Turning over 12,000 Miles

In less than 10 days my 'new' Nissan will be one year old. Yes, I'm still enjoying it. I get questions and compliments on it, and I'm seeing my siblings on the road. I hope that means it is keeping up its reputation as a first-year model.

This past year, I am pleased that I have not put the previous average of 15,000 miles per year, but what that may amount to is fewer trips to see my aging parents who live 200 miles away. The Versa has seen Wisconsin in summer and winter, but I also moved closer to the office, so my daily commute is a net of at least 2-3 miles less each day.

Anyway, the most significant miles this past year were driven in a rental car last fall and on a plane to Uganda Africa and back. Seeing new places and meeting new people is a real joy, even though I have not been a typical tourist. I don't tend to do or care to see the same stuff that one can see on postcards. In Africa, I did take a 2 hour raft trip in the Nile, near where it begins-- so it was not so massive a river as one imagines. We also managed to be dumped in one of the rapids, so the young people in my raft were quite pleased. What fun would a rafting trip be if you didn't experience the adrenalin rush of being dumped?

One of the most interesting parts of that trip was the 2 km. walk up the hill from the water to where the bus loaded. Carrying our life vests, paddle and helmets up the mud-and-leaf covered path bare-footed (at high noon) was a good wake-up call of how pampered one can be. At the top of the hill were smiling children greeting us with "how are you?/ I'm fine.". . and we would exchange their greeting, and it would start all over again. Reaching to touch & shake their hands and wave a granny's good-bye as we got on the bus was one of the the highlights of my trip.
Of course, the main 'PR hook' for the trip was to hear Jane Goodall speak, even though most of the students had no real idea of who she was, unless they had been told to research her. The adult sponsors were probably more impressed with her than the high school age students. LM