Ready for a Safari?

As a boy, a summer vacation to the little farm where my mother grew up was the highlight of the year.

Sure, it was hot and humid, with occasional thunderstorms that once sent a bolt of lightening to split a massive tree by my grandparents' house in half, but it was an exotic land filled with love and adventure far from my California home.

As I've noted before, my sweet mother was born and raised in that house where her parents still lived, despite having no indoor plumbing beyond a hand pump in the kitchen and only rudimentary electricity only sufficient to light a few dangling lightbulbs with pull chains.

The kitchen stove was a woodburning stove that required Grandmother to wake up before dawn to stoke it up for heating water and cooking breakfast.

One of the highlights for me was hiking through the cornfield, toting a bamboo fishing pole, to a small pond to catch catfish, just like Andy and Opie.

Granddaddy, Uncle Edwin or Daddy would throw cornbread in the water to tell the fish we were there, and then we'd put a wad of cornbread on our fishing hooks.

Apparently catfish aren't smart enough to know that cornbread doesn't just magically appear in a pond, but then again I too would rather eat cornbread than worms.

Once, when my line got snagged on a log, my funny Uncle Edwin took off his long pants (no men wore shorts despite the sometimes oppressive heat) and waded out to untangle it, which I thought was the funniest thing I'd ever seen a grown man do.

The reason I bring this up, however, is one morning in particular, when I must have been about 4 or 5 years old and was walking back home through the cornfield with Granddaddy.

"Let's tell everyone we saw elephants and tigers and monkeys in the jungle," I said.

I didn't quite understand why Granddaddy just laughed at the suggestion.

After all, that rural farm approximated the jungle where Tarzan lived, and I wanted to be Tarzan when I grew up...or at least at times when I didn't want to be Zorro or Superman.

Believe it or not, no one back at the farm house believed me when I told them about our jungle experience where Granddaddy had shot a lion that wanted to eat us, even though Granddaddy didn't try to contradict me.

That dream seemed to slip away, as so many others of childhood do, but it never died completely.

When we lived in San Diego, Julie and I bough family passes annually for the San Diego Zoo, which allowed us to also visit Wild Animal Park (now called Safari Park), where exotic animals live more in their natural environments.

We loved bringing our kids with picnic lunches there for short visits and occasional longer days.

Have you always dreamed of seeing Africa for yourself?

Taking a safari with children might have been too scary --- and not to mention expensive --- but now that you're empty nesters, perhaps it's time to explore the lands of childhood dreams.

Perhaps your ancestry takes you back there, and in fact, there is good evidence that perhaps all of our ancestors long, long ago migrated from the Dark Continent.  My son Jay's genetic ancestry search showed a small percentage of African DNA.

Regardless, there's no place on earth like Africa, and no vacation like a safari, even if these days your weapon is more likely to be a camera for instagrams rather than an elephant rifle for trophy kills.

There are many different levels of adventure and luxury from which to choose, and while I still haven't lived my Tarzan dreams in Africa, I have many tour packagers in all price ranges which I represent.

There are even cruises which have safaris!

And of course, Africa isn't all jungles and wild animals.  There are some world class cities like Johannesburg and fantastic wine regions to broaden your African journey.

So, what are you waiting for?

"Better service leads to better trips!"