I drove today! Elephants stand off

I drove today! Somewhere in the park Finn wanted to get out of the car and took a picture. I offered to make a switch and I took the wheel.

The fist time I drove a stick shift was in 1990. I bought a Subaru from a Korean classmate, I can still remember his look, for $1850. Three days later I drove it from Mississippi to New York, without a license plate. The shift was very smooth and easy to maneuver. I surprised myself how quickly I learned to use it. The car was junked in 1994/5, after the timing belt was broken.

This car had a long stick shift, like a truck. For quite some time I couldn’t identify each gear clearly, especially the fourth and the reverse. I also needed to step down the clutch pretty hard to get it all the way down. Anyway, I got it moving. Finn was very picky on my each single move, which made me more nervous. But when he was not talking and I could drive freely I even felt the pleasure of driving this kind “rugged” car. It was fun to have the car “jump” up and down on the poor gravel roads, the pleasure made me understand why some people intentionally look for such experience. But soon enough Finn started to pick on me and the fun disappeared. Anyway, I drove to the camp safe and sound.

The bird nest as seen in the picture is quite common in the park. But this one is really cute. It has the shape of a bird.

A lot of pictures were taken at the same scene. The elephants gathered at a waterhole and then three of them at the right hand side had a stand off. One elephant determined to not let two get into the water. A timid one backed off a few meters but the tough one insisted on standing next to the water edge and even dipped its nose into water once or twice. So both were standing next to each other, shoulder by shoulder, didn’t want to give up. We sat there and watched for about a half hour and wanted to know how this would end, but eventually had to move one. There was a rhino, too, but my phone could not get it well in such a long distance.Read more