Thanks for the kind words. Don’t know how deserved they are.

The trip would have been fun, and into some wonderful country. There would have been a few of us going. As you may have noticed, I’m an opinionated, abrasive jerk. By definition my friends are kind, tolerant people. No one else would let me live.

And, I’m a well organized, opinionated, abrasive jerk.

So, when I get a wild hair they cringe, but don’t hide, yet. I could have talked a few of them into coming along. Managed to get up to 18 people for one 15 day excursion, and 10 or 12 is more common, once only a couple. Have a trip planned for this summer with 16 or 20 people, including parents and adult children, brothers and sisters, and married folks. Oddly enough, usually there are about as many women as men, sometimes a majority. Don’t know why. Husbands let their wives come, wives let their husbands, and about half the people are couples.

There were about 5 areas where the clean-up would have been just that. They were trashed. I doubt if the garbage has ever been collected, I mean never. There’s unrotted toilet paper everywhere, cans, bottles, rocks in the middle of tent sites. Uncomplicated to clean it up, build tent sites, dig fire and garbage pits.

We would have cleaned a day, hiked to the next area the following day, cleaned a day, and so on.

And I was looking for an excuse to go back to Africa. Wonderful place. About a day away from this place I stood on the exact place where Lucy was found. Locals said I looked exactly like the elder Leakey. There were a few African double-takes when I walked by.

saw a dump truck hauling dirt to repair a major, international highway. Dumped it into a hole in the center of the road, drove back and forth a couple of times, and drove away. Amazing!

It would have been fun.

Arf