Day 1

So today was a good day.  I am going to try and do a daily post, which will probably turn into a weekly one by the end of the trip.  Anyway, today was a good day.  What made it good wasn't because we had to get up at 5:30 in the morning. Or because we almost ran out of gas.  No, what made it good was the fact that we got to go into Kruger National Park. For those of you that don't know, Kruger is a wildlife refuge.  It has the big five (Lions, Elephants, Giraffes, water buffalo, and leopards).  It also has various other animals.  So after talking with Beer's dad the night before, we decided to head out really early to catch all of the animals. We almost succceeded.  We got to see three of the big five, and several of the other African species.  It was really cool.  We got to the gate at around 6:20 and saw many of the animals within an hour and half.  What was also really neat was getting to see the animals in their natural habitat.  Most of these animals we have seen at the zoo; however, they are confined to a small enclosure and so they don't behave as they normally do. In Kruger they are roaming free and so you can actually get really close to them.  It was so cool.  The best part was when we had a close encounter with an elephant.  I was able to get one picture, but it actually got closer than where the picture was taken. It was probably about three feet from the passenger side door. My blood was pumping thinking about what it could do if it got angry or felt threatened. I will say that the elephant encounter would have only been trumped by seeing a lion or a leopard.  Trevor and I kept hoping that we could see one take down an impala and start to feed.  Sadly that never happened.  However, it was still a great experience and I hope to get to do it again.  After the park we had to try to make our way to town and get fuel. We were down to an eighth of a tank and I was reeeaaallly woried that we wouldn make it to a gas station.  Luckily we got there just as the last bar on the fuel gauge was going away.  After getting gas we headed back to the house. Trevor decided to go for a jog and I wanted to do a little bit of blogging.  So I blogged and watched rugby for a while.  After that I decided that it was time for a little nap and so I got a couple of hour of sleep.  I then decided to get up and so I went and fixed some dinner.  Trevor and I watch a replay of the Chelsea v. Munich final.  I had forgotten how much I dislike watching soccer.  Playing I can do, but watching is not my cup of tea.  After the game we decided that it was time for bed.  Yes it is eight o'clock at night and yes I would normally wake up at two in the morning and be wide awake, but I took a sleeping pill and so I shouldn't have any trouble knocking my self out. In fact as I type this I can feel myself getting tireder and tireder.  So I guess then I am going to go ahead and call it a night.  This is Ryan Dillon signing off.