The Big Five

I'm enjoying the longer evenings.  The sun now goes down about 6:50 p.m. rather than the 6:30 it did when we first arrived in May.  The days are not much different in length because the sun simply rises a little later but it's nice to have a little longer of an evening.

We had a great Stake Conference this weekend.  We are being led by God-fearing, good men.  It's nice to see the strength of the African leaders.  I'll post pictures of the missionaries in the next post.  Sister Msane brought sandwich fixings and we had a little lunch with all the missionaries.  So great to see their enthusiasm and their love of the people and of Kenya -- even when they tell me about their water problems, mosquito problems, etc. etc.  They are fine young men and young women and I am blessed to be associated with them -- black Africans as well as white Westerners.

Our sons Michael and Craig spent a few days with us last week and it lifted our spirits to be with them.  I'll post about that later also.  But for now I want to post about "The Big Five'.

The Big Five -- the lion, the leopard, the rhino, the buffalo, and the elephant -- are called that because apparently they are hard to hunt.  So people come here to Africa to see the Big Five.  Hopefully not to hunt them!  LeRon and I have now seen all five of the Big Five!

Just as we entered the Nairobi National Park last week with our sons, there in front of us on the road were two lions! 
We were so excited that we could hardly get the camera to focus.  They actually laid down on the road in front of us and played with a bit of something on the road.  So great to see lions!

Doesn't this lion look majestic?  Aslan in person!

When I heard that the buffalo was one of the Big Five, I was not impressed.  One of our kids' school teachers raised buffalo and we passed them regularly on our way to town.  And one of our nephews raised buffalo for awhile.  But these African Buffalo are very different. Look at the horns on the buffalo at the left.  These buffalo looked like they were ready to attack us.  We backed up and went on our way.

 Love those horns!

We went to a Senior Couples Conference down in Tsavo National Park.  As we were driving out of the park, there crossing the road were 7 elephants!  How cool is that?  So cool that I forgot to take the cap off the lens and so missed a lot of great photos.

I love the big floppy ears!  Elephants tend to take on the color of the dirt they roll in.  Lots of red soil here in the Tsavo Park so the elephants are red.

When our daughter Heather came to visit in December, we went to the Hell's Gate National Park by Naivasha.  Towards evening, I was scanning the bushes and saw a cat face in the distance.  I yelled at LeRon to back up quick.  There was a leopard.  I know the picture is fuzzy because I zoomed in and the leopard was starting to move as it sensed our presence.  Apparently leopards are shy creatures and it's very hard to see them.  So excited that we saw a leopard!

We saw a rhino in the Nairobi National Park and before that in the Nakuru National Park.  This one (pictured above) is a young Black Rhinoceros.  There are White Rhinos and Black Rhinos and there are not many of either.  

Here's a close-up of the baby rhino.  Aren't God's creations amazing?