Visit to Sutter's Mill

Yesterday we went out to lunch near Coloma, then stopped by the replica of Sutter's Mill, where gold was discovered by James Marshall, starting the California Gold Rush in 1849. We also looked in the museum there, which is very interesting.

From Sutter's Mill

Morning Walk in Shingle Springs

The kids didn't have school yesterday, and don't today either, so that Poly can hold "parent teacher conferences."  So Erica and I came up yesterday to Sacramento / Shingle Springs to take advantage of the "4 day weekend." Tim couldn't come, because he didn't want to miss his last AYSO soccer game of the season on Saturday, and Frances had to work... (I do too, in principle, but "have laptop, will travel...". 

This morning I took a walk down Ponderosa Road, and then down Maverick road.  Here are some of the sights I saw...

From Morning Walk ...

One of Frank's horses across Ponderosa Road.  He seems to be looking for some breakfast, but I didn't have any food with me.

From Morning Walk ...

Ducks in a pond on Maverick Road.

Among the Maasai People

Thursday morning we went to visit a Maasai village. The visit was very interesting. It is strange to see people who still live more or less as their ancestors did hundreds or thousands of years ago. Their villages have no electricity, no running water, no air conditioning -- in short, none of the modern conveniences we now assume are vital for life. Instead, they live in houses made of straw and branches, sealed with cow dung.

Most of us could never live that way, but perhaps neither could they live as we do. (I asked if many of the young people leave for Nairobi or other big cities. They claimed that very few leave...)

The Maasai Mara

The Maasai Mara is one of the most famous game reserves in Kenya. It is named after the indigenous people, the "Masai." More about them later.

We saw quite a few wildebeast and zebras. Apparently they often stay together because they both like the same type of grass -- the zebra eat the tops of the stalks, and the wildebeast eat the bottoms. The wildebeast were in the midst of their annual migration, and we saw them often lined up single-file.

It is not so clear to me if the zebras were migrating too, or were just hanging around the wildebeast.

Mt. Kenya

Today we are in the mountains near Mt. Kenya, at an elevation of 7000 feet. We are staying at a lodge that is built around an animal watering hole, so there is no need to go on game drives - the animals come to us, and we can watch them from the comfort of our rooms. The watering hole has an island in the middle in the shape of Africa.


Here are Tim and Erica at a viewing window, with a stork in the background.

Game Drives

The main thing you do on a safari is go on "game drives," where you pile into a van and drive around looking for animals. The best times to do this are early in the morning, or late afternoon. It seems the animals are otherwise engaged for the rest of the day.

We have now been out 3 times, and already have seen a lot of animals, including jaguars, giraffes, baboons, monkeys, lions, elephants, water buffalo, and lots of birds. The animals are amazingly unconcerned about us or our vans. They wander around as if we weren't there. We don't feed them, nor do we shoot at them, so I suppose they have learned that we are not dangerous but also not particularly interesting.

We are not allowed to get out of the vans, since then we might get very interesting to a passing jaguar. I imagine a slow-running sedentary middle-aged American might be very tasty (if high in fat), and would require very little effort for the jaguar, compared to the fast-moving prey he usually has to chase.

Here are some pictures I took. These are all taken here at Samburu.

Kenya

The Trip to Samburu

We are now at the Samburu National Game Reserve.

Just after breakfast Sunday morning we got in our vans for the long drive here to Samburu. It was approximately a 5-hour drive. We did stop once at a local craft market, mostly for a bathroom break. It was interesting to see the various hand-carved statues of zebras, lions, etc., but we weren't about to buy anything on our first day that we would have to lug around with us all week. (Actually, we hardly buy any souveniers, much to the chagrine of our kids and the local hawkers. For more information, see my posts from our China trip in January.)

Everywhere our van stopped (for gas, to enter the Samburu park, ...) we were beset by hawkers selling silver bracelets, bracelets with small dangling giraffes, and similar items. We tried to explain that we already had as many giraffe bracelets as we could possibly use (namely zero, but we left that part out), but to no avail. At one point, we resorted to pretending not to speak English. But I don't think they bought it, possibly because Frances was speaking Chinese and I was speaking German. One hawker named "Ali Baba" made me promise to buy a $1 bracelet from him when we pass by on the return. I will eitther have to buy the bracelet, or hide on the floor of the van on the way back. The problem with buying anything from them is that as soon as you do, you are beset by the entire crowd of hawkers. We witnessed this happen to other hapless tourists. Maybe Frances and the kids can tell Ali Baba I was eaten by a hungry jaguar. But I bet even this would not stop them. ("Would the lady like a beautiful bracelet for the funeral?")

Finally, we arrived in Samburu. We are at the Samburu Serena Lodge, which is very nice. We have our own detached "house" that is built in the style of local native houses. I was told that the only differerence is that our house is build of stone, has stone floors, electricty, running water, indoor toilets and showers, where their houses are built of mud and have none of the other amenities. But really, other than that, they are virtually identical...

Arrival in Nairobi

It is now early Sunday morning, and we are in Nairobi, Kenya. We left London at 10 am on Saturday, and after an 8-hour flight, arrived in Nairobi about 8:30 pm local time. When we arrived, it was pouring rain (this is the rainy season here). We all got wet as we descended the stairs from the plane and ran as best we could into the terminal. We were met at the airport by Felix Koskei, the director of the company running the Safari (Travel Connections, Ltd.) Felix and his team of drivers/guides take good care of their customers, and we have encountered no problems so far.

We are currently at the Serena Nairobi Hotel, which is very luxurious (5 star rating, I think). However, we won't have much time to enjoy it's amenities, since we check out and hit the road at 7:30, just after breakfast.

Our group is 18 people, and we will have 3 vans with drivers. Fortunately, they take care of everything for us, and all we have to do is look out the window...

Stopover in London

We stopped over in London on our way to Africa to visit for a few days with Soo and Dominick Magyar, and we really enjoyed our visit. Here are a few pictures I took:

Cadiz

Monday afternoon we drove up to Cadiz, KY, which is where the Goodwin family lived for many years farming tobacco before some of them left for Illinois. Cadiz is the county seat for Trigg County. We first went to the Tourist Information Office. The woman working there was very friendly (as everyone in Kentucky seems to be), and asked what brought us to Cadiz. I told my name was Goodwin, and my ancestors came from this area. She nodded, and said there were still alot of Goodwins in the area. She said they were "nice people," which I suppose is a good thing.

She said the Goodwins all come from Cerulean (or Cerulean Springs), which they pronounce "Cer-oy-yan". She said the library down the street (on Main Street) might have some more information. We went there, and they did. They had an entire book on the history of Goodwins in Trigg County. I took photos of some of the relevant pages.

Our Illinois Trip

We have just returned from a trip to Ilinois and Kentucky. We enjoyed the trip very much, especially seeing lots of family whom we hadn't seen in a long time. Here are some photos from the trip.

Nashville

After we finished the tour of Mammoth Cave (well, a very small part of it), we got back in the car and headed down to Nashville. We stopped just before the Tenessee border at Waffle House for lunch. The kids were very impressed with Waffle House.

In Nashville, we went to the Country Music Hall of Fame. For Frances, it was really an introduction to a very foreign culture. To the extent she listens to music at all, it is usually classical (or the Beatles or Stones - go figure). I'm not sure if she's ever listend to country music, or could name any country performer. Well, now I suppose she can name one or two...

I like a lot of the music, especially the more "roots"-oriented music, but am not very knowledgable. Country music is really about telling stories. The melodies and harmonies are quite simple, for anyone used to classical or jazz. But they are not really the point - the lyrics are. Classic songs like George Jones' "He Stopped Loving Her Today" would be nothing without the lyrics that tell a sad story of unrequited love.

Afterwards we walked around a bit downtown, past a few bars with live music coming out the doors even in mid-afternoon. We stopped by the Hard Rock Cafe for an afternoon snack, and then it was time to get back in the car to head back up to Kentucky.

Mammoth Cave

We left Alton Sunday late morning after breakfast at the Holiday Inn and drove about 5 hours to Mammoth Cave in Kentucky. It was too late to tour the cave when we got in about 5 pm, so we relaxed in our cabin, and took the first tour Monday morning. We did the "New Entrance" tour, which lasted about an hour. It was good, but I thought we would see more cave formations. Toward the end of the tour we did see quite a few.

At the Farmer's Market

Last night we went to the Farmer's Market that is held every Thursday evening in South Pasadena. It's only about a mile or so from our house. We looked at all of the fruit and vegetables for sale, and sampled a few things, but didn't buy anything. We went to eat dinner at a place on El Centro, and then stopped by Buster's for ice cream before heading home.

New Camera

Today I bought a new camera. My old one is a point-and-shoot type, and basically works fine, but I wanted something better before we go to Africa in July. I decided to get a digital SLR, and after a bit of research on the web I decided on the Nikon D40X with an 18-135 mm zoom lens. It has 10 mgapixels, so should produce very sharp images. Here are some of the first photos.

The first photo is a flower in our backyard. Not bad for a first try!


The second one is a close-up of Erica's new kitten "Pirate." I cropped a small section of the original photo (showing the full body) to see how much detail a small section of the photo contains.


And finally, rose in our yard.