed him by teaching him to use a pipet and play diffusion experiment. There are limits.

The next morning, as I left the hotel, the same woman checked me out and said “well, I hope things work out for you,” in a sort of pitying tone. Why this woman thought I needed pity, I am not sure. Well, I am, because I am sure she felt sorry for me as I was obviously moving 4000+ miles as a single mother with a car full of dogs. I know that it stems from the pervasive undercurrent of chauvinism that exists in the south, but it again reminded me that I should make sure that I don’t wear out my southern welcome, so to speak. I responded brightly to that comment, with “well, of course they will!” She gave me a bewildered look. I am sure she had no idea what to make of me.

At a coffee stand that morning, I was also told by the women who worked there, that “well, we just love your Sarah!” I thought she meant my friend Sarah, who had just made the journey with me, and was about to respond “well, of course, she’s awesome…,” but then I realized which Sarah they meant and forced my smile and my southern politeness that followed. “Oh, well, I’ll make sure to tell her about her fans in Kentucky when I see her next…”

The journey through West Virginia brought back plenty of good memories. I passed Hurricane, West Virginia (pronounced hurr-i-cun), where my friend Vickie grew up. I took a picture of the Hurricane exit in honor of her. And then, I also noticed, the appearance of the end-all-be-all of great breakfast places…YES….Tudor’s Biscuit World!!!! I have sweet, sweet memories of many breakfasts at Tudors before many, many New River and Gauley River whitewater rafting adventures. I even detoured the 5 minutes or so off the highway just to take a picture of the Tudor’s at Beckley, West Virginia. Now, at this point, there was some feeling of home coming back. And West Virginia, in stark contrast to so much of this journey, is NOTHING but topography. Steep river gorges and nothing anywhere that is at all flat. And absolutely non-existent cell phone coverage. So, some sense of space and freedom returns with that realization.

The Heartland

The Midwest is the Land of the Kum and Go. The name, Kum and Go, aside from its blatant sexual innuendo, which we, of course, find amusing, strikes a nerve with both Sarah and I. Neither of us are fans of “cute” misspellings for names of places. I don’t know, I just don’t think that “kwik marts” or the like are cute. But, beyond the cute misspellings, is the fact that, in the Kum and Go, the smallest size soft drink comes (or kums) in a 32-oz “kup,” which is, by no means small, and seems symbolic of one of America’s main failings. But, once we entered Kum and Go country, the “kum” jokes and the “kum kup” jokes were a near constant point of conversation and joking, to the point of actually making ourselves feel fairly uncomfortable. I shall spare the readers the details on the results of the ensuing calculations. Needless to say, put a mathematician and an engineer with perverted senses of humor together on a road trip, and things can take a turn rather easily into areas which should never be tread. We were, by the end of the trip, rather disgusted that the remaining “theme” of the road trip seemed to center itself on the topic of the Kum and Go.

But, as for the cleaner things, Minnesota and Iowa’s landscapes are beautiful. They are full of beautiful idyllic snow-covered farms that resonate with the soul and seem to stand as the image of the reason this part of the country is known as the Heartland. From Iowa, we went on to travel through Illinois and Indiana. We said goodbye to Sarah at Indianapolis, where she caught a flight back to New York. It was sad to see her go. Friends who will make a journey such as this one are special beyond words.

There were two main highlights of Illinois. One is the visitor’s center at Random Town, Illinois, which in this case, is Galesburg, Illinois. We stopped for a bathroom at the Galesburg, Illinois Visitor’s Center, which is contains exhibits dedicated to two of our nation’s presidents: Lincoln and Reagan. But, this was the best stop ever for a bathroom, because at the visitor’s center, the woman there gave us free coffee, Galesburg Illinois tote bags, and crayons and a Galesburg Illinois coloring book for Owen. The woman working at the center was extremely friendly and chatty. And, I learned from her, that back in her day, growing up in the Adirondacks, that she grew up calling, what the lower-48ers call a “snowmobile,” a “snowmachine,” which gave some sense of history to the Alaskan’s use of the latter term. For this friendliness, we felt somewhat obligated to purchase $8.50-worth of Galesburg, Illinois souvenirs, which included 2 sunglass cases that were actually needed, a tile magnet for Owen because of course with the accumulation of a 4-yr old’s refrigerator artwork, one can never have too many magnets, some postcards of a fire and train museum, and a Ronald Reagan coloring book, for Sarah’s mother, who is, by the way, a democrat.

The second main highlight of Illinois is something of a tradition from several road trips over the years to various destinations that passed through the same stretches of highway. It is the rituals involved in passing the town of Normal, Illinois. It is absolutely essential, when passing by Normal, Illinois, to loudly proclaim such things as “Well, that’s as close as I’m ever going to get to that!” or “Good thing we didn’t try to stop, because they’d take one look at us and never let us in!” It is probably important to note, that I have never made a road trip with any companion who has ever considered themselves to be even remotely “normal.”

Indiana and Ohio were where I first became really, really aware of the changing density of vehicles. In these places, there was a constant, steady stream of cars. To an Alaskan, this constitutes “traffic” and made me suddenly aware of the vast spaces, solitude, and freedoms that I have resigned myself to giving up for the next few years. It is actually not a very good feeling. The changes happened gradually and really creeped themselves in, from the vast stretches of the Alaska Highway, where hours would pass without seeing another vehicle on the road, to the appearance of a vehicle on the order of minutes in North Dakota, to the constant streams of vehicles in the southern places. Ironically, it is hard to believe sometimes that I spent a few summers commuting to jobs on the New Jersey Turnpike to such fabulous and exciting destinations as Port Newark, The World Trade Center, and the gem of them all, the Howland Hook Marine Terminal of Staten Island. As I said, Irony is a constant theme in my life.