Holiday Travel...Does Your Inner Scrooge Emerge?

I remember a while back I heard Bill Cosby telling a story about a child on an intercontinental flight he was on.  I believe he called him Jeffrey and Jeffrey was 5 or so.  Jeffrey and his mom were seated behind Bill in first class.  On the 6 hour plus flight Jeffrey banged on the back of Bill's seat.  He'd run up and down the aisles.  He'd cry.  He'd scream.  His mother had no control over Jeffrey at all.  As the plane's gangway was hooking up to the plane, Bill looked at the mother and said, "Jeffrey should really be a model."  The mother beamed.  Really? she inquires...Yes, Bill says.  He should be a poster boy for birth control...Read more...

Books for Gifts For Your Reader Family/Friends

Lots of great books came out this year.  I've already written a blog on my favorite, And the Mountains Echoed by Khalid Hosseini.  Second would be Me Before You by Jojo Moyes (review below).   Here are a few that I think you would enjoy reading or giving as a gift.  I've marked the
one's I've read with an *.  So, here we go...





Non-fiction:

Furious Cool, Richard Pryor and the World That Made Him by David and Joe Henry- If you like Richard Pryor and want to know what made the guy tick, then this book will enlighten you.  I've seen Pryor live in concert and have also wondered what warped that mind.. This book gives you great insight into what did.*   Read more...

Tanzania: Useful Information for Your Trip

Just a few final thoughts, ruminations and odd ball stuff...



My Kenya Air flight was delayed out of Joburg (for those of us in the know, it's called Joburg) by an hour and 45 minutes.  The flight from Joburg to Nairobi is about 4 hours.  My connection was going to be very tight.  I was impressed with Kenya Air.  We were on a new 737.  What surprised me was that they offered unlimited free alcohol in coach. And this was on a 10am flight.  As we were taking off one man kept calling out to several other men the kinds of planes he was seeing as well as their tail numbers.  One guy was furiously writing them down.  One guy even had a spread sheet on his computer with all of this plane info.  When we landed I just had to ask "what are you guys doing?"  They were a group of airplane enthusiasts that travel the world tracking planes.  Yep.  I guess that's one way to keep the hubby out of the house.  When we landed in Nairobi, I had 15 minutes to catch my flight to Kilimanjaro.  In all of the years that I have been flying, I have never had this happen.  Kenya Air had a bus waiting to take the transiting passengers directly to their airplane!  I soon found out why.  All of the people that were transiting were on the same flight...my flight!  They wouldn't have any passengers on that plane if they hadn't bussed us in. Read more...

Where Should I go on My First Safari?

Mt. Kenya Safari Club

Migration Camp, Serengeti, Tanzania

I think that most people that want to go to Africa do so for a few specific reasons.  Either they watch a great deal of the National Geographic channel and want to see things in the "raw" or they want to go for charitable reasons. Or perhaps they are big animal lovers and wish to contribute to the cause or are the antithesis of that and want to go big game hunting.  For me, it has always been wanting to see nature "as is" as well as helping the cause.  And what I mean by that is that today many of the monies that you spend on the safari itself goes to aid animal conservation and/ or the local villages.  For three of our safaris as well as our trip to Egypt, my husband and I have used African Travel Inc.,  (800) 421-8907.  They have consistently been extremely knowledgeable, offer great customer service, and if something goes bump in the night (well let's hope it really is nothing that goes bump in the night), they have quickly resolved the situation.  So, here's my safari history. Read more...