Krem's South Africa Trip Report

This is my story about my trip to South Africa.

The plane ride to Johannesburg South Africa was 15 hours.  When we got there it was hot.  After arriving we had to drive 4 hours to our fancy lodge.

The lodge was called Madikwe Hillhouse Lodge.  It was made out of stuff around the area like grass for the roof, wood, and rocks.

We saw many animals.  There were many Zebra right by the lodge.

Zebra

 Impala jump very high and run vast to get away from lions and other predators.

Impala

 We visited a store near one of the villages close to the lodge.  The prices for food is much less, and there was not much to choose from on the shelves.

Store in Obekeng Village

 The warthogs run fast and are very funny too.  Their tails stick up when they are running through tall grass you can only see their tail.

Warthog

Water Buck

 When the Giraffe eats food it sallows the plants and pukes it up and chews it several times and swallows it again.  You can see the food going up and down it's neck.  The giraffe has 4 stomachs like a cow.  It's type of digestion is call "Rumination".

Giraffe

 The cape buffalo is very afraid of the game vehicles.  They run away and hide in the bushes.  But they are also very dangerous.  If you get out of the vehicle they will chase you and try to step on you or hurt you with their horns like a bull.

Cape Buffalo

 The kudu are very large and have really big horns.

Kudu

 We could hear male lions territorial calls.  This does not sound like the lions roar in movies.  They make about 10 loud but short calls in a row to let it's enemies and also female lions nearby know they are in his territory.  Only male lions have manes, the hair around its neck.  They have big teeth.  Female lions do most of the hunting and share with the male lion and cubs.

Male Lion

 Elephants like to be together.  When they drag their feet or puff out their ears this means they are not in a good mood.  The elephants tried to chase the game vehicle.  It was scary and I tried to hide under my seat.  But the driver was very careful and knew how to be safe if an elephant chases the vehicle.

Elephants

 Below is a picture of the game vehicle we rode in.  That is my sister and brothers and our friends.  Our guides name was Vincent.  He taught us a lot about Africa and animals.

Game Vehicle

Young lion cubs don't go with the females when hunting.  They wait by themselves in the dark.  Lion hunt mostly at night.

Lion Cubs

 The cheetah can run as fast as 62 miles per hour.  A leopard at the game reserve we stayed at killed one of the cheetahs.  Cheetahs hunt during the day.

Cheetah

 The male sable antelopes horns can get as long as 54 inches.  That is taller than me.

Sable Antelope

 The white rhinoceros eat grass.  When they eat their mouth looks like a vacuum when they chew the grass.  They are very good at smelling, but they have very poor eyesight.  If you stand downwind of a rhinoceros you can run up to it quietly and slap it on the butt.  But you better be able to run fast because a rhino can run 30 miles per hour.  That is faster than the fastest person on earth can run. There are two kinds of rhinos - white and black - but they are not white and black like their names.  They are both brownish red color.

White Rhinoceros

 The dumb beetle collects animal poop and rolls it in a ball.  The female dung beetle lays eggs in the middle of the ball.  When the egg hatch the baby dung beetles use the dung for food until they are old enough to survive in the open.

Dung Beetle

African Savannah

 Preschools in the area are called a kreech.  We visited a kreech in a village called Obekeng.  The school runs on $250 dollars per month.  The money has to buy food for 45 students for breakfast, lunch, and snacks.  Sometimes this money does not arrive for a month or two.  The teachers get paid whatever money is left over.  Often there is no money left over and the teacher does not get paid.  The lodge we stayed at collects donations of toys, school supplies, food, and money to help improve the school.  We delivered some supplies and also bought a big bag of corn flour for $15 at the local store and gave it to the school as well.  The students sang songs for us.

Obekeng Kreech

 We saw an ostrich running fast.  They can keep up with a car.  They can not fly like other birds.

Ostrich

This is my family and friends.

We had a dinner in the African Bush.  This is what they call the outdoors in the African wilderness.  The people who cooked the food at the lodge are very good chefs.

We saw many termite hills.  There is a king and queen of the termite mound.  The queen lays many eggs.  The eggs turn into worker termites and soldier termites.  The works build and fix the mound.  The soldiers protect the mound.

Termite Mound

We also saw and insect called Ant Lions.  Ant lions dig holes that ants fall into and get trapped.  The ant lion throws sand at the and to make it slip to the bottom of the hole.  When the ant is at the bottom of the hole the ant lion grabs it and eats it.

Ant Lion Holes

That is what I saw in South Africa.  I had a good trip to South Africa and learned a lot about the animals, people, culture, and country.  I would like to go back to South Africa some day.

Hockey Box Project

The smell of hockey gear is one of the most offensive odors a parent can have to put up with.  Forest and I built this heated equipment locker, complete with the High School team emblem stenciled on the front.  The heat source is a conventional space heater, and connected to an outlet timer that can be set to turn off when drying is complete.

2013

Looking back at 2013 it's hard to believe we fit so much into a single year.  Starting with a spectacular trip to the British Virgin Islands with friends and family....

And spotted with interludes to NYC and more local events and locations....

Plenty of kids activities and events....

And plenty of close-to-home family fun and activities...

A spring break trip to Florida and the chance to swim with Manatees...

Much of our summer was spent back in Minnesota, close to those places and people we often miss...

And included adventures to the Badlands of South Dakota....

Grand Teton national park...

A rodeo in Jackson Hole...

Riding the trails on horseback...

Hot springs in Yellowstone with the best of friends...

And we will conclude the year with a trip to New Orleans and the Florida Golf Coast.

What a year it's been!  Looking forward to the adventures of 2014.

Random Adventures with Dave

It's hard to believe it's been over 8 months since we lost Dave.  Still missing the goofball genius adventurer.  As happens it's gotten easier to accept he is not here, but it sure is not any easier knowing there would have been more adventures to be had, and life to live, and I still can't get over not being able to watch his life play out with his wife and the family he would go on to have.  Dug up these couple of entries from an old diary.  They are pretty mundane to anyone else, but still glimpses of the offbeat adventures we had.  I had completely forgotten many of the details recorded.  It was great to stir up the memories and have a few "haha, that's right!" moments reading through it.

2/29/2000  Dave and I went to Florida for the weekend. To sum it up, the highlights included a night in Miami (The Beach Castle Hotel) by the ocean where we wandered around the lavish and uppity Lincoln District and had seafood in a Spanish soccer cafe. The next day we drove down to Key West, fighting our way through a terribly traffic jam caused by a flea market festival. We stopped along the way to swim in the ocean and set up our tent in the state park. At the state park where we went swimming we could walk out into the ocean more than a quarter mile. We went swimming until sundown. That evening we went to the active and strange city of Key West for seafood and wandered the streets until we found the Southernmost Point Marker. On the 27th we went back to Key West early and waited at the marina for our snorkeling trip to depart. Snorkeling was amazing. Among the various fish we saw, I was amazed to see so many huge barracuda, and even more amazed that it alarmed no one. Dave commented how odd it is to experience the duality of snorkeling. Simply by lifting your head out of water you go from the bubbling quiet isolation surrounded by the colorful swimming sea to the wavewashed wasteland of ocean waves, scattered with bobbing heads and boats in the near distance. After snorkeling we went back to the main strip in Key West and at dinner at The Mobster Lobster. It was a nice restaurant, but I also had the best seafood platter I have ever eaten. It consisted of crab, crawdad, muscles, scallops, shrimp, and clams. We woke up the next morning to biting sand fleas and after trying to sleep through it we got up and left for the Everglades. Canoeing in the Everglades was both peaceful and slightly scary. We paddled up a wide canal, through a large lake, and then through a series of narrow mudways surrounded by trees standing on stilts of roots that reached into the murky gloom, covered with cobwebs that filtered the sunlight to create a mysterious aura. At times we had to push the canoe over the thick mud to get to deeper water, and while exiting one passageway into the lake, one crocodile left the mud beach it had been sitting on and perched for a short while in front of the canoe before sinking eerily into the black water. We finished the canoe trip sprinting back down the wide canal to return the canoe in time to avoid a late fee. That night we drove back to Orlando and stayed in a Days Inn to await our departure the next morning.


1/12/2000   At about 10pm Dave P. came over and we went snow shoeing to the middle of Lake Harriet trailing a sled full of firewood. After a rough time of trying to light the paper to start the fire, and a precarious fire start even with fuel, we did have a nice bonfire on the ice in the middle of the lake. While we were talking two skiers stopped by to chat. A lady from Texas and a guy from New York. After a few shots of rum we headed back home, and when we were just about there a young fellow stopped us to tell us a tale of how he saw our fire and fought his demons 3 times about the fear of going onto the ice. The second time he said he was about half way out to us when he turned back, and the third time he noticed us leaving, and that is when he caught up to us to tell us of all this. What a beautiful night it was out, and a unique series of events to make it stick in our memories. When we got back we had a bite to eat, some cocoa, and talked a bit before Dave left, and now I am heading to bed. Stacey and River are still in Red Wing today.

Bed Project

After years of collecting lumber and months of building, I have finished timber bed 2.0 (bed 1.0 was given to a good friend as a wedding gift more than 10 years ago).  The bed is constructed of Cedar and Black Walnut trees that were brought down in our yard during various storms.  There is also a Christmas tree used for one of the foot-board spindles, and other bits of pine collected from I-don't-remember-where.  It looks like a bit of a mishmash, but up close the richness and uniqueness of the cedar and walnut is beautiful, accented by just the right amount of wormholes and distress.  It could have turned out better, but I am happy with the result.  Due to the weight of the black walnut, the footboard weights about 90 pounds, and the headboard is appx 150 pounds.

British Virgin Islands

Our vacation this winter was to Scrub Island in the British Virgin Islands.  We were joined by Steve and Kiki Gheen, as well as our great friends Joel, Solana, and Francis.  Countless hours were spent around the resort pools, hot tub, and beaches, digging in the sand, kayaking, snorkeling, swimming, relaxing, and sipping on tropical drinks of every sort.  We also made outings to the spectacular Baths on Virgin Gorda, Willie T's boat-bar (sans kids) where some sans clothes roof jumping may have occurred.  On another night Stacey, Joel, Trouble and I went on a surreal and crazy excursion in search of nightlife, ending up in three or four unique local bars, utilizing every form of transportation possible, ending the night buzzing across the water, weaving our way through moored sailboats with sea spray drenching us as we made our way back to Scrub.  The kids caught colorful local fish, enjoyed the local foods, and spent time on special homework assignments identifying wildlife above and below the water, including the tarantula and scorpion that made their way into our villa.  Our return was delayed a day by blizzard Nemo, but there are worse places to be stranded.  To see the full album from our trip CLICK HERE