{"id":686,"date":"2019-02-16T17:53:52","date_gmt":"2019-02-16T22:53:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wiredtotheworld.net\/Travel\/?p=686"},"modified":"2019-02-17T16:56:37","modified_gmt":"2019-02-17T21:56:37","slug":"on-the-road-again-sort-of","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wiredtotheworld.net\/Travel\/2019\/02\/16\/on-the-road-again-sort-of\/","title":{"rendered":"On the Road Again… Sort of"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I started writing this post three weeks after we returned to the United States from Tanzania and Kenya. I had originally planned to maintain the blog on a daily basis and soon gave that up because of the tour schedule and the volume of pictures we shot every day. This post will not be a description of our daily activities which were essentially the same… daily game drives originating from different locations. Instead, the post will focus on the pictures we took during those drives. Don’t worry, I won’t post the 3,000 plus pictures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We left Sarasota on January 3rd and headed to Miami International Airport for the first leg of our trip to Tanzania, a 9-hour flight to Amsterdam. After a three-hour layover, we took off for Kilimanjaro Airport in Tanzania<\/a>, a half hour ride from our first stop in Arusha<\/a>. We met Eric, our Tour Director, and fellow travelers at the hotel and began our Tauck Tour. Rather than describe the tour, I suggest following this link for a description of the itinerary<\/a>. Most of the roads we traveled on were bumpy dirt tracks. It also included four flights on small chartered aircraft. Two of the flights were on a Twin Otter<\/a>, that was 45 years old… not an unusual feat for that plane.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our journey back to Sarasota was, in a word, epic. We left the Maasai Mara Reserve for a one-hour flight to Nairobi at 8 am local time (eight-hour difference from Eastern Time). The flight landed in a small commercial airport south of the city. The original plan was to stay in a hotel in downtown Nairobi before heading to the International Airport. Due to the terrorist attack on the previous day, Tauck decided that we would not go downtown and placed us in a hotel at the International Airport. Our eight-hour flight to Paris left Nairobi around midnight. After a four hour layover, we took off for the ten-hour flight to Miami. Due to the Federal Government shutdown, the immigration and customs process took a lot longer than our previous experience at Miami International airport. After retrieving our car, we drove to Sarasota. Total time… nearly twenty-four hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Four days after we got back to Sarasota, we headed to Seattle for The American Library Association Winter Meeting. While Susie was in meetings, I stayed in the hotel and worked on selecting the pictures, a process that took longer than I anticipated. After returning from Seattle, we spent four days traveling in Florida, meeting family and friends. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The pictures that follow are sorted by category rather than following a time line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ANIMALS<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n