Victoria Falls “…scenes so lovely must have been gazed upon by angels in their flight.” – David Livingstone As a child, on Sunday morning Merry Jo would eagerly hop up each morning to watch a Shirley Temple movie followed by a Tarzan movie. She was enthralled by people swinging through the jungle and the falls featured prominently in these movies. Her quest to see the falls in person has been many years coming. Dave however found the Tarzan movies too fake, phony or campy and rarely watched one. He humored her once again in her need to see something that made an impression during her childhood. Just a side note: MJ has had wanderlust since she was a small child when she would sit on the floor of the den in her home and leaf through ... read more

“There is something about safari life that makes you forget all your sorrows and feel as if you had drunk half a bottle of champagne - bubbling over with heartfelt gratitude for being alive.” - Karen Blixen Being from the U.S., we’ve come quite a ways to take in African wildlife so we decided to stay at two safari camps in South Africa and one in Botswana. This is not unusual at all from the people we’ve encountered. We have already been to all three as we are a bit behind on our blogging, but would share with you our favorite location was Notten’s Bush Camp in the Sabi Sands area, which is part of the Kruger National Park. This is certainly not to disparage the other camps, but we both agree that Notten’s was our ... read more

While the big city offers many wonderful distractions and learnings, the more subtle countryside and smaller towns along the coast have a charm all their own….especially when your interests are being on the lookout out for those magnificent sea creatures, the whale. They are an amazing to behold on the Western Cape, as the Southern Right Whales return each year to the bays south of Cape Town to the delight of many. The females are spotted with their young calves and you easily become captivated by their presence. The town of Hermanus, located some two hours south of Cape Town afforded us the opportunity to see some of the best land-based whale watching possible…..from our balcony no less! Our room overlooked Walker Bay and it was immediately apparent why this area has its reputation. No sooner ... read more

We thrive on a life of adventure and exploring new places. Our nursing profession allows us embrace our desire to move about the country and find jobs, which in turn supports this glorious habit. In 2000, we were living happily in Tampa, Florida when some undercurrents at work gave us the impression there might be some downsizing in the near future. As it turned out, that didn’t happen, but we always try to plan and were already looking around to see what was out there. After an application, two telephone interviews and a flight out for an in-person interview, we found ourselves moving across country to Seattle, Washington. We called the Seattle area our home from October 2000 until July 2007. For those of you who know us, this is by far the longest we’ve lived ... read more

Although most visitors to Italy concentrate on only the more popular venues and cities, we’ve discovered that northern Italy has so much more to offer than we possibly could have realized. In our fourth and final week in this most enriched and culinary blessed part of the country, we came upon a grand lake, a walled city and the “New York” of Italy. To make this part of the journey even more pleasurable, we were joined by our good friend Michael, who traveled with us through Myanmar several years back and now makes his home in Paris. Put natural beauty, great cuisine, historic venues and Michael together, and you’ve got the makings of grand adventure……and it was. Varenna Our continuing affair with train travel brought us to the shores of Lake Como and the small town ... read more