Woof and Moo

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Grandpa and Grandma had to go to the border to renew their visas, so we made a day of it and drove through Kruger National Park - the Crocodile gate is about 15 minutes from the border. Wow - all those animals were cool! Plus I got to eat potato chips and drink guava juice from a snap up bottle. Oh, and I swiped the lemon cream out of the lemon cream cookies.

So here are some of the animals we saw:

Cape Buffalo. We saw LOTS of Cape buffalo - one of the big five. On our way back just before sunset, we ran into a HUGE herd of them and stayed a respectful distance away while they ALL crossed the road. I called them "cow" and "moo."

Rhinoceroses. We also saw rhinoceroses twice - two each time - and two plus two equals four. Yes, we worked on math on this trip.

Elephants. Lots and lots and lots of elephants. At one rest stop, there was an elephant walking right by the parking area. If my arms were just a little longer I could have touched it. I can say "eleph," or something like that.

Lions. We got stuck in a traffic grid, so we knew there was something major everyone was looking at. Sure enough, lounging right by the main road were a bunch of female lions and a few young ones. Mommy says she doesn't like posting animal photos since there are so many better ones available by professional photographers online, but we have to post this one just to prove that we saw them. Later on we saw a male lion by himself on a less-beaten path. I'm not so sure what the excitement is. They just sit around and don't do anything.

Leopard. To complete the big five, we got to see a big kitty in a tree. This is the hardest of the five to find, Mommy says, but I don't see what was so exciting. It wasn't very close, and it hardly moved. Grandpa says it could have been a stuffed cat with a mechanical tail, like my Hakuna Matata lion.

Giraffes. "Raffs" were one of my favorite animals! They are so tall and you have to look up so high to see them, plus they have very funny long tongues.

Monkeys. I LOVE monkeys! I kept saying "mon-kee, mon-kee, mon-kee" when they were playing around the car.

Baboons. We saw a baboon tree. The tree was filled with baboons in the branches. I think that's where they grow.

Warthogs. I called these "dogs" and "woofs." They do look a lot like ugly dogs, don't they? Don't you see it? (Maybe Groban needs to work on his image a little.)

Hippopotamuses. We saw lots of hippos lounging around or in the water. I seem to have lost my ability to say "hippo." Now it is just "po." Mommy got the song "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas" stuck in her head, so I had to listen to that all day . . .

Impalas, Kudu, Waterbuck, Duikers. We saw lots of antelope - zillions of impalas. As far as I'm concerned, they are "dogs" and "woofs," too. Here's a photo of my favorite, the duiker. We saw about four of these. They are so cute and little, just my size, and I like to visit them at the mini-zoo by my house.

Birds. There were tons of birds: brilliantly-colored rollers, stunning starlings, comical hornbills. And a bunch of weavers helping themselves to breakfast at Lower Sabie.

Crocodiles. There were a couple of crocs hanging out with the "pos" near the river. They were too far away for me to see very well, and Mommy didn't want to take me any closer. That thing about them being the biggest cause of wild animal deaths in Mozambique or something like that. I don't get it - my croc shoes don't seem very dangerous.

Zebras. We were lamenting how we had seen no zebras all day, when we came across two in the final 20 minutes or so in the park. So we got them all!

Me. Now this was the best sighting of the day! Me - in my "raff" shirt, right next to where the elephants walk.

So that's the story of my day. What did you do on Sunday?