A year or so ago we bought an African safari at an auction.  Then we decided that a week was too short a time to take considering the flight time to get to southern Africa, so we enlisted the help of “Mama Africa” at Mills Tourism Consulting and added a couple more safaris to the list.  We started in South Africa in the KwaZulu Natal region at a private game park called Zulu Nyala.  After spending a week there we flew north to Botswana and stayed three days in the Kalahari desert at Kalahari Plains Camp.  Finally, one more plain ride brought us to the Okavango Delta for a four night stay at Duba Plains Camp. More...

Auctions rule. We buy things at auctions we would never think to spend money on normally. Like the huge basket of O Boy! Oberto snacks I bought a couple of years ago. This year among the receipts we found a week stay for eight at a villa called Villa Pantai in Bali, Indonesia. The villa sleeps eight and has a staff of six including two cooks, a masseuse, and a driver. After a quick sync up with our friends for logistics, we were on our way.

Getting There

Sampling the Yummy

Their English is better than my Chinese.

More...

This was the first time I've been back to my alma mater since I graduated, and without going into details that was a hell of a long time ago. I met up with my good friends Erin and Steve, and we had a great time reliving the "good old days" of drinking beer all day, and basically being care-free. Danna gets the blue ribbon award for letting me booze it up the entire weekend while she took care of Cole.

Cole thoroughly enjoyed Erin and Steve's kids, and he almost got the hang of sleeping in a strange environment toward the end of the weekend.