Racing Through Summer 2023

 We took a trip down south to Alabama to see if Barber Motorsports Park was as good in real life as it looks on TV.  Answer: Yes. Beautiful surroundings, excellent planning and layout, and a good sense of humor.

We stayed a few nights in Birmingham and were pleasantly surprised. It's a very nice town. And there's a Buccee's!  We drove up to Huntsville and spent a couple of nights, just to look around. What we can say mostly about Huntsville is that they, too, have a Buccee's. But more importantly, they have a take-out joint called Jack's, and Jack's has the best baloney melt sandwiches on earth.  We're making them at home now.

So, came June and we headed north of the Cheddar Curtain to Road America for IndyCar.

A driver named Romain Grosjean was VERY lucky to have survived a horrible fire in a Formula 1 car a few years back. He has since gotten a ride in IndyCar, and we hoped that his penchant for off-track excursions had ebbed. Nope.

In August, we headed north again for the IMSA WeatherTech race. We usually walk over to the pit lane for this one, but for some reason they decided to have the race at 10 a.m.  Very unusual. Anyway, we just parked ourselves in our usual spot and hung out.

And that, folks, sums up the extent of our travels during the summer of 2023. As we write this, we're getting ready to pack for a trip to Barcelona and a cruise from there to Montreal. Film at eleven.

South Africa, Part 3 (This is the good stuff)

 As mentioned before, we missed the first day of our post-cruise tour, meaning we missed seeing the penguin colony. Well, that's the way this cruise went. We picked up at day two, which took us to the wine country. We apologize for having almost no pix. We were too busy drinking wine.

The day began with a wine tasting at Nederberg winery, where the grounds were very pretty. 

Then it was on to yet another winery for a "light" picnic lunch. This light lunch included bread, meat, potato salad, curried cauliflower, hummus, olives, pickled cucumber, dessert, and...a bottle of wine. We were stuffed.

Next stop, Stellenbosch, where we were turned loose to wander freely. Now, you'd think that there would be a wine shop on every corner, yes? No. We had to hot-foot it all over to finally find a liquor store attached to the grocery. We did get two bottles of Pinotage to take back to the hotel. There was a dinner at the hotel that night, but we were still full from our light lunch so we drank more wine and watched highlights from the Dakar Rally.

Next day was an early departure for Aquila Wildlife Preserve. A stop along the way:

Okay, here we go. This is what Africa is all about, if you read National Geographic.

The infamous Dung Beetle in action. Well, sort of:

Lions!

Real giraffes:

We promised elephants. Here are elephants.

Here's how we got around the preserve:

And we were doing good, until the elephants got pissed off and decided that they owned the road.

And so the great South African adventure drew to a close. It ended with another sixteen-hour flight from Cape Town to Dulles, which has to be the worst airport in the world for transferring international passengers. Can't say much for their luggage delivery, either. One of our "priority" bags was the last one off the plane. 

And again, a departure delay. The irritated Captain kept updating us about the fact that we were waiting for some folks who came in on an international. They were probably waiting for their "priority" bags. When they did show up, one of them was a celebrity! Sitting right in front of Gordon was Chance the Rapper, of Chicago fame, returning with his entourage from Accra, Ghana where they launched the Black Star Line Festival.

Home at last. Hooray. The water heater went. Welcome home.

South Africa, Part 2

Onward to Richards Bay, on New Year's Eve. The ship partied into the night, the whistle blew at midnight to mark the beginning of a new year. We took two tours in Richard's Bay, first to the St. Lucia lake to see the plentiful wildlife:

 

 

Hippos! Everywhere! And a major traffic jam, because here, the beaches are open. It's just that alcohol is not allowed, so the cops had a roadblock set up to look for contraband and it naturally tied up traffic in both directions. We've forgotten to mention something. Everywhere one goes, there are people just standing by the roadside with bags and boxes. What are they doing? It turns out, they're waiting for a taxi. A taxi, in South Africa, is a van that seats about 10 to 12 people. They'll pick someone off anywhere and drop them off anywhere, and they tend to travel in packs. They are illegal. They are everywhere.

 

Our second tour took us to the Zulu Croc Preserve. On both trips, we passed a town called Mtubatuba. Now, who's gonna forget a name like that? Our guide gave an interesting lecture on snakes. The green one is the venomous Boomslang. You thought that was just a made-up movie word, didn't you? Admit it!

 

 

The crocodiles know this guy's voice and when they hear him talking. They know they're going to get a snack, so they rush to him. Good thing, we got lots of good shots.

 

 

These birds are common in the preserves. They are called Yellow Weavers.

The males build these nests:

 

Then, the female comes to inspect it. If she disapproves, she cuts the suspension cord. The nest falls to the ground, and the male starts all over again. Unfortunately for the males, there were a lot of nests on the ground.

 

Good-bye, Richard's Bay. On to Mossel Bay. But then, came the Captain on the blower. Low pressure on the horizon. So long, Mossel Bay. Instead, an all-ahead full run for Cape Town. And the sooner we got there, the better. Our luggage was picked up in anticipation of disembarkation in the morning.

 

Oops. Too late. The port closed due to high winds earlier than expected. We were stranded at sea with little information. The luggage was returned to us and the day's activities were announced. We were staying at sea overnight and disembark a day late. We heard that 300 people were in a hotel Cape Town, waiting to board.

 

Came the Captain, on the blower. We were to approach the pilot station, a pilot was coming for a conference. Much to our surprise, two tugs approached and hooked up to us. We were apparently going into port, but nothing was said. Well, the Captain was busy. We were asked to get our luggage back together as it would be picked up shortly. Out went the luggage and we went to the bar to wait. Some groups were called for disembarkation, but not ours. After a while, we learned that we were staying overnight, and our luggage was being returned. Long story short, we finally disembarked the next day and began day two of our post-cruise tour.

South Africa, Part 1

The trip began well with an on-time departure from our home airport. Can't say the same about Atlanta, where our sixteen-hour flight to Cape Town was delayed for over an hour while the crew prayed for the delivery of...wait for it...toilet paper. Okay, we made up a little time and arrived only about a half an hour late.

The following morning we enjoyed an excellent breakfast buffet and then the Wonderland experience began. The cruise line representative was apparently trying to remain incognito, as he had no identification at all. No name tag, no sign. Everyone had to bring their own luggage down to the lobby (very rare, it has always been picked up) and that created a new type of chaos: everyone standing in the way while they stared at their own bags. The transfer busses were late and when the first one showed up, the thundering herd rushed the door. The emergency exit door. We stood calmly waiting, then strolled, equally calmly, to the next bus.

 

Once on board, things naturally improved. Lots of familiar crew people were there, and it's those folks who really count. So. We sailed three hours late while we waited for the delivery of some mystery things that were needed. Maybe toilet paper. Seemed to be plenty of champagne. This type of thing puts Destination Services into orbit, so we steered clear of them and waited to see what happened.

 

No problem. We were off on a boat tour in Walvis Bay, Namibia, to see the oyster beds, the seals, and the dolphins. Not far from the dock, a seal attempted to jump on board! It turned out that Junior, a Cape Fur Seal, was on the payroll. He climbed on and was rewarded with his fill of fish.

 

 Our trusty sea captain:

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was extremely knowlegable about the seals. There are something like two million of them in the area, and half of those are on or around the beach at Pelican Point. One of them is now sporting Gordon's hat, which blew off of his head and went overboard. The Atlantic Bottlenose Dolphins were everywhere, but they're fast and hard to photograph, especially from a very rocky small craft. So look them up yourself.

 

We were treated to a local "coffee" which was actually a very nice local sherry. Later there was sparkling wine and local snacks and sweets.

 

The next day, we went inland. As we drove through Walvis Bay we were amused by the local architecture, which could be described as Modern-art-nouveau-deco-southwestern. Away from town, we headed out to see the dunes and the Welwitschia Plants. These things grow from only two leaves at a rate of a centimeter per year, on a good year. The "middle-sized" ones, like this one,

 

 

are about 700 years old, and they have their own bug, named after them.

 

More:

Yeah, we know, we know.

Next stop, The Moonscape:

 

We stopped at a fun oasis and visited their little zoo before riding through the dunes back to the ship.

 

Sand Dunes, and we don't mean maybe:

 

Christmas day! Caviar and champagne for breakfast and we found another old friend in the restaurant, a gentleman who had been one of our servers on the world cruise in 2017. We were thrilled to see one another again. Smiles all around! We had Christmas goose on the eve, and turkey with the fixins' on the day. The chef showed off two forty-pound, perfectly golden, roasted birds. We were offered leftover turkey on the lunch buffets for several days. The ship was decorated for the holiday, of course, and the restaurant department really knows how to work with gingerbread and frosting:

 

Our next stop was Port Elizabeth, where we went to visit the Addo Elephant Park, where beetles have the right of way, but we didn't see any.

 It being the middle of the day and quite hot, animals were scarce. We did see some Kudu:

 

 

And this hyena, cooling her jets in the watering hole:

 

There were elephants, but they were some distance away. There are better elephant pictures to come, believe us.

 

Now, a word about Apartheid. Let's face it, this separation of people was common around the world, but South Africa gave it a name. Black people were moved to the "townships". Here's what a township looks like, even today, and they are still heavily populated.

 

 

See all those electric lines? They're all illegal. There's no trash pickup. Trash is bagged up, carried across the road, and dropped. And there it remains, or blows around.

Some people have better houses, made of concrete and about the size of a large hotel room. Mostly, they rent these out and stay in the corrugated metal shack. So, it's over, commemorated by naming everything after Nelson Mandela, but it isn't gone.

 

Came the Captain, on the blower, with news! Storm coming. The plan was changed to a three-day slow limp to Durban, with the port call at Maputo canceled. Okay, whatever. After we re-read the description of our proposed tour there, we decided that we didn't miss much, especially since we got a fat rebate for our unused Mozambique visas. And we dodged the Yellow Fever BS that showed up just before we left home. Destination Services was in orbit again, as we moved northeast at five knots. Creeping behind the storm, alone. No sea birds, no sea creatures, no other ships for company. Wait! Company! Two land birds hitched a ride:

 The Slow Boat to Durban finally neared its destination. For three days, we never went over five knots. As an aside, let's understand South African time. We've experienced 'island time', GMT (Goa Maybe Time), IST (India Stretch Time), and Portuguese When-We-Get-Around-To-It time. Now we have SAT: Sometime Around Then.

 

Came the Captain, on the blower, to tell us that the pilot was coming at 6:30 via helicopter. The deck hands enlisted every crew member they could grab to clear the top two decks. That done, came the Captain once again to say never mind, the pilot is coming at 6:30 via boat. The deck crew set everything back up. The pilot arrived in SAT time, closer to 7:00. Can't say a lot about Durban. It has beaches:

 

 

But the beaches nearest the city are closed during holidays because a lot of folks with nothing to do go down to the beaches in hordes and cause trouble. Think spring break.

 

We did get a photo of a heard of giraffes:

 

 

Yes, that's what the ship loaders are called in these parts.