You're Doing What?

Although we've been planning our trip to Africa for about 6 months, we tried hard to keep our dogs and the cat in the dark about it. Not much will change in their daily lives, their Tia Lu will house/pet sit for us during our 3 week adventure. Tara is going to late summer camp. She will stay with her very best dog friend, Nube. We've been packing over the last weekseveral weeksmonth, so as not to arouse any suspicion. Connie, Delaney and myself fly out of Gainesville this coming Monday, and so will pack the car clandestinely during the night Sunday. Maica and JAZ may have been a bit suspicious when I assembled all the stuff for this blip. ;)

We will fly to Atlanta and from there to Amsterdam, and spend a couple of days there 'cause I HATE to fly and 16 hours straight through might be somewhat over the top for me! Then on to Nairobi, Kenya where we will overnight and then board our vehicles next morning for a 14 day Classic Safari with Road Scholar. Scratch that off the Bucket List!

So here's our Itinerary should you like to take a look. I tried to figure out how to put it on Flickr but when I did find a way that might work...it looked like waaayy too much work! So:

Amboseli National Park to see the East African Elephant and much more of course.
Amboseli Big Game in the Shadow of Mount Kilimanjaro
Cross over into Tanzania
Crossing the Great Rift Valley to Ngorongoro Crater; plentiful wildlife in the Crater
Early Human History at Oldupai Gorge/Oldupai Gorge Museum to learn about Leakey's research
Vast Plains of the Serengeti...Serengeti National Park
The shores of Lake Victoria...lots of Birds!
Excursion on Lake Victoria and visit elementary school, we're bringing them soccer balls, pencils, sidewalk chalk and toothbrushes and hair doodads as presents
Back into Kenya... Chartered flight Into the Maasai Mara...the Masai People
Tracking the Big Five
Return to Nairobi
Visit Giraffe Conservation Center and the Elephant Orphanage
Leave Nairobi...fly to Amsterdam...enjoy 'Dam for another couple of days then fly home

Whew! So to cut to the chase...when we depart Nairobe I'm certain that the Internet will be a fleeting memory so I'll be doing some major 'back-blipping' I'm certain. I'll try to figure out how to turn the comments off...I should call Sefferdog! I'm not able to bring my laptop so will blip using my iPad Mini (haven't done that in quite a while). I'm carrying my Canon 7D, and my T4i. The 70-300mm is going as is the 10-22mm and I'm throwing in an old 35-105mm for kicks. Also taking enough cards for 20 thousand raw shots. OMG! I hope I don't shoot that many! Connie is bringing her trusty iPhone and a cute little Canon CamCorder. Delaney will be packing a small little bridge camera of some ilk and her new GoPro, for which she has purchased every attachment and gizmo available! Wheee! We loaded for bear elephant!

I'm very excited and very grateful that I'm able to have this experience. I will share as much of it with you all as is humanly possible. You'll be saying OMG not more Africa shots, we miss those butterflies!