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General Travel

Jeff Parker Retrospective – Day 3

I’m not exactly sure what Scott, Jeff, John, Aaron, and I were doing in Warsaw in late-1994, but I seem to remember that it had something to do with sightseeing, locating the Warsaw subway (hint: there isn’t one), and getting our first taste of Taco Bell in months.

In this photo, Jeff exhibits the cool confidence of a world explorer, sporting a Parker Construction t-shirt and trademark flannel. Good times, good times.

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Jeff Parker Retrospective – Day 2

You think you might know Jeff Parker, the man, or Jeff Parker, the father, but did you know that there is also … Jeff Parker, the farmer?

I don’t exactly remember what what going on in this photo, but Jeff appears to be tilling up the dirt around one side of the House of the Rising Sun to plant a garden. Who knows how green Jeff’s thumb turned, but you can tell that he is either a master tiller or he is just getting started, because he is still mud-free…

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General Travel

Jeff Parker Retrospective – Day 1

I just got back to Memphis tonight after yet another wonderful Memorial Day weekend at the Parker Lakehouse. (Thank you, Parker Family, for the fun, fellowship, and food!)

Anyway, when we were getting ready to leave, I randomly got the idea to post a week of photos of Jeff Parker. The first one covers a trip we made to Montana and Wyoming in 1992. In this photo, we’ve made it to the Canadian border, somewhere around Glacier National Park. Jeff, in the hat, has crossed over to Canada, and I think Sarah Doering (then, Cooper) took this picture.

Today, the trip is a bit of a blur in my memory, but I remember this scene clearly. The brilliance of the day, the width of the sky, and rapidly changing weather.

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Douglas Family on Mud Island

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Walking the concrete Mississippi River model on a beautiful day.

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Travel

truk and Dave at the End of the Road

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Two weekends ago, Dave and I traveled to the end of the road near Fort Pillow State Park north of Memphis. It’s a spot where the Mississippi River is slowly eating into Tennessee Highway 87.

I’ve been coming here for 20 years, since Sarah Cooper showed it to me, but I haven’t been back to the spot for about 5 or 6.

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Travel

Under the Waterfall

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Cherokee Village has a nice waterfall near its community center.

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Travel

Good Friday by the Spring River in Northern Arkansas

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A weekday off and (some) warm sunshine usually means you will find on two wheels, hopefully off-road. I’m enjoying all of those things today…

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General Travel

Blast from the Past – truk and a Crocodile in 1999

We visited a crocodile farm near Victoria Falls, which was actually pretty boring, but I did get to simulate what it would be like on the business end of one of these things.

In short, I didn’t even like putting my head in the mouth of a stuffed one of these monsters.

We got a chance to spend some quality time with a few of these in the wild a few years later, and my appreciation had increased by that time.

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General Travel

Blast from the Past – Meeting a Wild Elephant in 1999

Taken on the Zimbabwe side of Victoria Falls, this is a photo of an elephant preparing to charge us while we are on a horse riding tour of a park near the river.

We got a little too close to the elephant, who turned toward us and started to act aggressively. Thankfully, our guide was there to help us slowly back away from the situation.

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General Travel

Blast from the Past – truk at Victoria Falls in 1999

The scale of Victoria Falls is difficult to convey. Those little dots over my right shoulder are people on the opposite side from the falls.

When the wind is blowing, the mist lifts up and shrouds the entire canyon.

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General Travel

Blast from the Past – Monkey, Rainbow, and Victoria Falls

These monkeys just wandered along the edge and posed for photos, hundreds of feet up from the river below. This shot, taken in 1999, shows one stopping to pause while a rainbow appears to hit him in the head.

Is the monkey a pot of gold?

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General Travel

Blast from the Past – kath at Victoria Falls

Kath got right up on the edge of the cliff overlooking Victoria Falls, on the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe.

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General Travel

Blast from the Path – kath in Soweto

Kath and I took a “tour” of Soweto, in an effort to learn more about this famous slum in Johannesburg. The place was a complete maze of ramshackle tin structures. If not for the cell tower in the middle of it all, I would have been completely lost.

This look means, “What have we gotten ourselves into?”

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General Travel

Blast from the Past – Kath in South Africa, 1999

This is one of my favorite photos of Kath. I took this as we were doing a beach walk at sunset in Knysna, South Africa.

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General Travel

Blast from the Past – truk, kath, and an Elephant?

We went to an elephant sanctuary near Knysna, South Africa, in 1999 and got up close with a few of them. Most of the elephants we saw were only babies. Sweet, pushy, 1-ton babies…

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General Travel

Blast from the Past – Kayaking in the Southern Ocean

Kath took this photo of me while we were kayaking around a bay in the Southern Ocean, off the coast of Cintsa, South Africa, in 1999.

This was before I watched the various great white shark specials on the Discovery Channel. This area has around the highest number of reported attacks in the world, per capita. Shark Week might have me thinking twice about this these days…

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General Travel

Blast from the Past – South African Sundowner

Along the southern coast of South Africa, many of the hostels have this great tradition, called a sundowner. Basically, it involves buying a few boxes of wine, taking out the bags from the boxes, tying a rope to two corners of the wine bag (making it easier to sling over your shoulder), grabbing some cups and a dozen or so of the total strangers hanging around the hostel, marching up the highest sand dune you can find, and downing a few cups of wine while watching the sunset.

The only person from this photo that I remember is the guy with the stormtrooper shirt behind us.

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General Travel

Blast from the Past – truk on Horseback

Another photo from our South Africa trip in 1999. (I’m really seeing these for the first time in over 10 years, as I’ve just scanned them in from negatives as a part of converting all of my photos to a digital format for long-term preservation.)

We took every chance we could to ride horses on this trip. I think this picture was taken while on a sunrise ride near the town of Cintsa, along a coastal region called the Garden Route.

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General Travel

Blast from the Past – truk in Cape Town in 1999

Kath took this picture of me in Camps Bay, on the western side of Cape Town, in August 1999. We left a hot New York City and found ourselves in the middle of a chilly and windy southern hemisphere winter.

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General Travel

Blast from the Past – Katy and Kath in 1999

Yesterday, I posted Jeff and Larry in NYC in August 1999. This is a shot of Katy and Kath, taken at the same time.

I don’t think that Kath’s hair has been that short since that time.