Jabulani Jonny

We're Back

Well we made it back to the States yesterday, and back to our house today, after two weeks in South Africa with Sunette's family.  Unfortunately I haven't had internet access since last Thursday morning so I wasn't able to post for the last few days while we were down there and the two or three days we were traveling. 

We had a phenomenal time while we were there.  As you can see from the previous posts, we visited a few game reserves, hiked around Hogsback and then Sunette's sister got married the Saturday before we left.  I'll post some pictures from the wedding below.  Keep in mind, I wasn't the hired photographer so I was going after the shots that he wasn't there to take.   

It was a lovely outdoor wedding; a beautiful bride and handsome groom, perfect setting, perfect weather and a hopping dinner and reception.  Sunette and I took ballroom dancing lessons to prepare since the new husband and wife are phenomenal ballroom dancers.  Needless to say the DJ didn't quite play the same kind of music that we had practiced to.  So can you guess which person at the dinner decided to break the ice a bit by providing a firm demonstration of the Tootsie Roll.  Yeah, being the only American there, I had to represent.  Needless to say the party and the dance floor loosened up a bit after that.

All in all, it was a fantastic time.  I pictured it being essentially a photo expedition and that's exactly what it was, from capturing nature and animals to weddings and receptions.  I definitely learned a few tricks and I feel like I got some great images from the trip.

Can I say that we missed Elliot something fierce?  Luckily we were able to video Skype with him while we were there, which made it much easier to be away for so long.  Now we're back home as one big ol' happy family.  I'm sure the routine is just around the corner, but we'll see if we can fend it off for a few more days at least. 

Addo Pt. 2

We're winding up our last day here in Hogsback before heading to Jo'burg for Sunette's sister's wedding.  We'll be in Jo'burg for the weekend, then we fly back stateside on Monday.  We're supposed to arrive in Atlanta on Tuesday night. 

We've had a great last few days, going on a nice long hike yesterday and having a lazy day today.  I've taken a few decent shots in the past couple of days, but they'll have to wait 'til tomorrow or the next day to post.  It's been a little chilly these last few days, about 50 degrees or so during the day.  Tonight we're huddled up around a fire, reading, drinking coffee and eating Brandy Tart.  Mmmmmmmm.  Needless to say, I didn't lose any weight on this trip for sure. 

As promised, here are some shots from Sunday in Addo Elephant Park.  I'll continue to post shots I've taken over the last few days, but my internet access may be limited a bit.  We'll see. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All of these shots are from when we stumbled on a herd of about 40 elephants at a watering hole late Sunday afternoon.  We sat and watched them for almost 2 hours.  That's a lot of elephants.

Addo Pt. 1

I'm going to break this photo set up into two posts since there are a bunch. Again, Sunette and I were in Addo Elephant Park on Saturday and Sunday to view the wildlife. It covers over 405,000 acres and is home to over 400 elephants, black rhino, lions, and a whole bunch of other stuff. You basically are driving through the bush hoping to come across a few animals. They do have watering holes which are always good places to catch a glimpse. Here are some shots from Saturday. I'll post Sunday's tomorrow.

Edit:  My blogging software, MarsEdit, is driving me a little batty.  It's screwing with my categories and not posting the pics correctly.  Hmmmm....

Double Drift

Well we returned from our visit to Double Drift game reserve and Addo Elephant Park today. It was a wonderful few days. This post will just be about Double Drift and I'll post some pics and what not from Addo tomorrow.

Double Drift is a game reserve covering over 57,000 acres located about an hour from Hogsback, SA, just south of Alice, SA. They have rhinos, a few elephants, zebra, giraffe and tons more. We've been there once before and had a nice experience, seeing rhino and a bunch of other things. This time we went down on Friday afternoon with Sunette's parents and two other friends. It was a little slow on the sightings, but we did run across this big guy.

After we made one drive, then headed over to some little cottages inside the park overlooking the Great Fish River. The cottages were great and we had a fantastic braai (grill-out) that night under the stars.

The next morning Sunette and I got up before the dawn to make one more drive, then head to Addo. Of course, being in the bush you're more than likely to run into a few neighbors. This guy was waiting for me under the suitcase as we were getting ready to leave.

We ushered him out of course and continued on with the drive. As the sun was coming up there were some gorgeous settings for a couple tree shots. I'm trying to get shots of all the different trees that we'll do a collection of at the house maybe. Here's a silhouette of a Kiepersol Tree and a Thorn Tree. Those things look mean, and they're all over the place.

The drive through the reserve that morning was gorgeous. We didn't see a bunch of animals unfortunately but the Aloes were blooming and made for some nice shots.

We did catch a couple zebra checking us out.

From Double Drift we headed to Addo. Tomorrow I'll post shots and a description of Addo Elephant Park.

From the Top

Today Sunette and I decided to hop in the truck and see how close we could get to Hog 1 before we had to make the rest of the way by trek. We didn't think we were actually going to try to make the top today, just get an idea of where to start from. Well once we got there we decided to go on ahead and hike to the top. It was a pretty demanding hike, but was well worth it. Here's the view from the top.

Tomorrow we head to Double Drift game reserve to see if we can spy some animals. Then we head to Addo elephant park on Saturday and Sunday to do the same. Hopefully I'll be able to post some nice game pics in the next day or so. Oh and for everyone back home...how's work?

Into Africa

Sunday morning Sunette and I hop on a plane for South Africa.  We're heading down to see her family for a couple weeks and to take part in her sister's wedding.  It's Friday night...have I packed?  Uh, no, I'm writing a post.  We used to be able to take a direct flight from Atlanta to Jo'burg or Capetown.  Not anymore.  Apparently Delta and South African Airways don't like each other anymore.  I swear air travel aggravates the stew out of me.  Now we're faced with a 4 leg journey to the other side of the world.  We go from Atlanta to Philadelphia to Paris to Johannesburg to East London, then drive a couple hours to where her parents live.  It used to be straight, now it looks like this.



Umm, yeah there's something wrong with that flight path, like...oh say an extra 3,000 freakin miles.  Sheesh.

Well, whether it takes us 48 hours of travel time or not, I'm stoked for a vacation.  Hogsback is absolutely gorgeous and I'm looking at this as a photo expedition.  Not to mention that I just got a new lens for portrait and macro work.  Oh yeah baby.  So we're headed off in the wild blue yonder.  That prolly means I won't be able to post until Monday, but that's about my normal schedule anyway isn't it? 

Virginia Creeper Trail

Wow, it's taken me this long to be able to sit down in front of the computer and get some of this pics from this weekend edited. We had a great weekend on the Virginia Creeper Trail, just outside of Damascus, VA. Really cool trail that used to be a railroad. Some nice trout water pretty much the entire 18 mile stretch to Damascus. Here are some pics from the weekend. Enjoy!

Unplugged

Just a quick post here. I'm headed off in the morning with my buddy Carl to the Virginia Creeper Trail just outside of Damascus, VA. It's an old train line that was ripped up and converted to a bike trail. We're gonna bike the first 18 miles of it and fish Whitetop Laurel Creek. The fishing is really the purpose for going. Carl has been commissioned to write an article for an upcoming issue of Fly Fish America and yours truly will be taking the photos for the article. Talk about sweet! So I'll see you all on Monday with hopefully some great shots and some good fishing stories.

Road Trippin'

View Larger Map

I'm a wee bit tired this evening. Monday welcomed me with a 4 1/2 hour drive to Savannah for a closing. Tuesday, after a round of golf at Savannah Harbor, brought with it a return trip back to Columbus for another 4 1/2 hours. Wednesday morning I left home around 7:30 for a 5 hour trip to Gainesville for a site visit. This morning I left Gainesville about 8:30 am for the return 5 hour drive.

Then I had a 3 hour practice tonight for a Caribbean gig I'm playing on Friday night and Saturday. I'm beat. However, I'll have to get my groove on tomorrow night to break loose on some Oye Como Va for the Fort Benning Luau. We play this gig every year and it's a blast. Usually a few thousand people show up for the tribute to Islanders from all over the world. We rock everything from reggae to samba to bossa to Buffett. Oh yeah baby. I'm even thinking about recording our Saturday set. If I do I'll post snippets. So what's some of your favorite island music?

Home

Arrived...3:15pm...tired...8+ hours on the road each of the past two days...got up at 4:15am this morning...a frickin' huge stack of mail...a clean house, mmmmmmm...tired...need a shower...and a haircut...follow up on hospital bills tomorrow...tired...