Walking With Giraffes

Saturday, May 14

The alarm sounded at 6 a.m. Saturday morning, but we were not tired in the least.  After all, this was our first morning not to awaken on the North American continent in our whole lives.  That is a combined 94 years between the two of us!

After a quick cup of coffee and grabbing a piece of toast and a cup of yogurt, we headed out for our first day of hunting in South Africa.

Things were a little hazy that morning, but it turned into a beautiful day.  Our first stop was at the Lookout Tree.

That is our Professional Hunter, Arno, in the picture above and our tracker, Godfrey, in the picture below.

Nothing was really moving at the time, so we decided to just drive around and see if we stumbled upon anything.

About an hour later, the strangest sight met our eyes on the horizon.

Giraffes necks sticking up over the tops of trees!  I was snapping pictures like crazy when Arno said, "Hold on and we will get closer."  And closer we got.

But not in the truck, like I had assumed we would.  No, we got out and walked with the giraffes!!

This is not the best picture of me, but it shows just how close we were able to get...and really even a little closer as there are a couple of giraffes to the right of the frame that were closer than these in the background.

On our last day in South Africa, someone referred to the giraffe as 'The Supermodel of the Bush'.  I think it must be true.  Anytime you pulled out a camera they got closer to see what you were doing and began posing.  Look at that mug!

But this was my favorite sight of the day...of the whole trip really. I just enjoyed spending time with My Hero doing something he loved to do and uninterrupted by commitments or cell phone calls. It was wonderful. Tune in tomorrow for pictures of our Saturday evening hunt.