very simple

Last weekend was a bit of a wedding explosion in my family. Two weddings, in two different cities, including MY BROTHER! and his wonderful now-wife. Pics from all of those things are mainly family only, but for post-wedding lunch on Monday, we went to a super fancy restaurant on the 60th floor of a building downtown, and, well…

The view!

In March, when I started investigating places to go on vacation, I had a few ideas in mind. As always, Africa gets put on the list, but unlike most years, it actually stayed on the list this time rather than succumbing to my normal dread of flying for that many hours. Then, when I went to look for actual trips, my favorite trip provider (National Geographic Journeys by Gadventures) happened to have TWO slots left for the their trip on the dates that worked for me, so I jumped on it without much more thinking.

This trip might go to the top of the list of the best ones I’ve taken (between this and the Galapagos and Machu Picchu, it’s a tough decision). But anyway…

I spent about 30 hours flying (with layovers) to Cape Town, South Africa, where I spent a few days, taking the cable car (thankfully reopened a week early!) to the top of Table Mountain and going to the Cape of Good Hope. We visited the Penguins (a major tourist attraction at this point) and got a private tour of the botanical gardens, which are some of the best in the world.

Then we flew to Johannesburg where we spent not much time, just a quick stop in Soweto for lunch and to visit Nelson Mandela’s house. It’s very small (only three rooms), and crowded with tours, so not much opportunity for good pictures, but certainly a worthwhile experience to understand the great man’s life.

Johannesburg was just a way station on our way to Kruger, which involved an all-day drive on the Panorama Route, which took us past some very scenic vistas before we got to our tented lodge, and then we did an all day drive in Kruger, where we got stalked by an entire pride of very boss lady lions before they killed several impalas right in front of us.

From Kruger, we moved to Karongwe, which is a private game reserve, where we did several more days of game drives and saw just an absolutely ridiculous number of things, and I might have gotten carried away with the Cheetahs. After Karongwe, we headed back to JoBerg to fly to Zimbabwe and Victoria Falls, which was very nice and relaxing and involved a very luxe river cruise on our last night.

I took over 7,000 photos, and somehow managed to edit that monster pile to the following 85. As always, wait for the page to finish loading and then click on the thumbnails to view the actual pictures. Enjoy!

A while back, The NY Times wrote about how mister softee vendors were in a turf war with some upstart competitors who were using gangland tactics to push them out of various neighborhoods. The juxtaposition of childhood treats with straight-up street gang tactics was…something.

It has definitely become harder to find a genuine mister softee truck in parts of the city, but you can still find them on the upper west side.

(By the way, mister softee is the best, because they’re the only trucks that ever have the good sugar cones instead of the regular cones that taste like styrofoam.)

NYT article on the ice cream truck wars

I walk by this little shop on 45th street fairly often, with its classic sign, wedged in between giant midtown office buildings, wondering how it survives, and glad that it does.

Caught this Central Park performer taking a little nap break.

I went to Philadelphia last weekend for my twentieth (!!) law school reunion, and in between the multiple parties and recuperative naps, I obviously wandered around town and took some pictures. This is the always fantastic sign for the reading terminal market, which is hard to photograph because it is wedged directly across a narrow intersection and behind this annoying streetlight.

For years going from the train to my folks house in the berkshires, I have passed this store and always sworn I was going to stop and take pictures of the sign. Last thanksgiving my dad and I stopped and had breakfast nearby, and I discovered that the store had actually closed so…last chance.

taken last weekend – abandoned newsstand made over into impromptu art commentary on the state of current news.

Little free libraries are everywhere. This one is in millerton, New York, and we passed it on the way to the train after thanksgiving last November.

sorting through some unposted photos, a shot of the fountain in city hall park from last june, when it was sunny and warm.