Yes, I’m finally making time for my Zanzibar post! So when we left off on this African adventure, we were in the Serengeti, having the best time of our lives. Sadly we couldn’t stay there forever and the time too soon came for us to continue our journey. We boarded a tiny plane and flew three hours through a terrible storm that made a few passengers rather nervous (I thought it was kind of fun, although after nearly banging my head on the roof I did eventually concede it might be smart to put my seat belt on). Finally we landed on the drenched island of Zanzibar.

Our tiny, wet plane:

After waiting a long time for the rain to let up enough they could unload the plane of our luggage, it finally arrived (most of it sopping wet anyway) in the waiting area of the airport and we were met by our driver, who rowed drove us to our B&B in Stone Town. After unpacking and drying off a bit, the boys and I took a walk down to a bar on the water and had a drink while watching the sunset.

The next morning we did a walking tour of Stone Town, which I highly recommend if you visit as you’ll learn about the history and start to learn to navigate around. Our guide showed us Jaws Corner, where the town’s men drink coffee and sit around talking. It was named Jaws Corner after the film Jaws was shown on a TV in the square once.

We also toured the slave dungeon – Stone Town was the main slave port for all of the Eastern slave trade – which was extremely depressing.

There is a memorial outside as well.

We also walked through the colorful fish market (where not just fish but vegetables and spices and some crafts are sold).

One of the most charming things about Stone Town to me was the number of cats running around. Because it is a predominately Muslim area and many Muslims do not have dogs, many people have cats. Smucky had to admonish me for trying to touch them all because he said they could have diseases, and some of them did seem as if they could use a good bath, but I do love following cats around on vacation and playing cat paparazzi.

Another beautiful African sunset.

After a couple of days in Stone Town we embarked on the last leg of our trip, to a beach resort. On the way, we stopped for a spice tour – Zanzibar being renowned for its spices. The spice tour was interesting and I also recommend it as well. Here are our guides, cutting up something for us to taste or smell:

They made us wear silly hats they had made for us.

Finally we arrived at Unguja Lodge, where our room was amazing but missing a few walls! These were taken from the loft:

Even the toilet was missing a wall! (The shower, in another room, was also open and overlooked the ocean.)

You may be wondering, “Renae, if there were walls missing from your lodge, how did you keep the monkeys from coming in and stealing your stuff?” Good question. The bedroom (and bedroom only) was lockable and monkey-proof (provided you actually shut and lock the door), so basically you keep everything in there. Mark and I didn’t have any monkey visitors that I know of, but Smucky and Olivia did! Coming back from an ocean swim one day I passed Smucky and Olivia who informed me there was a swarm of monkeys ravishing their loft after making off with Olivia’s soap. “YOU’RE SO LUCKY!” I screeched, “Give me your keys!” And off I went to confront the monkeys, who absolutely did not care one iota about my presence. They continued to swing from the rafters and tumble around the bed and generally be deviously adorable like I wasn’t even there.

Here is our lodge from the outside. As you can see, as open as it is, you can’t really see inside, and no one can really get to them anyway: the perimeter of the property is guarded and the area in front of the beachfront lodges is really only accessible to the resident of that lodge.

Mark and I liked to sit on that bench above every night before going to bed and just listen to the waves, and every morning just after waking to watch the local women and children collecting shellfish while the sun rose.

Obviously we didn’t eat any of the sea creatures but Mark did befriend a sea urchin.

The lodge offered scuba diving tours. Smucky got certified before the trip but I didn’t, so I took a quick lesson in the pool and was approved to do a sort of tethered dive (a guide held my wrist the whole time). Scuba diving was actually a little scarier than I thought it was going to be. I had absolutely no qualms about jumping out of plane when I went skydiving – I jumped with no hesitation or fear at all; I simply found it not even remotely scary – but I unexpectedly freaked out a bit when we were in the pool practicing diving with the oxygen tank. I didn’t let on that I was freaking out because I like to play it cool, but when I went under the first few times I confess that I very suddenly realized HOW MUCH I LOVE AIR. SWEET, GLORIOUS AIR. But I passed the test and we were soon on a boat. After a 5-minute boat ride we arrived near a coral reef and pretty soon I was told to put my tank and mask on, place my hands around my head, and fall backwards off the boat into the water. One thing I’ll say for myself is that although unlike skydiving I was a bit nervous, but I also didn’t hesitate. My mother likes to say that I am a risk-taker. (I don’t think this is actually one of my mother’s favorite qualities about me, however…) The cool thing about being nervous about scuba diving is you are supposed to take nice, slow, long breaths, which coincidentally is very calming. So I just concentrated on breathing, which totally made me look like I was an ace scuba diver but also kept me from panicking about the fact that I was 11 meters below the AIR, WONDERFUL AIR.

I had earlier in the year purchased an underwater point-and-shoot camera specifically for going diving in Zanzibar, so taking pictures also helped keep me calm.

And yes, by the end of the dive, I was comfortable enough that I was disappointed when the guides told us we had to resurface. My certification is good for a year – it’s unlikely I’ll find myself with the opportunity to do so before then, but if I do, I will dive again.

Smark, on the other hand, wasn’t into the scuba thing, although he had a GREAT time snorkeling. I literally had to drag him out of the ocean while he was snorkeling – once to get him to eat lunch and once to save him from some sea urchins that were not nearly as friendly as the one above.

Anyway, back to the monkeys. Basically monkeys are hilarious, and super smart. While eating breakfast one morning we watched one wait until none of the lodge employees were looking, then scamper into and across the room, jump up on the buffet table, lift the supposedly-monkey-hindering lid off a plate of pastries, snatch a roll, politely replace the lid just as he found it, and nonchalantly walk back out the way he came. Unguja Lodge is totally awesome and I highly recommend it, but if you are afraid of or don’t like monkeys you may want to consider staying elsewhere…although I think monkeys are a fun fact of life on Zanzibar beaches everywhere. This is a red colobus monkey in a tree next to the lodge pool.

And this is a monkey just lounging about the place, not caring that I was a few feet from him taking his picture.

And then too soon, we had to leave Zanzibar and Africa. When we planned the trip, I thought that after traveling for nearly three weeks, we would both be very ready to get back home, however, although I missed the cats, neither Mark (who doesn’t like traveling quite as much as I do) nor I wanted to go home. If someone had offered to let us stay another two weeks, another month, we would have accepted immediately. We both LOVED Africa, much more than we thought we would. Here is the plane we boarded in Zanzibar that took us on a 20-minute flight to Dar es Salaam (a city which I think I’ll sum up by saying IF YOU THINK TRAFFIC IN LA OR DC IS BAD, TRY DAR. Dear LORD is the traffic bad there), from where we caught our flight back to Amsterdam and finally home. A rainbow appeared to try to cheer me up, but I really was very sad to leave.

So that was Africa. It is a goal of both Mark and I to get back there as soon as possible; Mark to teach children and me to help cheetahs and lions. In the meantime, however, it looks like Mark and I have other big things to plan and think about: in the next couple of weeks Mark will be moving to San Francisco to start a new job that he’s very excited about. I will join him later in the year, after most of baby wildlife season. So I will be alone quite frequently until then. Will I therefore have more time to update the blog, or will I find myself cooking less often if it’s just me? Only time can tell, I suppose. I will, though, be back soon with a final post on Africa in which I hope to cover how I survived there as a vegan (spoiler: it wasn’t hard), what I packed, including camera gear, and travel tips. And, uh, if anyone has helpful tips about cross-country moves and/or recommendations for Bay Area neighborhoods, bring them on!

I sure keep bombarding you with pictures of myself after swearing I wouldn’t subject you to the products of my Photo365 portrait project in order to not gross you out with my unphotogenic-ness. But I can’t resist sharing today’s portrait!

That’s right, Kittee’s completely awesome vegan Ethiopian cookbook Teff Love arrived in the mail today! Mine’s extra-awesome because it’s autographed, being as I was a tester. I will at some point soon do an actual review of it, but I can give you a mini-review now: IT’S TOTALLY GREAT, BUY IT NOW AND MAKE EVERYTHING IN IT. I’ve been making Kittee’s Ethiopian recipes for about a decade now; believe me, she knows what she’s doing. And Ethiopian food is the best food ever!

And yes, I’ve been remiss in making my Zanzibar post, and my Tanzanian food post, and actual recipe posts, but that’s because my life hasn’t slowed down very much for winter as I expected it to. In fact, there are possible life-changing things going on (no, I’m not pregnant; I feel like women my age can’t ever say their life is changing without people thinking they are pregnant). We’ve been traveling a bit.

Do you know where that was taken? Does this help?

Does THIS help?

If I had to pick a favorite place in Tanzania, I’d say I didn’t want to, because the entire trip was so, so, so great. But if I absolutely, positively HAD to pick a favorite place, I’m going to have to say it was the Serengeti. The Serengeti was a bit of a surprise for me because its elevation is higher than I realized and it’s therefore not as oppressively hot as I thought it was going to be, and it was much greener than I thought it would be at the end of the dry season. Basically the Serengeti was even more awesome than I thought it was going to be. So was the place we stayed, but more on that in a moment. The Serengeti is also full of (big) cats so I have a ton of cat pictures! Okay, the Serengeti is pretty much the greatest place on this planet and I’d be perfectly happy to go spend the rest of my life there.

To get from the crater to the Serengeti, we had to hop on a tiny (you had to crawl to your seat) little plane and fly for about 45 minutes. The pilot purposely flew over the Great Migration (of zebras and wildebeests) before we landed and tipped the plane so we could see it:

We were met by our guide, Jairo, at the airport and he immediately whisked us off on a safari. But before I get to safari pictures, let me talk about where we stayed. Our itinerary said we’d be staying in a mobile tented camp, one that moves every couple of months to follow the migration. I’m sure that would have been cool and Mark was looking forward to “roughing it” in an even more rustic tent than the one we stayed in in Tarangire, but for some reason our itinerary was wrong and we were deposited at Lamai Serengeti, which is the GREATEST PLACE EVER. This was by far the best place I have stayed while traveling. The only bad thing I can think to say about it is that our 10th wedding anniversary (which we celebrated there) may have ALMOST been even more crazy-awesome than our actual wedding, and our wedding – which was held in a Scottish castle – was pretty damn amazing.

I guess the only other “bad” thing was the walk to our room was kind of long and steep:

But that’s only “bad” until you finally get to the room …

… and you realize you have complete and utter solitude. And then you walk in and see this:

This is about 2/3s of the bathroom. Yes the entire wall is a window and no, privacy was not a concern. No one can really access the area on that side of the building.

And then you walk out on the balcony and peer in:

And in the morning, the rising sun awakes you, filling your entire room from the wall of window, and you crawl out from between the mosquito netting and you retrieve the hot tea or coffee that’s been delivered to your door before you awoke, and you walk out on the balcony and watch the sun continue to rise. And you never want to leave, ever.

So yeah, I don’t know how or why we ended up there (Lamai is part of the same company as the nomad place I thought we were staying in, so it’s not THAT mysterious) but it was so very fortuitous. And the FOOD! Was so good! But I’m going to do a whole post on the whole food/vegan thing, so I’ll rhapsodize there soon.

At Lamai, we would wake up just in time to watch the sun rise, then immediately hustle off to safari. Unlike the other places we stayed where we had breakfast at the lodge before heading out, our guide packed a breakfast for us and we ate it out on the plains after driving for a while – Jairo would set up a table and put out a whole spread. It was really nice. Then we’d drive around some more then head back to Lamai for lunch. After lunch and maybe a quick swim in the pool, we’d do an afternoon drive until the sun set. Then it was time for drinks and dinner. Basically I have just described what I consider to be an absolutely perfect day, and we had three of them. 🙂

This is a picture of Lamai taken just after sunset as we were on our way back for dinner one night. I think the room that is closest in the foreground is Smucky and Olivia’s and ours is off-camera to the right. To the left in the mid-ground is the common area where meals were served.

To me the Serengeti looked like another planet. Another, really awesome planet. There were a lot of boulders in the areas we spent the most time (although the Serengeti is very vast and looks quite different in other areas), it’s just unlike any landscape we have at home:

Animals we saw included giraffes:

Klipspringers:

Warthogs:

Rock agama:

Cape buffalo:

Zebras:

Hyena:

Baboons:

AFRICAN DEATH STICK:

LIONS LIONS LIONS!! I have so many incredible lion pictures from the Serengeti I’m finding it really hard to restrain myself and not post all of them!!

Olivia needs to Photoshop the twigs out of this one for me (Photoshop is TOO HARD!) because they are very distracting but he’s SO CUTE I can’t delete the picture!

Oh my gosh I have so many! I can’t stop posting them! Just one more!

But wait, lions aren’t the only cat! Oh, no! Could there possibly be a better way to start your day than to engage in a staring contest with a LEOPARD???

She’s chasing an impala in this photo, hoping for breakfast:

Here is a different leopard in a tree!

I love you, leopard.

But what OTHER kinds of cats live in the Serengeti? CHEETAHS!!

Baby cheetah:

This was a funny incident from our final safari. We found this cheetah lounging about looking beautiful:

Then her cub saw some gazelles off in the distance and goaded her into chasing after them:

So she obligingly headed off in their direction, but then she hit a nice patch of dirt and just flopped down mid-stride and rolled around like a total goofball! IT WAS THE CUTEST THING I HAVE EVER SEEN, EVER!

As you can tell, the cats were once again my absolute favorite and we saw a ton of them and I was pretty much the happiest I’ve ever been in my life, but what a lot of people go to the Serengeti hoping to see is the Great Migration. We were fortunate to witness a “crossing” – herds of wildebeests and zebras crossing the Mara River. Not everyone gets to see such an event – the manager at Lamai told me she’s lived there for 5 years and has still not managed to see one – so when Jairo spotted some wildebeests looking like they might take the plunge, from a good mile away at least (safari guides have AMAZING eyesight), he ROCKETED over to the river so we wouldn’t miss it.

What a spectacle! Why is it kind of a rare opportunity? Because even if you do manage to time your drive so that you encounter a herd at the right time, there’s no guarantee they’ll be brave enough to follow through. We later saw a “near-crossing” when a bunch of zebras tried to push each other into the water, but no one was brave enough to go first and they eventually retreated. It’s very dangerous for them to cross and many of them don’t make it. They either drown or are devoured by:

And yes, we saw a few crocs staring down the brave animals we saw crossing. I was very worried for them but all the animals I saw crossed successfully.

I’d better wrap it up here as that has been a LOT of pictures. Okay, ONE MORE, here is the last wildlife photo I had the opportunity to take on safari. It was just about time for that lazy guy to wake up and go hunting!

Next: exotic, spicy ZANZIBAR!

After our very first day of safari, in Tarangire National Park, I thought to myself that if that had been the ONLY day I had been able to spend in Africa, it would have been worth all the expense, all the planning, all the flying, all the everything. It was THAT incredible. And then the second day was even better. And THEN we went to Ngorongoro Crater.

Ngorongoro Crater was created 2 to 3 million years ago when a volcano collapsed, forming the largest intact caldera on the planet. “Ngorongoro” is pronounced just as it’s spelled and according to our guide was named after the sound the bells around the necks of the Maasai’s cattle made as they walked down the crater walls. Driving from Tarangire, we stopped at a village for a cultural visit (where Mark decided he was moving to Africa to teach children) and some banana beer and banana wine, and then at an art shop, and finally at the crater rim.

I had never taken a panorama photo before but you really kind of have to; the crater is simply immense. This is 3 or 4 photos stitched together and if you click on it, you can see the bigger, better version.

One of the highest concentrations of wildlife in the entire world lives in this crater.

After spending a lot of time taking in the impressive view from the crater rim, we made our way to the lodge. There were random marabou storks roaming around the courtyard at all times at the lodge. Those things are HUGE. And kind of weird! “Yeah, I’m just walking to dinner and there’s a marabou stork 10 feet away; that’s totally normal.”

The next morning we descended to the crater floor. The drive down was beautiful – fog completely envelopes the crater.

Lots of ungulates in the crater. This is a Thompson’s gazelle, which you can identify by the black stripe on his side.

These are grand gazelles:

We saw two wildebeests fighting – very close to our car.

It’s probably an easy life for vultures in the crater!

I told you I loved it when ostriches cross roads; they seem to do it often:

Cape buffalo, with a bird flying by:

Hyena:

Hippos lounging:

Hippos sleeping in water with bird friends:

Another crazy African bird, the bustard:

But what was my favorite animal of the crater, you ask??? Need you really ask?

The lion population of the crater is actually pretty inbred because their numbers are dwindling, so I’m kind of concerned for their future. We saw some lionesses eating a gazelle or some other kill, then they collected their cubs, who were situated away from the kill, and led them to a stream.

They had to cross the road we were parked on to get to the stream; this they did RIGHT in front of us.

The cubs didn’t want to get their paws wet….sooooooo adorable!

After drinking for a bit, they crossed the road again to get back to their original spot. If I had thought it wise, I could have reached out of the car and scooped this cub up AND BELIEVE ME I THOUGHT ABOUT DOING IT.

(PS LOOK AT THOSE SPOTS!)

But I would have had to contend with a very angry mother.

And finally, the only thing we DIDN’T get a good opportunity to see on safari was a rhino. Sadly this is the only rhino we saw and he was VERY far away, so far away he’s little more than a rhino-shaped blob in this photo, and this was taken with a 600mm lens on a crop sensor camera. In a way, I guess it’s kind of poignant because it’s very likely that these animals will be extinct in our lifetime. One day soon all we may have of rhinos will be hazy memories. I wish I could express to you how much I hate poachers. It physically hurts me to have so much hatred inside me, but poaching is nothing short of pure evil.

I don’t want to leave you on a depressing note; it would be inappropriate because except for the times when I was contemplating my intense hatred of poachers, I loved EVERY SINGLE SECOND of this entire trip. So let’s end with more lion cubs, which are the cutest things on the planet and therefore the exact opposite of poachers.

I’ve been asked quite a few times why I wanted to go to Africa. I thought it was self-evident but I have since learned that not EVERYONE wants to go to Africa. I actually thought that was a universal desire. Why did I want to go to Africa? It’s very simple: wildlife. I should probably rename this blog “I love wildlife” since I’ve posted more about wildlife this year than I have food. Although – no, BECAUSE – I love wildlife, I do not like zoos. I can’t stand to see animals in cages; it seriously upsets me. I don’t like and don’t support zoos. But I also love wildlife photography. What’s a girl to do? The answer is obvious: go to the place with the highest concentration of wildlife, which pretty much seems to be Tanzania. So the answer is I went to Africa to take pictures of animals that were not in zoos.

Our entire trip was planned by a small business safari company – I’ll do a post with all the details about planning the trip because I found blog posts invaluable myself – and together we decided that we’d visit Tarangire National Park, Ngorongoro Crater, and the Serengeti, doing private safaris through each. Everything was planned for me, so all I had to do was book our international airfare.

We arrived at Mount Kilimanjaro airport from Amsterdam well after dark. Shortly after we cleared Customs, Smucky and his girlfriend Olivia – whom Mark and I had not yet met – arrived on their long, long flight from Australia. We made fast friends with Olivia and the four of us hopped into our guide, Muba’s, Land Cruiser. I was beside myself with excitement at being in Africa for the first time, and a little annoyed that it was dark out so I could see very little as we traveled down a very straight, very flat, very dusty road through the dark. Eventually Muba turned off the open road onto a narrow, rutted, dirt road through heavy vegetation. We had reached AruMeru River Lodge and on the driveway we saw our first glimpse of African wildlife, a tiny ungulate traipsing in front of the car. We shrieked in delight and asked Muba what it was: it was a dik dik, the world’s smallest antelope!

Because dik-diks were the first African wildlife I saw, they have a special place in my heart. Which doesn’t preclude me from sharing this undignified picture of one peeing:

After downing a beer at the bar, we crashed for the night. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to sleep because I was so excited, but after chasing dik-diks around and staring at the southern constellations for a while, I fell fast asleep. Muba met us bright and early the next morning to drive us to Tarangire National Park for our first safari.

Tarangire is well known for having a large number of elephants:

Look how close we were to the elephants!

LOOK HOW AWESOME ELEPHANTS ARE:

See a jackal:

And giraffes!

I really do love all animals, even those that most people find ugly or gross (yes, I like opossums and snakes!), but I must confess I am a BIT partial. I can’t help it, I’m a cat person through and through. The big cats were totally my favorite animals. I think I nearly fainted from excitement the first time we saw a lion.

Come on, how can you NOT admire this animal?

I embarked on this trip knowing the big cats would be my favorite. My undying love of them was confirmed when we’d see a lion and I’d be taking a million pictures of it and then someone would say, “look, there’s an elephant!” or “look, there’s a giraffe!” or “look, there’s something-that’s-not-a-lion!” and I would say, “Who cares??? THERE’S A LION!” I couldn’t take my eyes off them. But no surprise there. What did take me by surprise, though, was how INCREDIBLY CUTE baby baboons are! I don’t know if I’d call an adult baboon exactly “cute”, but the babies were adorable! I LOVED watching them!

Ostriches have long amused me. They are just very silly animals, right? You know how this ostrich feels about me calling it silly?

What amuses me MOST is when ostriches walk across roads. I have no idea why that hilariates* me.

* I know “hilariates” is not a word, but I saw it in an Amazon review once and have adopted it because it hilariates me.

It must have been ostrich mating season because we witnessed two mating dances, only one of which was successful:

Zebras are another crazy animal! By the end of the trip I was pronouncing “zebra” like an Australian (short “e” instead of the American long “e”). At first we were all ooohing and aaahing over every zeh-bra we saw, but it didn’t take long for us to become so accustomed to seeing them we would pass them by and say, “oh, zehbras, whatever”. I never thought the day would come when I would be 15 feet from a zebra and be blasé about it. (Note: I never became blasé about lions!! Also, I saw some lions eating an unfortunate zehbra, which I wasn’t too blasé about.)

It’s become clear to me that I’d better break this post up even further into three parts, one for each park we visited. I originally titled it “Tanzanian National Parks” but I’ve changed it to “Tarangire National Park” and I’ll be back soon with “Ngorongoro Crater” and “Serengeti” posts! Then Zanzibar. And also a post on planning a trip like this, camera gear I used, and yes, what I ate (being vegan was absolutely no problem!).

For those that can’t wait for the next post or that want to see even MORE pictures, you are welcome to see all of my pictures here: http://ineluctable.org/Tanzania/Tanzania/album/index.html

I’m not sure I’ll have time to post again before Thursday, so to my American friends, I hope you have a happy Thanksgiving! We are expecting snow here in Northern Virginia tomorrow – safe travels to all, especially those also affected by winter weather.

Going to Africa ruined my life. Mark’s too.

I’ve discussed my journey towards learning to love Virginia here in the past. We came here pretty much for the jobs and in fact for a while I lamented the fact that I liked my job so much that it made it difficult for me to consider leaving Virginia, which it took me a long time to warm up to. But eventually our fabulous regional, state, and national parks and wildlife refuges and abundant wildlife – including my foray into wildlife rehab – won me over and I found that I was able to set aside some of my hatred of the traffic, McMansions, terrible drivers, and annoying people to make room for love of our natural resources. I’ve felt an increasing sense of inner peace in the last few years, a true happiness in life. Little did I realize how tenuous that transformation was, because going to Africa ruined it.

We went to Shenandoah National Park yesterday. There were no lions, elephants, giraffes, or zebras. It was depressing. It didn’t help that it was FREEZING and gray and we missed pretty much all of autumn while we were gone, but even if it had been the most splendid day imaginable, it wouldn’t have been the Serengeti. There’d still have been no lions. At one point on safari I realized that once I got home, my beloved wildlife refuge, where I revel in seeing a bald eagle or a glimpse of a fox, was going to seem extremely small and unexciting. How am I going to recapture the joy I’ve always felt there when I’ve been ten feet away from AN ENTIRE LION PRIDE?

I’ve heard a lot of people say that going to Africa changed their life. In a way, it didn’t really change mine because before I even left I told my travel agent that after this trip I wanted to return and work with cheetahs, because he’s involved in cheetah conservation and said he’d help me do so. And sure enough, I’ve returned from our trip and I want to return to work with cheetahs, so am I a different person?

Yes and no. I’m even more interested in doing hands-on work in wildlife conservation than I was before, but that’s a path I was going headlong down anyway. I realized that I think I could kill a poacher and feel no remorse, which is an uncomfortable position for a pacifist, but I really, really, really, really hate poachers. (And many of them have no more compunction about murdering humans than they do wildlife.) I think what’s changed in me is Africa has become real, and with that, the possibility of doing something different with my life – at least for a while – is staring at me. Africa never seemed real before. I’d watch the occasional nature documentary, and I look at a lot of wildlife photography, much of it taken in Africa, but it always seemed very far away and very, very different than my life. And it is both of those things, but it’s also suddenly become accessible because I’ve BEEN there and I can so easily imagine myself going back. Fairfax, Virginia suddenly seems so small to me. Too small. And so full of people who care only about themselves.

Although I rather anticipated all of this and as I said, I fully expected to want to return to Africa after our first trip to work with wildlife, our trip had an even more profound effect on Mark. Whereas I’ve been positively giddy about the trip for the better part of a year, Mark didn’t allow himself to get as worked up in anticipation as I did. I spent months preparing for, reading about, and basically obsessing over the trip, but although he’s the one that had been saving up for the trip for a couple of years as a surprise for me, it wasn’t until we GOT to Africa that he seemed super-excited about it. But he loved it. Really loved it. Much more than he has ever loved anywhere we’ve gone. And what he loved the most was a bit surprising to me because Mark is NOT a people-person by any stretch of the imagination, but what Mark loves about Africa are the people. We went on a cultural visit to the village of Mto wa Mbu near the Ngorongoro crater rim, where children ran up to us. Most of them wanted their picture taken, which they then wanted to see on the camera’s LED:

But even if you didn’t have a camera, which Mark did not, they just grabbed your hand and walked with you. Mark was overwhelmed by the inherent trust they had. In fact, Mark was so moved by it that he wants to return to that village or another and teach children. Which wasn’t quite the reaction I was expecting from him, although in a way it makes sense because he really is good with children and he’s quite awesome at teaching chess to children here at home.

It wasn’t just the children Mark liked; he was shocked by the friendliness of everyone. Everyone you meet in Tanzania offers a friendly “Jambo!” (“hello”) and “Karibu!” (“welcome”); it’s totally unlike Washington DC. They are a very welcoming folk! People stop to help you in Tanzania just because they want to help; no ulterior motives. I’ve experienced that occasionally here at home, but it’s always been such a rare and beautiful thing because it’s so unusual. But it’s just how people are in Tanzania. Mark once asked a man in Stone Town why he was helping him and what he wanted in return and the man looked at him like he was crazy for thinking he’d want something in return for his help.

So that’s that: Mark and I both plan to return to Africa for some sort of extended stay, Mark to teach children and me to do wildlife conservation. I’m not sure when this will happen, but Mark’s teaching himself Swahili and I’m contacting various people about cheetahs.

I’ll talk a little more specifically about our trip, including some thoughts on being vegan in Tanzania, but it will probably take me a couple of posts. We did national park safaris for the first week and then spent a week in Zanzibar, so I’ll likely break it up into at least two posts.

Sunset in Tarangire National Park:

I’m often annoyed at home that buildings are obscuring my view of the sunset. This was definitely NOT a problem I encountered in Tanzania. And African sunrises and sunsets are just amazing. So amazing that even Mark, no more a morning person than he is a people person, was happy to wake up to watch the sun rise every morning.

Sunset over the Rift Valley:

Next up: my love affair with African wildlife.

You thought I was going to say “A trip to Africa” didn’t you?? Well, the Africa post is a-comin’, but it just so happens that the best flight to Tanzania originated in Amsterdam and we have friends that live in Amsterdam, so I decided we would grace said friends with a few days’ visit before heading on to Africa. This broke the 17-hour total flight time in half AND gave us an opportunity to spend Mark’s birthday with one of his oldest friends. Win-win!

Brad and April are the ultimate hosts. Everyone should be so fortunate to have such gracious friends, especially ones that live in Europe! To keep this somewhat food-related I’ll say that being vegan is absolutely no problem in Amsterdam, although it’s made even easier by friends that make you vegan pancakes and waffles every morning and vegan dinners most nights. (Yeah, sometimes I make myself sick thinking how lucky I am.) I was very lazy and let Brad cook for us most of the time, barely lifting a finger to help, but one meal I’ll share with you was lunch at Terra Zen Centre, which Brad discovered on his phone and led us to. Their website says they are open noon to 10 p.m. every day, which may be true, however, when we arrived around 3 p.m. or so, the door was locked and there was a sign up saying “please call”. Now, I’m one of those people who wonders “who uses their phone to make calls???” (a sentiment my father finds difficult to grasp) and in ordinary circumstances I’d probably have just walked off to find some other place to eat; in a metropolis like Amsterdam, finding vegan food is easy enough you don’t have to rely on the whims of all-vegan restaurants. And in fact as a visitor to the country, I didn’t even have a MEANS to call them, so if we hadn’t been with a local who had a phone with service, we’d have had no choice but to forgo Terra Zen Centre. But Brad was feeling intrepid and he dialed the number. After many rings, someone finally answered and said he’d be there in 5 minutes.

Five minutes later the chef arrived on a bicycle (because it’s Amsterdam), unlocked the door, and ushered us in. The dining room was unassuming: a couple of tables with a bench, mismatched chairs, and old tablecloths. The only written menus featured various types of pot. But the chef reappeared and told us what our food options were that day, which I don’t really remember the names of but basically we were able to choose what sort of carb we wanted: brown rice, noodles, or roti, as well as the protein: tofu, tempeh, or beans (we each got a different one), and he’d be serving us a perfectly balanced meal around that. I took a couple of bites before I remembered to take a photo, but here’s what mine looked like – I got the tempeh, which was delicious:

It may not look terribly pretty but it was totally scrumptious! We all loved it, including Brad, who is an omnivore, and who plans to return to Terra Zen Centre even when we vegans aren’t around. It was yummy and filling, but also felt very healthy. So if you find yourself in Amsterdam, I highly recommend this place, although if you are a tourist and you don’t have phone service there, you may want to find some way to call them before you head over there to verify their hours that day.

You may think I wouldn’t encounter too much wildlife in a city, and although it wasn’t like being on safari (safari fun coming soon!), I DID actually encounter some fun wildlife. First of all, there are a ton of grey herons just roaming around the city. I took this picture at a market:

And this one:

I thought it was strange at first to walk right up to so many herons in the middle of a city, but it makes sense considering Amsterdam is full of water. ALSO strange were the flashes of bright green and squawking I saw and heard in a tree as Mark, Brad, and I walked in the rain with all our luggage at 9 a.m. in the dark before the sun rose the morning we arrived (if it makes an appearance at all, I don’t think the sun rises until about noon in Amsterdam in the winter). I was curious, but it was raining, our luggage was heavy, it was early, we were tired, and basically I made a mental note to ask Brad about it later. Then I forgot until we were walking through a park and Mark saw a flash of bright green and asked, “what’s that green bird?”, and I chimed in, “yeah, what’s up with the neon birds??” and Brad said something non-committal about parrots. So I did a little internetting when we got back to his place and I learned that there is a colony of wild rose-ringed parakeets living in Amsterdam, descendents of pets that were released in 1975. They’ve somehow thrived and as they don’t pose a threat to the native species, the locals like having them around. They certainly surprise the tourists though!

Anyway, obviously I was then on a mission to find and photograph these parakeets! Dutiful Brad did some research and decided the best place to go looking for them was Flevopark, so off we went, in the rain of course, because that’s how Amsterdam works.

I liked Flevopark.

And yes, we found the parakeets!

No tourist to Amsterdam can post a series of photos without a windmill, right? This is actually Brouwerij, a brewery, where we had a pint.

And how about a bunch more photos of Amsterdam being very Amsterdam (i.e. rainy, canal-y, and full of bikes)?

It pretty much rained the entire time we were in Amsterdam, as it does.

But I did see at least one glimpse of the sun:

And despite flying on a tiny plane through a rather bad storm over the Indian Ocean to get to Zanzibar, we saw plenty of sun in TANZANIA, coming up next!

I had some limp broccoli in the refrigerator so I decided to make soup out of it last night. Nice for a cold night, perhaps, but not too amazing, right? I didn’t think so until Mark started going absolutely nuts over it. We were watching TV together while eating and I was flattered when he told me not once but twice that the soup was excellent. But then he didn’t stop! He just kept raving about it. “I’m not even paying attention to the show, I’m too into this soup!” he proclaimed, which was surprising considering we were watching a program he ordinarily finds hilarious. Even after we’d finished dinner, he was still going on about it: “I want to eat that soup until I throw up!” At that point I had to tell him the compliments were heading into gross territory and starting to sound less complimentary. But considering how much Mark hates throwing up the fact that he’d be willing to risk it in order to eat more of the soup was saying something, I suppose. Additionally, he’s also usually very squeamish about cleaning up pots from “creamy” things, but he cheerfully washed the soup pot and said even that chore was worth the soup. The last thing he said to me before I went to sleep was, “I’M GOING TO THE KITCHEN FOR MORE OF THAT SOUP.”

He insisted I do a post on it. I was reluctant to do so because I’ve already done a very similar post, but that post is ancient anyway, so here’s exactly what I did last night that produced the soup Mark would puke for.

Broccoli “Cheese” Soup

1 large onion, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
1 carrot, chopped
6 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
2 cups or so chopped potatoes
2 small or medium or 1 large head of broccoli, cut into florets (and stalks peeled and chopped)
6 cups of vegetable broth (I used Better Than Bouillon’s “No Chicken” flavor)
1/3 cup vegan gouda or other cheese from Artisan Vegan Cheese*
1/3 cup nutritional yeast
juice of 1/2 lemon
salt or seasoning salt, to taste

* I am sorry that I keep including cheeses from this book in my recent recipes. I’ve been avoiding posting anything I made using recipes from this book since I don’t want to post the cheese recipes themselves, but as you can see I haven’t had a ton of other ideas for posts lately! Plus Mark REALLY wanted me to post this recipe! If you don’t have the book, you can use your favorite vegan “cheese”, or use the recipe I posted in this post. You can also just omit the “cheese” entirely for a Cream of Broccoli soup.

Heat some oil over medium heat in a Dutch oven or large soup pot. Add the onion, celery, carrot, and garlic and cook until onions are soft. Add the potatoes and broccoli and cook another minute or so, then add the broth. Bring to a boil then add the “cheese” and nutritional yeast, stirring until the “cheese” is melted and incorporated. Reduce heat to a simmer, cover, and cook until the potatoes are soft, about half an hour. Remove from the heat and puree using an immersion blender, or, when cooled, in batches in a regular blender. Return to the heat, stir in the lemon juice (adjust the amount to taste) and salt if necessary. (I actually used an all-purpose season salt mix I made up instead of regular salt, but I made it a while ago and have no idea what’s in it! Salt, garlic and onion powders, and other seasonings.)

Serve with crusty bread and a salad. Neither of us even bothered with the bread last night. As Mark says, the soup looks very unassuming and boring, but according to him, the flavor is just spot-on.

I said last time I had more raptor picture, so let’s get to it. While we were in Charleston over the holidays, we went on the swamp garden tour at Magnolia Plantation. I found it very expensive, but then I saw a red shouldered hawk lording over the swamp and my frivolous financial gripes were forgotten. Plus he posed for us for a long time. Such a long time I’m sure my very patient mother-in-law was wishing that bird would fly away so Mark (with his beloved binoculars) and I would mosey along already.

He’s saying here: “I’m a red shoulder!” (He was actually quite fussy, which is typical of red shoulders. They have an attitude.)

He flew away, but just to another nearby tree.

He just kept posing! I love him!

We eventually managed to drag ourselves away and continue the walk.

Hawks are definitely not the only wildlife at the swamp. This is an anhinga:

Egret:

And the real star of the swamp: an alligator! They enjoy sunbathing together with turtles.

I love their creepy smiles.

Quite frankly, I’ve decided I want to live next to a swamp. There’s always something fascinating going on in or around them.

I exist!

I have far more non-food-related news going on in my life right now than new recipes, so I return with a non-recipe post…but only because I am actually planning a recipe post later this week. Several people have asked about the cat situation, particularly since last time I alluded to the fact we had four cats. Which, for a couple of months, we did. So for you cat lovers, here’s a cat-only update. For those of you uninterested in cats, come back soon for some food.

So, back when I was furloughed in October, I was in the sunroom when Gomez and Torticia suddenly sounded an alert: someone was at the back door! Mezzie and Tish race to the door whenever any other living thing shows up outside the sliding glass door: bird, squirrel, raccoon, skunk, fox…you name it. But that day the cause of their excitement was another cat. And not just any cat, this gorgeous fluffy black cat, and she was pressing herself against the door as if she desperately wanted in, although the weather was quite nice out at the time. Gently kicking Mez and Tish out of the way, I opened the door, only to have the kitty run off a few yards. However, to my surprise, when I called to her she came running up to me and let me pet her. In fact, she let me pick her up. I fell for her immediately. I INSTANTLY loved this cat. She rubbed noses with me! I went back inside to get her some food and to call Mark to come look at her. She scarfed down a large can of food like she hadn’t eaten for days and by the time she was done Mark was in love with her too.

It took me several weeks to bring Heidi in when she was living in our yard, but I took this cat up to the animal hospital to be scanned for a microchip within a couple of hours. For one thing, she was a black cat and it was nearing Halloween. For another thing, I loved her and I was secretly hoping no one claimed her. She was negative for a chip and I SWEAR I made a good faith attempt to find her owners, checking in with the animal shelter and Craigslist, etc., but when no one claimed her in a week or so, Mark and I called her a Halloween miracle from the Great Pumpkin and we christened her Wednesday to fit in with Gomez and Torticia (conveniently, I also found her on a Wednesday).

I took Wednesday to our vet and told him we’d adopted a fourth cat. I was convinced he was going to think I was some crazy cat thief because Torticia is a tortie and Gomez is all-black, and the first cat I found in my yard was another tortie, and now the second cat I’d found in the yard was all-black. I mean, what at the chances that the TWO cats that show up in my yard within a few months of each other would be another tortie and another all-black cat?? Both the new cats were like tiny versions of Mezzie and Tortellini! I thought he’d think I was starting a bizarre collection. He insisted he just thought I was a good person to care about strays so much, gave her some shots, and collected some blood to run the standard new-cat tests.

Two days later I sprang to answer his call because Wednesday was going crazy being locked up in a room by herself and I was desperate to get the all-clear to let her mingle with other cats and have full run of the house. Only it wasn’t to be: the test results were positive for feline leukemia. I cried my eyes out when I got off the phone with him, because feline leukemia is pretty much an early death sentence. Unlike feline HIV patients who can often live many years with no symptoms of their disease, most leukemia patients die within 3-5 years. And since it’s contagious to other cats, Wednesday would have to go to a home where she could be the only cat. It’s REALLY hard to find someone who is willing to adopt such a cat. Honestly I don’t know that I would choose to do so. You can’t have any other cats (unless they too are FLV+), you have to live knowing they will very likely have a short life, and you’re probably looking at at lot of vet bills near the end of their life. I thought immediately of my friend Melissa, though, who lost her cat KK the prior year (KK was an orange tabby, like my cat Tigger that those of you who have been reading for years may remember, and like Tigger, KK was from Ocean City, MD: Melissa and I adopted them about the same time when we were in college together) and through my tears sent her an emotional email. I figured she’d probably be mad at me for asking her such a ridiculous question (“Hey, I know you are busy raising three young kids and working but how would you like to adopt a cat that’s going to get sick and die in a few years????”), so when she didn’t respond right away, I totally understood and began the arduous task of reaching out to EVERY cat charity I could find and asking for help. Very few did anything to help me, although I did finally find one place near Charlottesville that has a FLV room and would accept Wednesday if I agreed to sponsor her – essentially donate money monthly towards her vet bills and upkeep – which I kept on reserve as a last resort as I preferred to find her an actual home.

But then it turned out Melissa wasn’t purposely avoiding me because she didn’t want to have to say no to me – she just hadn’t checked her email in a few days. AND she thought she may be feeling called to agree to it! After a lot of research on Melissa’s part and a family vote, Melissa’s family agreed to adopt Wednesday. I was so, so, so, so happy! Because not only was Wednesday going to a great home with someone I trust implicitly, I’d be able to see her whenever I wanted! Plus, I was tired of going to Melissa’s house and not getting to see KK or any other cats. Wednesday has been at Melissa’s for over a month and is adjusting well to her three kids. This story has a happy ending!!

Wednesday is super difficult to take pictures of because she’s so dark and fast: if you level a camera at her, she’s immediately in your face, wanting attention. These are the crappy pictures I took for Melissa while she was still deciding; they do nothing to express the beauty of Wednesday, who is very tiny but very silky, very black, very, very pretty, and super personable.

This picture is absurd, but I wanted to capture her gorgeous tail.

I love this cat. And I love Melissa and her family for adopting her!

Now, another story, which is a little less dramatic, but like the first starts out sad then gets happy: Heidi.

Little Heidi. I told you how I came to adopt her this summer in this post, but unfortunately, during the whole Wednesday debacle it was becoming obvious it just wasn’t going to work out with her. I love Heidi: she’s very sweet and loyal and eager to show me how grateful she is I took her in. Seriously, I can read it in her eyes. The problem is Torticia has HATED Heidi since the day I let Heidi out of quarantine following HER blood test results (which were, thankfully, all negative). Mezzie, on the other hand, was super friendly with Heidi and tried to befriend her. Heidi, however, went on the defensive following Torticia’s rancor and struck out indiscriminately at both cats. After a few months, I don’t know if Mezzie got tired of his friendly overtures being rebuffed or if Torticia finally convinced him to join the dark side, but eventually Mezzie started hassling Heidi as well. With the two of them ganged up on the poor girl, I realized I couldn’t make the relationship work, so I turned to the SPCA, from whom I adopted Mez and Tish. SPCA NOVA is awesome to work with and they responded immediately with help. They posted Heidi on their website and promised to get Heidi into a safe foster home as soon as one was available.

Imagine my surprise when a week later no foster homes had opened up, but two different people wanted to adopt her! I liked both applicants tremendously but of course only one could adopt her. This Saturday morning Heidi will be moving to her new home with a very nice woman who was looking for a quiet, gentle kitty to love after her ex-husband took the cat he entered the relationship with. I feel really good about this. I know Heidi will be much happier in her new home and I think Heidi will be an excellent companion for her.

My sweet girl, I’m sorry I couldn’t give you the home you deserve, but I hope you know I’m giving you up so you can have a better life!

AND NOW LOOK AT THESE BULLIES!

Seriously, though, when they aren’t giving me headaches by hassling Heidi, Gomez and Torticia remain the most absolutely wonderful cats ever. And frankly, I’m looking forward to being back down to two cats. Four was too many, especially since there were three distinct “groups” to whom I had to pay separate attention. When I work with the raccoons and the raptors, I have to divide my time up between many animals, and I like that because I am exposed to so many different needs and personalities and I learn a lot. But at home, I really just want two awesome best feline friends with whom I have the strongest relationship possible. And a lot of the time I’m not home. So when I get home, I just want to see their two smiling little faces greeting me and not feel stressed out that I need to spend quality time with half the cat population of Virginia.

Yeah, they LOOK lazy, but they are MEANIE PANTS.

LET’S ALL HOPE NO MORE STRAY CATS TAKE UP RESIDENCE IN MY YARD.

Finally, in non-cat-related news, big excitement on the horizon!! Mark and I are going on safari in Tanzania for our 10th wedding anniversary in October! And Smucky and his girlfriend are going with us! It’s the most exciting thing I’ve ever done and I am beside myself! I am mentioning it here because, well, it’s pretty much the only thing I think of these days, but also because I’m soliciting advice. Our tour organizer knows we are vegan and has assured me it won’t be a problem, and I’ve actually seen the words “vegan-friendly” on the websites of some of the camps and lodges we’ll be staying in (can you imagine that?! The times we live in!), so I’m not super worried about starving, but I am a little worried about being hungry from time to time. We’ll be on some long drives and I get really, really bad headaches – and turn into a total monster – if I don’t eat when I’m hungry. Usually when I travel long distances, I load up on energy bars for the journey, and usually my destination is a city or at least someplace I can find a bag of chips or something if I’m really desperate. But what do I do when I’m in the Serengeti and there’s no vegan snacks around for miles? Because we will be taking tiny planes from camp to camp in Africa, there is a 12 kg luggage weight limit, most of which I’ll be devoting to camera equipment, and furthermore, we have to use soft-sided luggage like duffle bags. Basically I’m planning to take a very small carry-on bag for my clothes and toiletries – just enough clothes for 3 days or so (laundry service is provided in the camps). I won’t have space for a 2-week supply of energy bars, and besides which, it’ll be hot: a lot of them get melty and gross in the heat. Are there any of you out there who, even if you haven’t been on safari, are maybe avid backpackers and have suggestions for highly portable, filling snacks, or other not-starving-while-traveling tips? So far all I can think of is nuts, but I’m not even sure how much room I’ll have for those…and how I’ll keep Mark from eating all of them on the first day. (That boy loves nuts!)

And now I’m off to make dinner…a dinner that I hope to be able to post as a recipe here.

Sigh, October. It’s my favorite month and it contains all sort of fun events and celebrations, but it’s always so busy! Because my birthday fell on a Saturday this year, I decided we needed to go away for the weekend to celebrate both our birthdays (Mark’s is just a few days after mine). Mark wanted to go to the Blue Ridge mountains, but because the fall colors are so spectacular there, everything in that area books like a year in advance. I’ve been wanting to go to Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge for a while, so we booked a B&B on Chincoteague Island. There was a while there during the furlough when I thought the weekend was going to be ruined (as all national parks and refuges were closed), but fortunately the government reopened the day before we were scheduled to leave.

Chincoteague Island and NWR are located just south of the Maryland/Virginia border; in fact, although we live in Virginia, most of our drive was in Maryland. Although like many people from the Baltimore area I spent lots of adolescent summers in Maryland’s Ocean City and Delaware’s Rehobeth Beach, I’d never made it to nearby Assateague Island or Chincoteague right below it, each home to a herd of wild ponies. When I started getting into wildlife photography, however, it became a required destination.

We stayed at Miss Molly’s Inn, famed location where Misty of Chincoteague was written. Miss Molly’s is charming, the host, Sam, was funny and very friendly (I barely saw his wife), and they were happy to accommodate our vegan diets. The entire island is small enough that you can pretty much walk the whole thing, but the inn is conveniently located on the main road with most of the shops and restaurants. We stayed in the room off the upper deck. The room itself was kind of tiny, but check out our awesome deck!

A small chilled bottle of complimentary Prosecco and a birthday card awaited us, which I thought was sweet. We drank red wine and Prosecco …

…watching the sunset from the deck. Lovely!

There was a harvest moon that first evening, and once it got dark enough, I noticed an arc of light circling it, with two rainbow patches to the left and right of it. I’ve seen that happen with the sun before and knew it was called sun dogs, and though I don’t recall seeing such a thing around the moon, I decided what we were seeing were moon dogs. Turns out I was right: moon dogs exist. It’s kind of hard to discern from the picture – it’s somewhat difficult to photograph without burning out the moon – but it was really neat in reality.

Chincoteague is not much of a hot vegan destination, although you won’t starve there. It’s mostly seafood, though all the seafood places serve pasta. I sort of hate getting pasta marinara out, though, because it’s something I can make deliciously at home in my sleep. There is a single Vietnamese (the only Asian place, I believe) restaurant on the island, Saigon Village, but fortunately it was two blocks from Miss Molly’s and had plenty of vegan-friendly options. We ate outside on the porch which was nicer than the brightly lit interior, although it was getting a bit nippy, and we soon regretted not just getting take-out and eating on our deck with some wine. Nonetheless, it was a good meal.

Mark ordered a spicy noodle dish with tofu. The waitress asked him how hot he wanted it on a scale of 10 out of 10 and tried warning him against it when he said “10”. However, she gave in when he said he grows and eats raw ghost peppers. Mark was subsequently suitably impressed with the spiciness of the noodles. In fact, it took him longer to eat his food than it did me mine, and that’s UNHEARD of because I’m a notoriously slow eater and he’s really fast. However, the noodles weren’t so hot that they had no flavor and I was quite happy to eat more than a few forkfuls.

I ordered barbecued tofu, which was pretty yummy. Loved the grill marks.

And that’s all the food pictures I remembered to take! (And Mark had to remind me to take those!) The other night we ordered pizza delivery. The pizza from Famous Pizza wasn’t the most amazing pizza I’ve ever had in my life, but they were very friendly, didn’t sound at all surprised I didn’t want cheese, and it arrived a few minutes before they said it would, even on a Saturday night.

I was disappointed Poseidon’s Pantry was closed the entire weekend we were there, but Sea Star Cafe had several sandwiches and vegan wraps to choose from and we had a nice lunch shielded from a light rain under an umbrella at one of their tables. (There are no eat-in tables.)

Saturday morning we headed out to the wildlife refuge and were rewarded with ponies! They were pretty far away – hard to see without my 400mm lens – and it was misting most of the morning, so my pictures aren’t super sharp, but wild horses are exciting nonetheless.

Wanna know what I look like when I’m photographing wildlife?

We saw the Assateague lighthouse …

… and climbed to the top.

I almost didn’t recognize this great blue heron when I first saw him, until he turned his head slightly. Until then he was almost 2-dimensional – herons look a bit weird straight-on!

We saw a LOT of great blue herons.

If you look closely in this picture, you can just barely make out a bunch of birds OTHER than the heron, hiding!

I believe this is an immature double crested cormorant. They are funny.

They reminded me of something out of Disney when posed like this for some reason.

Another…

Great egrets are a big thing in Chincoteague, after the ponies.

Assateague National Seashore is part of Chincoteague NWR. Mark was sad that due to weather conditions he was unable to get an on-sand permit for his Jeep.

But not so sad he couldn’t delight in the treasures he found.

Sunday we visited NASA’s Wallops facility.

We also stopped by Blackwater NWR, which was just a few miles out of our way. Lots more herons! How mean does this one look?

All in all, it was a very lovely weekend! And now…Halloween party time.