Abandon Ship!

When we last updated the blog, it was December, and I was writing about our Moroccan adventure. We were on a flight to London where we spent a week before we flew home for the holidays. I neglected to write my last three posts because I got caught up in the whirlwind of the holidays, and then preparing for our current adventure.

It was wonderful to spend weeks with friends and family and our grand-animals, Winston and Freddy. We also got to spend time in Oxford and catch a basketball and baseball game. Lunch with Randy Pierce, and a tour of the Ole Miss Athletic facilities, made up for missing the last two football seasons. I also got to put the finishing touches on our son's Oxford condo and we had too much fun meeting our new neighbors.

It is now February and once again, we find ourselves on a flight to London to take up where we left off on our slow trip “Ol Around the World.”

So, I now have ample time to catch up and write about our trip to the Atlas Mountains and the Atlantic coast in Morocco, plus our December trip to London, Windsor, and Bath in England. I feel like I’m back at work at a job I love!

I also need a separate blog post to explain why we are not basking in the sun right now aboard our friend’s boat on our planned cruise through the Caribbean, and instead find ourselves headed for an entirely different adventure in the Middle East and Africa. This deserves its own post, because our plans changed greatly when Captain Bill called us to back out of our long planned Caribbean trip just a few short weeks before our scheduled departure.

I had to quickly shift gears from ordering swimsuits and coverups, to finding the perfect safari hat. I was worried that Amazon was going to ban me because of all of my returns! We were able to cancel our dive gear order and the Caribbean maps, charts, software, and navigation flags. Unfortunately, I now own more swimsuits and coverups than I could possibly wear in a lifetime, as they were not returnable! For a few weeks after our trip was cancelled, things that I had ordered would arrive in the mail and I found myself reliving my disappointment all over again.

Well, things happen for a reason. At last report, Captain Bill was still stuck in the boatyard with no immediate cruise plans, and we were able to get a great deal on a tour to Israel, Jordan and Egypt with just enough lead time to secure good Airbnb rentals in South Africa and reservations at some of the South African National Parks that we want to visit. And, the good news is that we already had everything that we needed for this trip, with the exception of a new pair of boots for Ol, some socks, our Safari hats, and two olive green field jackets.

Also, we were able to rent a safari vehicle for most of our time in South Africa. Now my only worry is that we have a manual transmission in our SUV rental and we have to learn to drive on the wrong side of the road and shift with our left hand (and by “we” I mean Ol). I am sure that roundabouts and turns are going to be quite exciting. I promise to upload videos! Oh, I do have one more worry; Ol getting out of our vehicle to take pictures! Heck, I’m even worried about rolling the window down after watching Youtube videos! I still haven’t figured out what we are supposed to do if nature calls and we are out in the bush.

It should be exciting as we plan on traveling by, plane, train, car, bus, balloon, and boat. We will stay in everything from 5 star hotels to our trusted little tent that we are carrying with us. We plan on driving across deserts, mountains, coastlines, and savannas . We will climb pyramids, sand dunes, and hope to summit Mt. Kilimanjaro. We have plans to sleep under the stars in a Bedouin desert camp, in tents on safari, and on the deck of a small boat as we sail up the Nile.

On this journey we plan to visit several African countries, along with Israel, Jordan, Dubai and Greece. We plan to spend three weeks in Kruger National Park in South Africa and then fly north to Kenya and the Serengeti to witness the mass migration. Ol wants the famed instagram shot of swimming above Victoria Falls, and I’m sure that he has a list of other crazy shots that he is keeping from me.

We plan to have our children will join us for a few weeks this summer. As we travel slowly, I will continue to blog about our experiences and Ol will try to capture our memories with his stunning photography. For both of us this really is the trip of a lifetime and we hope that you will join us by following along on our blog at www.olaroundtheworld.com and on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.