Friday night, the St. Pete Times Forum will get a preview of what to expect come March, when Tampa hosts the First and Second Rounds of the NCAA Men’s and the Women’s Final Four Championship. Florida Gators vs the Vermont Catamounts. This is a good warm up for me since the Forum is getting March Madness next year. Scoreboard Gators over Vermont 86-61. Go Gators!!

Does everyone remember the movie “Motel Hell”. The story is that of a farmer who runs a hotel where a lot of tourist would mysteriously disappear. The farmer also made prize winning sausage with a special “secret” ingredient inside. Out in the bush you would find these outpost every once in a while. There would not be another building or village for miles. So does anyone find this photo a bit disturbing? A Medical Center, A Hotel and a Butcher Shop…. I’m just saying…

The people that we met on this trip was a very large part of our journey. I was amazed by some of the things I learned about other cultures. One man we met at the Samburu tribe, no one knew how old he was. The interesting part of the story was that the farthest he had ever journeyed in his whole life was to Nairobi, 45 miles away. Here I had traveled 8,715+ miles and this man his whole life had never been more than 50 miles from where he had been born. It’s a different way of life here. Click on the thumbnail to see 25 more photos.

The Big 5… as it’s known, is the goal of all photographers on photo safari. The most sought after animals include Lions, Leopards, Elephants, Buffalo & Rhinos. We were able to capture each and everyone. Thanks to our guide Alfred we even photographed some very rare animals and moments. I photographed a Leopard’s kill of a Dikdik, photographs of a very rare cat called a Serval Cat and even a Lion mating. Actually the only animal that we did not find was a cheetah but sorry to say they are getting more and more rare. Click on the thumbnail to see a slideshow of 30 of my images.

This was a day that I hope will change my life forever. Today we visited the Kilimani Children Orphanage. Every child here lost both of their parents to either the aids epidemic or to civil unrest. I expected the Aids and HIV deaths but what an eye opener the stories of the political rebellions. Now I know it was only a drop in the bucket but I had brought some Tampa Bay Lightning jackets that were going to be thrown away. So there were now 50 kids with new clothes. If nothing else we made them smile for just one day out of their lives. I even brought the Headmaster a team jersey. The hard truth is some of these kids would be dead within months themselves. Most were HIV positive. Makes you stop and think doesn’t it?

In what has to be one of the most surreal moments of my life, I’m celebrating Thanksgiving in the Masai Mara of Kenya Africa. We are at the Lake Nakuru Lodge and they have laid out a big feast for us. But here is the weird part, the gentleman at the table next to me is the spitting image of Salvador Dalí, right down to the waxed mustache. There is a strolling musician playing guitar and singing “Welcome to the Hotel California” with a very, very thick Swahili accent. Tony has, how do I say this, had a large number of “Tuskers” the local beer and is singing right along with the guitar player. And the cherry on top of this acid flash back is the fact that right outside the lodge is a 500 pound male lion that is having sex. So every 10 minutes you hear the lion roar so loud that it rattled the windows. Turns out that lions have sex every 10 minutes for a couple of days. Happy Thanksgiving, Pass the gravy please….

Today we crossed the equator, latitude 0, the center of the planet, and of course there is a tourist trap there waiting for you. I was shocked, here we are in the middle of no where and there is a gift shop. Now the funny part is the natives will prove to you that you are standing exactly at the equator for the price of $1.00 US. This I had to see, so they walk you over to this sign that is the “exact” point of the equator. Then they will pour water on a rock and the water will run off to the left, next they pour the water again and it runs off to the right. “You see the exact center of the earth!” OK, P. T. Barnum was right there is a sucker born every minute. Then Frank whips out his GPS unit only to find that in fact we are still 15 miles away from Latitude 0! I was wondering where the dotted line was.

The safari lodge is nice enough that they serve us coffee and bagels each morning. It’s a very peaceful scene, sitting next to a river at sunrise until you realize that the river is full of crocodiles and there are lions on the other side of the river watching you. As the sun comes up you hear the sounds of nature, birds chirping, monkeys hooting and screeching. Here comes Frank for his morning coffee, there is a monkey sitting at his table. Of course Frank thinks the best thing to do is run towards the monkey to scare it off. Frank charges the monkey and it doesn’t move, it does not even blink, then Frank stops only to have the monkey charge him. I was laughing so hard as my buddy now runs like a little girl with the monkey hot on his tail. Seems the monkeys will attack the guest in order to steal the sugar bowl. Thank God we all got those Tetanus shots.