Thanksgiving weekend spent with.....lions?

     One of the interesting traditions that we have had over the last two Thanksgiving breaks is to be on the road!  Last year, we were newly engaged and headed off to Texico, New Mexico, to celebrate the wedding of our friends Corrie and Grant.  We spent Thanksgiving Day in Amarillo with the Richardson family...and then drove around Amarillo searching for a canyon just outside the city....but once we found it, the park was closed because it was too dark to see anything!
     Fast forward to this year....we are married and living in Maputo, Mozambique.  We don't really have enough time to fly home for Thanksgiving, so we decided to drive to South Africa and spend our long weekend in Kruger National Park, one of the largest nature reserves in the world with over 7,330 square miles of protected land for the African animals to live on without the threat of poachers and "big game" hunters.  www.krugerpark.co.za
     We stayed at a beautiful lodge called, "Tinga."  We had a blast!  We saw lots of incredible wildlife, birds, and landscape.  Our daily schedule included an early morning "game drive" from 5:30am - 8:30am, then back to the lodge for breakfast.  Usually from 10am or so until 4pm, we swam or napped or watched out new favorite TV series, "LOST," which somehow neither of us has ever watched!  Then around 4:30pm we would head out again for another 3-hour "game drive" searching for wild animals.  Supper was around 8pm, then we would head to bed around 10pm and try to get some sleep before our 4:45am alarm.  It was a refreshing five days.....with lots of "down time" to read or watch movies or nap during the heat of the day.
     Here are a few of the hundreds and hundreds of pictures we took during our time inside Kruger National Park.  Hope you enjoy!

We entered the park at the Paul Kruger Gate, which is in the southwest section of the park.  There are 9 different gates to enter the park. 

We took our game drives in a sweet-looking LandRover made specifically for looking at the animals.  I need one of these trucks for back in the States!

Us, on a bridge over-looking the Sabie River, at sunset on Saturday night.

Our Saturday morning drive found us face-to-face with three lionesses (female lions) looking for food!

Lucky for us, they were looking for something with four legs and not two!

We saw wild dogs....very rare, as only 400 or so are known to live inside Kruger Park.

This elephant came very close to our truck...and hardly even looked at us.  I don't think he has much to be afraid of.

Giraffe are abundant in the park, and always looked graceful as they walked around.

This baby baboon was the cutest thing we saw!  

One of many beautiful sunsets in South Africa....we loved it there.