Greetings from Botswana. Maureen and I are having a great vacation. Two days into safari time we have seem:
- Many, many elephants.
- Zebras.
- Impalas
- Warthogs.
- Wilderbeast.
- Hyenas.
- Wild Dog.
- Lions.
- Hippos.
- More birds than I could name.
And more I’m sure.
The highlight of today was coming across 20 wild dogs, who our guide told us were ‘on alert.’ There were tons of other animals around, but he pointed out an impala off on its own. They started to move when a bunch of zebra came to the drinking hole. There was one young zebra, and the dogs made a beeline to it.
The zebra run but quickly circled the young one and put the run on the dogs, who changed their focus to the impala, moving towards it as a pack. We followed in the jeep and would lose sight of them in the tall grass and find them again several times. Then we found the impala again, and the dog went past it. He started running back the way we came and the dogs didn’t seem to notice and kept going forward. We followed the dogs for a bit, but they lost him. I was ok with that, not wanting to watch it ripped up and eaten alive.
Anyways, I see that the Max Scherzer signing is official now and that Michael Petersen gets the DFA treatment. Happily I hadn’t gotten to him on the 40-man series. After last season, Peterson came to us off waivers from the Marlins, so we never saw him in a Jays uniform. Peterson is a big guy, 6’7”, so our pickup basketball team takes a hit. Apparently, he throws hard and was born in England, but he hasn’t taken the majors by storm, and he’s 30 now.
Scherzer gets $15.5 million to show he has something left in the take.
Beyond that, we didn’t get Pete Alonso, which didn’t hurt my feelings, and we have an offer for Alex Bergman. I’m not sure that Bergman would be an upgrade from Ernie Clement but he would have more power.
Anyway, I have to run off, we have our afternoon ride out to look at the animals, though I can see some from my spot on the deck of out little cabin.
I’ll have to tell you later about my ride in a little 6 seater plane, flown by a young lady who looked 16. I’m not the best flyer in the world, and this bounced a bit, but it got us here.