Mikumi, fun for some ages.

The past two days were spent at the “Mikumi Wildlife Reserve Area Thing.”  It was way better than I expected it to be.  We arrived to elephants drinking right in our backyard.  Sitting on the porch of he restaurant, we were about 40 feet from a family thirsty elephants.  A very good way to start. Our rooms were way swank with a lot of geckos and stuff (Peter’s getting used to them now).  Now, I don’t want to bore you with “you should have been there” stories.  I also don’t really feel like trying to conjure up beautiful detailed but repetitive imagery of the same handful of animals that many of you have seen so I will do a condensed best of.  A lot of writing for nothing.  First, it was amazing to see everything in the wild, in their territory.  It was wonderful to get so close to giraffes and zebras, close enough to punch it in the gut.  Impalas run around like deer in the midwest, they are everywhere.  Elephants lumber about like they own the place.  We saw huge crocodiles and hippos at the watering hole along with huge packs of buffalo. We even had the opportunity to drive down a little side path and see lions.  The unafraid Pr. Hafermann sort of made his own path so our car came within literally 10 feet of the lion.  We noticed that none of the three lions were budging when we came close.  They were full and tired.  So we got to get out of the car.  I mean stick out of the windows and the back doors.  Peter hastily climbed onto the roof, nearly punching Steve in his lovlies to get around him.  He was happy, like a little kid.  The lion thought for a second about eating our faces but laid back down.  I showed some muscle and it decided not to budge. We then noticed we could get even closer and a better angle from the other side, so we made another path and got way close. But the absolute highlight...wait, before I say this you might want to put the kids to bed.  It gets a little blue.  The absolute greatest thing that has happened in anyone’s life ever occurred.  The lion stood up and started walking toward us, but it stopped short at the lady lion who was lion on the ground.  He gave her a little come hither stare and was all, you look real good tonight.  He then gave her a little lick on the back.  Romance is always important.  And for about eight seconds we stood ten feet from sweet sweet lion love.  Then he was all, ok, I have work in the morning and rolled over and fell asleep.  Best thing ever.  Apparently, this is real special as they only make it for a couple days in the year.  But they do the deed like every half hour during those days.  Good for them.  It was a very re-productive evening.

We all then enjoyed incredible food and a drink as we watched more elephants drink from the pond in the back.  In the night a lion evidently showed up near us and it’s roar woke me up two or three times.  The huge amount of buffalo rushing past also woke me up.  It sounded like they were in our room.  Wonderful.