Gingerbread House

I'm back!

The Ritz Carlton Hotel in Naples always features a huge gingerbread house for the holidays.

It represents more than one thousand man-hours of work.

Out of the Jurisdiction: Pilanesburg National Park, South Africa

Here are the last pix from a month in southern Africa.  These photographs were taken in Pilanesburg National Park, a preserve two to three hours from Johannesburg.  Most of these will be 

close-ups, with a couple of others included.

An elephant came right up to the safari vehicle.

A pied kingfisher seen at a hide on a dam (the local term for a body of water).

There were some serious lenses aimed at the birds.  My 70 - 300 mm lens was enough.

It is always fun watching giraffes going into their drinking-water stance.

Warthogs don't look any better up close than they do at a distance.

A female giraffe feasts on acacia.

Zebra are good at standing still and posing.

Three zebra grazed together on plains that had suffered a fire.  Zebra often stay close.  

It is thought that the striped patterns blend together and mislead predators into thinking

that they are seeing a single much larger animal.

This isn't a close-up, but I wanted to illustrate how plentiful impalas are in the African bush.  

So many predators feast on impalas that they are known as the "McDonalds of Africa."

I arrived back in Florida yesterday.  Today will be spent doing laundry, sorting mail and paying bills.  With any luck, I will get out to find something for tomorrow's post.

Thanks for your visits while I was away and unable

to visit other blogs.

John Craig Clothier

"Sophisticated Men's Clothing."

The Promenade, Bonita Springs.

To see other approaches to the "shop window" theme, please visit the City Daily Photo portal.

Out of the Jurisdiction: Design Quarter

I spent some time one recent morning in Johannesburg's Design Quarter.

Cordelia works in sales for a high end furniture store.  She has worked there more than ten years,
except that last year she left to do clinical work in the field of HIV and AIDS.

Steven works in security in the Design Quarter.  His colorful green and red tie 

and hat band are worn only during the Christmas holiday season.

Michelle was on a post from my May visit to Joburg.  She works in a lovely store featuring wine accessories.  Michelle wants eventually to run her own floral business, but her store is moving into a larger space and she has been given a promotion, so for now she is happy there.

Blessing helps customers carry their purchases to their cars.  I have done this blog for five-and-a-half-years, and Blessing probably was probably the happiest to have his photo taken of any subject so far.

Ashley was riding an "EZwheels" to a sporting goods store in the Design Quarter.  It is charged just like a laptop, and the rider guides it with subtle foot pressure, kind of like a very small Segway.  Cool. 

Out of the Jurisdiction: White Rhinos

Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park is in Zambia, near Victoria Falls.  There are seven white rhinos.
They are not native; the rhinos were imported from South Africa.  The rhinos are under
a 24/7 armed watch to prevent poachers from taking their horns. 

Out of the Jurisdiction: Victoria Falls

After Botswana, we went for two days to the place where Zambia and Zimbabwe
meet on the Zambezi River.  One day we visited Victoria Falls.

Victoria Falls is neither the tallest nor the widest in the world, but it is classified as the biggest because of the overall volume of water that flows over the falls. 

The indigenous name for the falls is Mosi-oa-Tunya, "the smoke that thunders."  When flows are normal, the water falls with such force that sprays spread over the whole area.

We visited during a major drought that is affecting all of southern Africa. (It is caused by the same El Nino that is wreaking havoc with much of the world's weather.)  As a result, there was no water at all on the Zambia side of the falls and the flow on the Zimbabwe side was greatly reduced.
Still, it is a most impressive sight.

At Devil's Pool, brave (or foolish) folks can swim right up to the edge.  Not me.

Out of the Jurisdiction: The Chairman

The Chairman informed us this week that, since she is now a sitting up young woman, it was time to provide her with an appropriate chair from which to reign.

Weekend Reflections.