EngelFish.Net

After a long long night of driving and working on the computer, we made it to North Dakota. Taryn has a friend from South African, Wayne Casey, who’s over here for a few months learning how American’s farm. He’s been great to visit with, and has provided us with a place to get some real sleep and a hot shower. It has been really great. They’re catching up and enjoying the conversation.

In haste and carelessness, I’ve managed to allow a virus to infect my computer (a.k.a. the blackbox). I wrestled with it until after four this morning, and have been fooling around with it sporadically today. The resident IT guru, Rob, thinks it’s time for a clean slate and I’m inclined to agree. I don’t relish the idea of spending a few hours of this weekend blowing it away and reinstalling everything, but it’s better than the ongoing agony of popups, browser hijacks, and possibly compromised data. I may be offline all weekend, but hopefully “bb” will be feeling spiffy and sprightly come Monday morning. I really need to build another PC though, with more storage. Digital photography may save on film costs, but having to constantly buy additional drives to hold your archive is bloody expensive (no I don’t feel safe having archived copies on DVD… I need two copies to sleep at night).

Tonight is a dinner out for Taryn’s birthday. We’ll be dining and drinking at Humble Pie, along with 10 of our closest friends. If you’re in town, I hope you’ll be there!

IMAGE: This is from the last trip to SA, and it’s a scene I shot from the car window as we drove back home from Gran Blakeman’s house. Acacia trees and red dirt. Both unique and familiar. The trees remind me of how different Africa is from home, and the red dirt is so very North Carolina.

For the past few weeks, Taryn’s Gran Campbell has been struggling with illnesses that hospitalized her. Last Friday, she lost her fight and passed away. I didn’t have a chance to know her well, but I know how loved she is by Taryn. This past week has been tough for Taryn, and it seems that our world is filled with reminders of Gran. I want stop for a moment to say goodbye to the sweet, warm, and loving grandmother who was so kind, and to tell Taryn again how sorry I am for the loss. Gran’s battles are over, and now she can rest.

January in Kwa Zulu-Natal, South Africa is hot. As we were leaving the Tala Valley Game Reserve, we saw these Eland and this Rhino lounging about. It had rained like the end of the world the night before, and the heat was on, so they were resting through the worst of the midday humidity. If you’ve never been up close to these animals it’s hard to imagine just how big they really are. I mean huge. It would be easy to spend a whole day just watching them run and go about their lives. I tried to imagine what it would be like to live in their world prior to the coming of fences, rifles, and the protections of civilization. How humbling would it be to live *in* their world, where you were just another animal trying to avoid the predators. And compete with beasts like this for survival. Sobering stuff.