Lake Natron and Masai Boma

 Natron

We spent a couple of days here.  It got warm enough that they put portable air conditioning units in the bungalows.  I didn't get a lot of pictures because there wasn't much of a Safari element to this part of the trip.  The "Mountain of God" dominated the land scape.  This is an active volcano.  It last erupted in 2007.  Our guide for a waterfall and lake hike had lived during those times and talked about how they offer hikes at night to the top of the mountain.  I took a pass on that.

The little pathways between bungalows.

Masai Boma

In contrast to  Lake Natron, we got a lot of imagery on Safari at Poeleti Game Reserve.  Lets start with the Leopard.

    

His kill...

Some video

Wildebeest eating

A crowned Lapwing

Cheetahs at the kill, a mother with her 5 almost grown cubs.

As soon as the Cheetahs left the kill, the Vultures and a couple of Jackals came in for their share.  There was some squabbling.

Some elephants socializing.

Topi

An African Gray Flycatcher

Jackal den with a cute puppy who barely peeked out for a split second.

Red-billed Ox-pecker

Three vultures and a Giraffe.

Hippo skull

And the ubiquitous zebra

Lake Manyara

 On this leg of our journey we drove along a lakeside.  We didn't see as much.  I'll start with this Black-winged Red Bishop.

More baboons - a lot of grooming was happening, but I didn't catch as much of it as I would have liked.

An African honey bee.

A Yellow-Billed Stork

A water fall

A Hawk Eagle

Hadada Ibis and Sacred Ibis hanging out together.

Lake Manyara itself

More elephants, but nothing new, so I'll leave out the pictures.

Tarangire

 We started our day with Vervet Monkeys.

Then the Lilac-Breasted Roller

D'arnaud's Barbet - not a great picture, but the only one I got.

A lone Red-billed Hornbill chilling with some Superb Starlings.  The starlings had to be one of the most common birds we saw in Tanzania.

A speckled mouse bird - again, not a great picture, but it was a fairly elusive bird.

A white crowned shrike.

The bare-faced go-away bird.

Hanging out in the Acacia tree - one looks a little hen-pecked.

Von Der Decken's hornbill

White headed buffalo weaver.  There were a lot of buffalo weavers

A Cape buffalo with, if you look closely, ox peckers.

We saw a leopard, but I did not get a good picture.  I have a better one from Masai Boma that I will share later.

The Tarangire river.

A nice overview of the region.

A good close-up of this Vervet monkey during our lunch break.

Tawny Eagles

A Steppe Eagle

Lions in a tree.

A yellow-necked spur fowl

Waterbucks

And the ubiquitous Impala

The only video worth sharing, notice the baby elephant in the far left.

East Africa - Arusha

Travel

So, I went back to Africa.  To East Africa, specifically Tanzania.  Booked a  Safari for like 15 days.  Started in Arusha.  Saw some Baboons.  There are a lot of Baboons in Africa.  We saw many.  Not sure if it was even worth taking a video of them.

Caught this Black Heron grabbing a quick bite.  One of my favorite videos from the trip.

Here is the required Elephant video.

A bunch of Giraffe.

My first trip to Africa, warthogs were hard to photograph.  I got a few on this trip, but they are still pretty elusive.

Even though the foliage got in the way, I like this photograph of these monkeys hanging out together.

A water buck out standing in the field.

We did see other birds, like this immature Spur winged goose.

A bee eater.  We saw a lot of these, probably not the best picture.

And a male Purple banded Sunbird.

Running

I ran no races for 25-26 academic year.  I injured my left knee and just neve could get back into the swing of training.

For 24-25 I ran the Two Cities marathon in Fall 2024, and the Classic Half-Marathon in Spring 2025.

I improved my Two Cities time to 4 hours and 37 minutes.  More importantly, I felt good at the end and not awful like the last time where I maxed out my long run at 14 miles.  Training to run four and half hours really made a difference.

Still trying to get back under two hours for my half-marathon time.  I was unsuccessful at the California Classic, but strangely, managed to finish 3rd in my age group.  

Four and a half hours

 Running

I was successful. I finished a 4.5 hour run.  The first four hours weren't too bad.  I actually managed my 4.5 mile loop 4 times in record time, as in faster then the last time I tried to run 4 loops.  The wheels came off at the end of that.  I had dropped from 10 minute to 11 minute miles, but I really thought I could maintain at least 12 minute pace for my last half hour.  However, I started feeling dizzy.  So, I tried mixing in some running with some walking and headed back to the apartment to refill my bottle with water.  I kept moving that last half hour, but instead of 23 miles, I only managed 22.

I have one more four and a half hour run to do.  Hopefully, I can hit 23 miles on that effort.

Tomorrow, I'm only doing three loops easy (~14 miles) and then adding 3 more miles at marathon pace or whatever I can stand.  I really felt like fast finish runs like this prepared me well for the California International Marathon (CIM), and I want fit some into this training cycle.

Travel

One thing that hasn't suffered too much since retirement is travel.  I've already gone into the whole Panama escapade.  We bought another trailer and traveled to Texas from California, then up to Washington.

White Sands

  We also took a Gate 1 tour of eastern Europe in 2022.  It included Albania, Montenegro, Croatia, and Slovenia.

Tirana

Bled Slovania

Then to the Columbia River Gorge.

Mount Saint Helens

In 2023 we returned to Amsterdam to meet our son during his Math conference that he was attending.

They make some fabulous hot chocolate in the Netherlands.

Then we flew into Portugal, the Algarve

We went to a few places in Portugal, Coimbra, Porto, Lisbon, Nazare, and Evora.  We found some Roman ruins.

Then we took a ship out of Lisbon and did a trans-Atlantic crossing.  

But I'll save the rest for another post