Kenya 2025 Safari day in Masai Mara Saturday was our only full-day safari of this trip. The other safaris we have planned will be no more than a few hours at a time, but this time we needed to go a long distance to where we could see lions and cheetahs, so we brought box lunches and
Kenya 2025 Lions and leopards on spa day Today we went on a safari from 7:00 to 1:00, then we spent the rest of the day at the hotel. This was our first afternoon/evening with no plans, a chance to recharge before we fly to Amboseli National Park tomorrow, and we spent it at the
Kenya 2025 Arriving in Amboseli Today was about getting from Masai Mara National Reserve, where we've spent the last three nights, to Amboseli National Park, where we'll spend the next two nights. Our guide Willie had driven to Nairobi with most of our luggage yesterday afternoon, and he was on the
Kenya 2025 Elephants of Amboseli Yesterday we went on three different safari outings – sunrise, mid-day, and after dark – and we saw hundreds of elephants. Amboseli has 2500+ elephants in a relatively small area, and around every corner you'll see some. It's often a group of ten or twenty, and sometimes a
Kenya 2025 Safaris dawn to dusk Tuesday was a long day. We left on our first safari at 6:00 in the morning, came back for a late breakfast, then went out again at 10:00, then relaxed at the hotel in the afternoon, then went out for an after-dark safari after 7PM, followed by a
Kenya 2025 Travel to Tsavo Wednesday was mostly a travel day, to get from Ambroseli National Park to Tsavo West National Park. The distance was only about 60 miles, but much of it was on very rough roads, and we stopped at a Masaai village and a Masaai school, so the journey took several hours.
Kenya 2025 King of the Jungle After arriving at Tsavo West National Park on Wednesday afternoon, Thursday was our one full day there before starting for home on Friday. We went on safaris in the morning and afternoon, and also spent several hours sitting on the deck of that bar/restaurant, where we could watch the
Kenya 2025 Heading for Home The final day of our trip was a long one: two days long, to be exact. It was a little over 48 hours from when we woke in in West Tsavo National Park until we went to bed at home in Butte, Montana, including 43 hours of travel time from
Kenya 2025 Kenya trip wrap-up This blog post covers some final thoughts on our trip to Kenya: things we learned, what we liked, what we might do differently if we did it again, and so on. These are just my own thoughts, and I'm no expert, having only been to Kenya twice and
Retirement Washing My Bowl For the holidays this year, we drove from Butte to Berkeley to spend Christmas with Megan's extended family. It was great to see people I haven't seen for a few years, and I enjoyed catching up with Megan's uncle Grant, who has been retired
travel Walking the Moors This is a post that originally appeared on my old website in August 2014. It's one of the posts that was too large or complicated to be migrated to my new blog platform in 2018, and I'm steadily (well, erratically) migrating those old posts manually so
health Time for a new knee My right knee has been a problem for a long time. When I was 19 years old, I fell off a scaffold at a construction project on the Yakama Indian Reservation and tore it up good, resulting in a complicated surgery at the old Yakima Valley Memorial Hospital that left
workshop Restoring Grandpa's chess table My Grandpa Mahugh worked with his hands. He was one of the 10,000 workers who built the Fort Peck Dam, and after the dam was completed in the late 1930s he went to work there as a mechanic. In the 1950s, he moved to Bremerton, Washington to take a
workshop Building a crosscut sled Last week, I mentioned on the Jamie Samoyed's Pack group that I had finished building a crosscut sled. I should have realized that would be confusing, because that's a Facebook group about the lives of our sled dogs. So I've put together this post
Retirement: Year 1 As of this week, I have already been retired for a full year. Time flies! This post is a look back at some of my favorite memories from my first year of not working and focusing on just enjoying life. I was expecting to play more music than I did
Jamie Samoyed's Pack As of a few minutes ago, we have rolled out the all-new Jamie Samoyed's Pack page on Facebook. The goal of this change is simple: more fun, less spam! You can find it by searching Facebook Groups for Jamie Samoyed's Pack, or by following this link:
Going Private I had been planning to change the Jamie Samoyed page on Facebook from public to private today, and I had started putting together this post together to answer a few questions that came up about the details of the change. But after spending a few hours researching the details, I&
workshop Building a Workbench Another long blog post. TL;DR version: I built a workbench, it was fun and I learned a lot, and now I've started using it. When I retired in July of this year, woodworking was high on the list of things I was looking forward to spending my
The Reality of Retirement I'm sitting on the deck with the dogs, on day 105 of my retirement, and I've decided to write a blog post. Not sure where this is headed, but blogging was one of the things I was looking forward to doing more of after retirement, and
Settling down in Butte, America How can I be turning 65 years old in May 2023? I still feel like I'm trying to figure out what I want to do when I grow up, but I'm about to officially become elderly. In keeping with the tradition of old people blathering on
Big Butte Two striking landmarks come into view when you drive into Butte on I-90: the massive terraced walls of Berkeley Pit, and the rounded peak of Big Butte, the hill towering above the west side of town. Berkeley Pit is a relatively new phenomenon, an artifact of Butte's shift
Wordle Art Wordle took the Twitterverse by storm during the winter of 2021-2022. Within a month or two of the game's release in October 2021, millions of people were playing every day, or making fun of those who were. People post their Wordle scores every day, often to brag about
social media Terminating Twitter I deactivated my Twitter account this week. They give you a 30-day grace period to change your mind before it's permanently deleted, so May 25 will be the day I toast the fun I had on Twitter, looking forward to all the hours I'll be spending
Our Lady of the Rockies Our Lady of the Rockies is a 90-foot statue along the Continental Divide looking down on Butte, Montana from a few miles away and over 3000 feet above the Mining City. There is controversy around the statue because it's a religious symbol, and its position high on the
Butte The Original Silicon Valley There's an area of the United States that has played a unique role in enabling the use of modern technology across North America, attracting workers from around the world and creating unparalleled wealth for entrepreneurs. I'm taking about Butte, Montana, of course, "The Richest Hill
