Time away from work is an essential element of my mental health care plan. This time can take many forms and it was during our most recent trip that it sunk in how lucky I am to be able to go to “destinations” and not just be on “vacation”. In the lead up to our trip to Africa, I had many conversations with friends and family about those destinations and found it interesting how very different our desires are for the place that you “just have to visit”. Our original intent after we got married in 2020 was to have our honeymoon in Africa. Very clearly COVID-19 had other plans. But were it not for COVID, we would have had a very conventional wedding instead of sharing our vows next to an alpine lake at 12,000 feet. Going into this trip I was concerned at some level, that given all the time and effort to arrange this trip, that our experience would be little better than going to a safari park. Thankfully I could not have been more wrong! Our trip was centered in Tanzania spending 8 days on safari then 3 days of relaxation at the end in Zanzibar. Adding on top of this 2 days of travel (each way) involving 20 hours in the air and crossing 7 time zones. One can’t help but have expectations for a trip, my only “goal” was to take 50 awesome photos. Arriving late evening in Kilimanjaro, I had not expected to reach a quarter of that goal during our initial day of “rest”. Between Lindsay and myself we took almost 14,000 photos, which we have been able to edit down to about 1000 . This is one occasion where thousands of pictures that did not make the cut, no so much from lack of quality but we didn't see a need to publish 800 pictures of elephants. After our day of rest we headed out to Tarangerie National Park for two nights with our guide, Suddy. While I suspect it is a common experience for these guides, we almost didn’t want to leave the pond a half mile into the park where we saw our first elephant, zebras and wildebeest. How could be know that by the end of the trip we would see hundreds of elephants and hundreds of thousands of zebra and wildebeest. I was not certain what to expect with the “game drives” that were on our itinerary for each park. Our days started between 6:30 and 8:00am where we would get into our modified Land Cruiser and drive around the park looking for animals. Eating a boxed lunch along the way and not returning to camp until 5-6pm. We stayed in tent lodges, that were far from “roughing it”, although wifi coverage was minimal and hot water was on occasion optional. By the time we left Tarangerie we were able to cross off four out of five of the “Big 5”: Lions, Cape Buffalo, Elephant and Leopard. Our next stop was Lake Manyara. While there were times when we would go an hour without seeing another safari vehicle, that drivers are all in communication with one another, and when something interesting is spotting it can be a bit of a mob scene with large SUVs jockeying for the best position. It was interesting that we encountered several of these at Lake Manyara for a glimpse of an elephant or giraffe of which we were already a little jaded. Our final day with Suddy we went into Ngorongoro Crater, that is an 800,000+ acre preserve in a valley formed by the collapse of a volcano. The area is so lush that the animals have no reason to leave. Were it not for strict warning no to do so, I could have reached out my window to pet a zebra. Here completed our “Big 5” seeing several Black Rhino, although this was at a bit of a distance since they are not so plentiful or social at zebras and wildebeest. Another part of the adventure was flying on a local Tanzanian carrier to northern Tanzania to get to the Sergeneti. While I have ridden in small turboprop aircraft before, this was the first time I took off and landed on a dirt air strip!! In the Serengeti we met up with our guides Edgar and Hazdin. At this time of the year, one of the attractions of the Serengeti is seeing a leg of the Great Migration. Hundreds of thousands of wildebeest and zebras cross the Mara River to get to greener pastures from Kenya. The crossing take place at 10 fairly well-defined areas of the river. We spent several frustrating hours our first day waiting for a crossing. It was a lesson in nature’s version of herd mentality. There was one point where we saw 20,000 to 30,000 wildebeest at a crossing but no one was bold enough to start the crossing. Our last full day in the Serengeti started out with an up-close spotting of two cheetahs and a pride of lions with a kill. Within 10 minutes of our first stop at a crossing point after this we were there to see quite an impressive crossing. There is a euphemism about riding in a safari vehicle, referred to by our guides as an “African Massage”. Even though I know our guides tried to minimize the bumps and dips, we did feel pretty beaten up by the end of the day and managed to take 10K – 15k “steps” while never leaving our vehicle except for bathroom breaks. To give our bodies a break before heading home, we made our final stop at a beach resort in Zanzibar. Here we were able to get an honest to goodness African massage, and do a little local sightseeing. While I still feel that we have a world to explore, I truly hope one day to get back to Africa, for this is without question of one-of-a-kind experience!!!!!