we are back

and we have landed in Seattle. Because we travel so much we wanted to keep this blog-so our parents can find us.

This was our tent. Not exactly roughing it, but it was comfortable. Here's Emily studying the bird book.

These yellow stork's were in the tree outside our tent.

And this was our shower. There is nothing better than an outdoor shower.

These are elands. They are HUGE! If you've read Guns Germs and Steal, he mentions people trying to domesticate them. You can see why they didn't succeed.

We woke up early on the second day for a forming game drive. We weren't expecting how cold it would be. Living in Kenya for too long makes you very unprepared for the cold.

Dawn over the savanna. Dawn should always come with zebras.

We kept driving and came across a pack of hyenas. They aren't very popular, but they're pretty cool. This group was just prowling around looking for something to scavenge.

It was still cold, but our guide brought coffee, which was lovely.

An Emily loves coffee.

Toward the end of the first evening, we spotted a group of cheetahs. There was a mother with her two almost full grown cubs. We interupted hunt, so the decided to play instead.

The thought we were pretty luck to spot them.

Then they decided to come investigate.

They weren't afraid of the car

The cubs started fighting, and acting like a couple of cats.

To keep an eye on them, the mother decided to jump up on the bonnet.

For those familiar with Kenya, the Masai Mara looks a lot like other parts of the country, but for reasons I still not sure about, there is an especially high density of animals here. These next few photos give a sense of the landscape. Lots of grassland with patches of wooded areas. It reminds us a lot of eastern Oregon and Washington.

Unfortunately there are a lot of truck tracks. It's fun to just take off across the bush, but when it's wet, it really leaves a mark.

These are topis, funny looking antelope that look like they're wearing blue jeans.

...and they hop!

This is a very large eagle, probably a tawny eagle. The bird nerdiness is in fine form on this trip.

Oh look, there's an elephant.

He's looking at us. How nice.

An he's even posing for a photo. Good thing he's not too close.

Spoke too soon, he's pretty close now. The guide said he was just moving downhill, but it felt a lot like he was charging us.

and so we go east

Do to our inability to drive anywhere outside of the city, we took a teeny tiny plane east, to the land of Arab traders: Lamu. Its on the Indian Ocean. Here is a famous Lamu door. Lamu is also famous for mangy rogue cats. Sorry, if you prefer cats. I guess we prefer taking pictures of doors. Come to think of it, this blog is named after our door.... Anyway here is the door. Please let us know if you want more door pictures. There are plenty more where this came from :)

That was fancy door. Here is a more typical door scenario:

Apparently all those government warnings about travel to Kenya are working: there was NO ONE there. As evidence I show you this image of a seaside restaurant: see, not a soul.

I would love to post nothing but pictures, but it takes SOOO long for them to upload it is just not feasible. We try, we really do.

Anyway, this weekend we head west. Massi Mara here we come. It is a bird trip really. We are trying to see 200 birds while in Kenya. We are at 161 and are leaving on March 25th. Wish us luck. By the way, we have gone off the deep end. Please email if you want a copy of our bird sighting excel spreadsheet sortable by bird, location and date.

What you do when you are stuck at home.....

You cook endless yummy yummy meals and drink a lot of wine, or at least that is what we do. This seems as good a time as any to mention what an amazing chef Brandon is. Sure I bake, I can make some good soups, but Brandon really has the gift! I am a lucky lady. So here is a shot of me in my new day job, sure I may be trained as a paleontologist, but sous chef may be a not too distant second.....

Today is the first day of three days of rallies....and it is raining! Everyone stayed home it seems and, once again, the city is very quiet. We are making pizza, by hand, in the living room. So this is not the most exciting post. We just wanted to let everyone know that we are fine, working from home and loving the rain.

emily...contemplative

Ok, so we have forgotten about our blog, but to be fair we are experiencing a little civil unrest. First off, we are fine, (*hi mom*), but I know it looks bad on CNN. We watch too.... where we live it has just been really really quiet, and we are bored.

The word on the street is that more rallies are planned, but I am not sure if they will get off the ground. The momentum seems to be fading a bit. People want to get back to work, eat, etc. our way of dealing is to just stay home. This means I have no choice but to keep working on my NSF grant (*fingers crossed*).

You know what I miss... the internet. If I recall there are places in the world where you can check your email from thin air, where you can download PDF's at a moments notice and check in with the world with podcasts. Oh...we just don't have the bandwidth.

So it is a new year. We have three months left and we have never been on safari. So I suppose that is our big priority of the new year (*thanks to Paul and Carolyn Guthrie*). So Masai Mara here we come.....I guess the dress code is safari chic.