o frabjous day: namibia in depth

Two weeks of pure awesomeness on what Boyfriend has declared to be the best trip we've ever taken!

eating granola with yogurt and fruit every morning, and bacon (I don’t usually eat a real breakfast, but I also don’t usually get up at 5 every morning)
discovering the joys of having hot water bottles in the bed at night, and a fire in the fireplace
watching a baby leopard play while its mother ate a warthog on our first drive
taking an extra day so that we could go on a second leopard drive and a second cheetah drive
going into safari trances on the road and getting a lot of thinking done, and having some good realizations
and some smaller realizations, such as how much I really like to pee on dives and game drives
giving up on FitBit, because it registers too many fake steps on bumpy roads
not being online

watching the sun set and the moon rise at the same time
seeing mother and 3-4 week old baby rhino at watering hole on first sundown drive
taking a hot shower (super-hot, heated by a wood stove) in a cold tent after a dusty day never gets old
watching a huge orange full moon rising
seeing a herd of elephants with two babies at the Okonkuejo watering hole in Etosha, drinking, bathing, playing, and taking a dust bath
watching rhinos and elephants at the watering hole during second dinner
seeing a mother rhino and her older baby on our last morning drive, and walking near them
squeezing extra life out of my camera battery when it tried to give up a few times near the rhinos

getting in before sunset and not having anything to do the rest of the night
staying in a warm room and a fancy lodge is so great after a cold tent with a basic lodge -- so glad this was after Ongava so we could really wallow and appreciate it with no pressure to go do things
seeing the Milky Way from our house
listening to roaring lions the first night
going into Etosha and feeling no pressure, since we'd already seen everything we'd really wanted to see, so everything else was just a bonus
getting back from Etosha by noon and having the rest of the day free to relax, read, write, and think
taking a 2.5 hour nap on a sunny bed after a week of waking up before 6 a.m., and on this particular day, waking up at 6, going on a walk for an hour and a half, then having breakfast, then getting back in bed before 11 a.m. to have a dream within a dream within a dream in a sleep that felt like I was in an underwater cocoon
coming across a fat, sleepy male lion on night drive
having a super helpful manager who fixed our wheel well and got our car washed
starting to figure out manual camera settings for sunrise, sunset, stars
eating the best food of the trip (the food was good in general, but particularly good here, and we discovered that all those antelopes are delicious -- oryx and springbok are good, but kudu is the best)

after seeing the room they were going to give us, asking for our first room back and getting it

having the front seat in the plane
making it up the biggest dune (Big Daddy) after much huffing and puffing
gliding back down the steep face of the dune after some doubt, making the sand sing like a cello and then like a tuba or trombone
spending another morning at the dunes -- two fun descents, and a long photo session at Deadvlei
going horseback riding into the sunset, which was startling when we were galloping but exhilarating
getting two massages, one of them outside!
getting a late afternoon flight out of Kulala so we could chill for the day
spending the last night under the stars
sitting in the cockpit again, just by asking

And generally:

I don’t usually keep this kind of schedule when left to my own devices, but it was amazing to see sunrise, sunset, and stars every day, especially when there was so much sky.
I realized that one of the amazing things about dive trips or safaris is that you just show up, and then you can turn your brain off, because there is no planning to do and no decisions to make. They tell you when to wake up, when to eat, where to go, what to see, and you can just enjoy yourself without worrying over whether you’re doing the right thing at the right time to get the most out of the day.

o frabjous day