It's South Africa's National Election Day and Adam has off from work so he can vote (which he can't). Let me finally wrap up our road trip to St. Lucia. By now you're likely bored and it's taken longer to write about it than perhaps it took to go there and come back.
We left the beach about noon and headed into town for lunch. St. Lucia is in a beautiful area, but it won't win awards for its food. Multiple people recommended we eat at Ocean Basket, a South African fish chain. When I asked what was fresh, the waitress said the king clip. When I asked how fresh, she said it came in last Wednesday. Today was Tuesday. Regardless, apparently freezing fish works because it was pretty tasty (and we were famished).
Slightly greasy -- both eaters and those being eaten.
Noah thought it was great, though in retrospect, he wished he had ordered the sauce on the side.
Hippo Time!
The highlight of the day was taking a boat trip through the estuary which meets up with the ocean.
It's filled with hippos.
Noah cracked a joke the hippo apparently didn't like.
Lucy, future orthodontist, checked out the teeth of the hippo skull.
Speaking of teeth, nothing makes a hippo tour like a lollipop one convinces one's dad to buy at the boat snack bar.
Back on a land, we seek out a bite to eat.
(Noah, "Lucy, why are you bothering me when I'm trying to rip the pages of your book?!")
On the Road Again
The next morning, we loaded up Alice (the Jazz) and set out for home. The N2 (N for National Highway) has been under construction for years now and we were stopped frequently where the highway was down to one lane in one direction. (If you didn't happen to hit it right - traffic flowing in your direction - you had to wait between 5 and 20 minutes for your turn to go. Not horrible but on the 5th one, with miles to go before you sleep, it gets old.)
At one point, we got behind this truck:
Loaf of bread. Stick of butter. Quart of beer.
Around lunch, we found ourselves very close to the Swaziland border (and what a fun country name to say!). After eating at some pretty lousy places on the trip down (see Russians), we decided not to skip past the signs for a lodge offering food and mountain views. Noah approved.
Lucy saddles up to the bar for a drink
(and some coloring, while we wait for our food).
Noah climbs everything in sight.
Then he takes the show on the road and walks right out of the lodge.
7th Inning Stretch
Many hours later, we were all going a bit stir crazy. We stopped at a fast-food chain along the road for dinner and some (surely organic, trans-fat free) soft serve ice cream. (How I miss Zesto's and Anderson's!)
The restaurant had a walled patio and the kids started running around like crazed zombies.
Impromptu Playground... VIDEO of kids and Adam happy to be out of the car
(Click to watch larger version of Video in YouTube)
We finally got home after midnight. Luckily Lucy didn't have school the next day, and somehow Adam managed to get up for work. (Three cheers for Pops!)
The Safari returns to land-locked Pretoria, happy to be home, with a car littered with sand and the smell of travel. xo,
Glenn
Oh, now I see why he doesn't return my emails. He's busy drinking beer out of cardboard containers. I love the blog and am one of your 7 subscribers in google reader. With these kind of stats, it's just a matter of time before the Chico's ads start appearing. A quick recap of American news: Donald Trump will NOT be our next president. And it's looking like Newt Gingrich is going down in flames as well. Between The Donald and Callista, we've lost hours of late night hair jokes. Keep the posts coming! Love from Druid Hills.
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