Fri 14 Aug Flew to Masi Mara Game reserve, which took about 45 minutes. Went on afternoon game drive. Saw elephants, lions, etc. One of the first things I noticed was that the grass is the exact same color as lion fur. We rode around in a beat-up old Land Cruiser driven by a member of the Kalenjin tribe (same tribe as president Moi) named Musa who is one of the best four-wheel drivers I've ever seen. He said he'd been game driving for 14 years.

	This is the departure lounge for Air Kenya, the airline we used to hop around Kenya. As you can see, the departure lounge is just a hanger. Linda, Brandon, and little Jenny are on the right.
	Here's a photo of the plane we flew from Wilson Airport in Nairobi to the landing strip in the Mara.
	We had two tents in Mara, and here's the Kutzler family in front of one. It has its own foundation, a bathroom, and two double beds. Essentially, it's a hotel room with canvas walls. This particular tent faces the Mara river. At night, we could hear and see (with a flashlight) hippos climbing out of the river.
	This is a baby elephant we saw on our afternoon drive. He's (or maybe she's) standing in the shadow of it's mother, and he looks just like dumbo.
	Here's a silhouette of an acacia tree. This kind of image symbolizes Africa. You can see the Siria Escarpment that defines the western edge of the Mara in the background.
	This is the only adult male lion I saw on the trip. I saw four adult females and three cubs in the Mara. This guy had been fighting, and you can see from the big scratch on his nose.
	Here's another shot of the same guy. You can see that we were pretty close to him. My lense was zoomed to the max at 120mm. You can see from his belly that he recently had a good meal.
	You can get a feel for how close we were to the lion. The rail on the edge of our open-top land rover is in the foreground.
	Here's a female who had previoulsy been relaxing invisibly in the grass. She decided to stand up, and I was able to click off a few frames.
	Her mouth is open because she's trying to pick up a scent from the air.
	Now we're on the afternoon game drive. We went back to the lions again, and the male had moved about 20 meters closer to the place where the females were relaxing. I just want to reach out and scratch this guy behind the ear.

Sat 15 Aug Happy Bithday, Linda! We started the day with an early game drived followed by breakfast above the Mara River. Below was a crocodile and a group of hippos. Later that morning we went to another part of the Mara River and saw a larger group of hippos. We were standing out of the land rover looking into the river. Ed was wearing my favorite Nike cap and holding Andrew. Can you guess what happened next? Yep, Andrew took the hat off of daddy's head and threw it in the Mara River, launching the Great Hat Rescue. In the afternoon we went looking for a cheetah that had been spotted in the area, but we didn't find it. It rained on us a bit, but we had a spectacular sunset.

	Here's a cool shot of a baby zebra suckling. I digitally "brightened" this image, so it looks a little unnaturally vivid.
	This crocodile was just down river from the hippos shown below, and just down the bank from where we ate breakfast.
	Here's a mama and baby hippo just below our breakfast table.
	It's breakfast time. Around the table clockwise from the foreground are Brandon, Jennifer, Linda, Ed, Andrew, and my empty seat. You can see my lens cap on the table. It's still in Africa--somewhere in the tall grass of the Mara.
	On our mid-morning game drive, and we came across this pile of bones. They'd been there for some time. This is the only pile of bones I saw on the trip. Hyenas eat bones, which is why you don't see more. Maybe they belonged to a waterbuck (next picture).
	This is a waterbuck.
	We were following this male elephant down the road, and I guess we got too close because he spun around, flapped his ears, and snorted at us. Our driver, immediately stopped, and the elephant turned around and went on his way. If you look to the left of the elephant, you can see another in the distance.
	This vulture was hanging out in a tree not to far from the male elephant.
	We stopped and got out of the vehicle near the Mara River to look at some hippos. This guy was walking down the bank (the same bank we were on) just up river from us.
	Here's a picture of Brandon, Andrew, and me in front of the land rover.
	I think this is the same crocodile we saw earlier, but I zoomed in a lot closer with this frame. I think I took this picture around lunch time.
	We spent the afternoon looking for a cheetah. We didn't find it, but I did get this cool picture of a giraffe. You can't tell, but this guy is taking a pee.
	It rained that afternoon, which made for a beautiful sunset. The "road" we were on filled up with water and turned into a muddy, slippery mess.

Sun 16 Aug We went for a game drive in the morning and flew back to Nairobi in the afternoon. I'm writing this by candlelight. After returning to Nairobi and grabbing a late lunch/early dinner Linda, Ed, and I were talking about how Nairobi could be a great city with a bit more infrastructure. On cue, the power went out.

	This is the only flash picture I took on the trip. This is a hyena den that we drove by in the early morning before breakfast.
	This is one of my favorite pictures--sunrise on the Mara over an acacia tree.
	We entered a herd of about 50 cape buffalo. This picture is also digitally "brightened".
	We went back to see the lions that we'd seen the previous day, and I got some great pictures, including some cubs.
	This lioness looks like she's full, pregnent, or nursing, or some combination. She strolled up to the den from the plains. The den was a slightly depressed area with grass that was a little longer than the rest of the plains.
	I guess the lioness was coming home to check on these two little guys.
	This next series of pictures is probably the best I took on the entire trip. One of the three cubs had wandered too close to a land rover, so mom (or aunt?) decided to move the little guy back to the den.
	Turning around.
	Heading back to the den. Look for the other two cubs in this photo.
	Almost there.
	We saw a leopard the morning of the 16th. This is also the morning I lost my lens cap over the edge of the land rover while trying to get a photo of the leopard. The lens cap vanished into the grass. Notice that this leopard is running. It had been flushed out of its hiding place by some tourists in a Suzuki Samuri. When it became apparent that they were going to force the leopard to move, I was excited that I was going to get a good picture, but afterwards I was a little upset with myself that we had disturbed this creature who was just trying to relax. You'll also noticed in the picture that the grass has been burned. The Masai do that so that new grass for their cattle will grow. This picture was taken outside the Reserve.
	Here's the plane we flew in back to Nairobi.

Mon 17 Aug Happy Birthday, Mom! Today, I hung around Nairobi. I walked the Windsor Country Club golf course while Linda played golf with her friend Lois. I've never been interested in learning golf because it seems like a supremely frustrating game. After watching Linda, my opinion stands. Especially when a monkey comes out of the bush to steal your golf ball. I'll stick to climbing. In the afternoon, I went to a meeting at American Ambassabor Prudence Bushnell's house, which was held for all Americans in Kenya. There were about 500 people there. The meeting started approriately with a moment of silence for the victims of the 7 Aug bomb blast that created a creator 40 feet across and 12 feet deep. Tomorrow we leave for Amboseli.