Time for a little South African Safari!

Ok, so here's the big update on our upcoming trip. Joe and I are finally using the trip given to use as a gift as the fundraiser we attended last October! About a week ago, we decided on a time to go, I got tickets, and we leave on June 26th for South Africa! What an exciting time it'll be! I can't believe it's less than 20 days away at this point! We'll only be going on the safari, and not doing extra side stuff like flying down to Cape Town, and then driving up to Gaansbai for diving with the Great White sharks, but that's ok. Another time, another trip. I am so thrilled we're going to be able to get away at all for that one big trip before kids!! Our main reason for waiting a couple of years after getting married before having kids was to get some good traveling in. Well... due to busy schedules and all our money going into remodeling our house, we haven't done that yet! So, South Africa, here we come!

We'll be flying through London, with an 8 hour layover, so we should even have a chance to leave the airport and see an old family friend that was like an uncle to me when I was young! I haven't seen him since I was probably 10 years old, so it's very exciting! He's now married and has kids of his own that we'll get to meet! Plus, it'll be a great break from the airport and airplanes during our long trip.

Once we arrive in Johannesburg, we'll have about an hour and a half to get our bags, get through customs, and check in, go back through security, and board our flight to Richard's Bay. I'm worried that connection is way too tight, but if we took the next later flight, we'd have to wait 5.5 hours for it. And, that's our first day at our safari destination, so I wanted us to get to the lodge before dark! Once we arrive in Richard's Bay, someone will pick us up and drive us about 2 hours to the Heritage Safari Lodge. It looks really gorgeous from the pictures! We'll be on safari in the area where the Kim Bassinger movie, "I Dream of Africa" was filmed! Yes, it's that cool! But, thinking of that movie makes me think of the poisonous snakes her son had caught in the area and the mamba that bit him and killed him. Yikes! What a sad movie!

Enough said, Joe and I are headed off on a fantastic adventure. One more thing to stretch our already suffocatingly tight budget, but it's the perfect thing for the two of us to celebrate 2 years of marriage (on June 18th!) and be alone together before becoming first time parents!!!