Meanwhile, I have a lot of albums of all the pictures of my trips. On most of my trips I put the pictures in separate albums. On my trips I did the most I could do and did everything to make the most of every trip that I took. I even saw the imperial palace in Japan!
One day, I decided to go on a cruise by myself and had a great time. John & Ann were one of the couples that I met. There were two other couples and a married gal who was there without her husband. I had such a good time that I wanted to travel more. I was going to go on another trip with John & Ann, but Ann died. John kept calling me to go on a trip with him, but he never showed up. I think he was drunk. Then about 4 years later, he called me again and came & got me and we went to Las Vegas, then to California to visit LaVaan. Then we went to Acapulco.
In 1979, Mildred, Hazel & MaryAnn, went to Honolulu. We had a great time. We flew to Maui and rented a car & drove all around the island. We went to Hanna which was a very dangerous drive. MaryAnn & I did the driving in a Volkswagen. There were many windy roads!
On January 4, 1981, I went on the SS Norway for a Caribbean Cruise with Mari Ann McClain. We went to St. Thomas. We were gone until January 11th. I did a lot of playing cards & dancing.
On August 1981, I went to the Orient, Philippines, Singapore & Japan, and Tokyo with MaryAnn McClain. It was a 23 day trip. .
On Sept 22, 1981 I had cataract surgery, but no implant; I had to wear contact lenses all the time.
On Nov 15, 1981, I went to Africa with Dolores & Helen Moxley. Susan, who lived in Africa with her family, came to town to visit her mom Helen Moxley. Susan invited me to go on the trip with her Mom to Africa. On Nov 16, 1981, I left for Africa. We flew to Chicago and boarded a 747 for Hamburg, Germany. In Hamburg we ate dinner and then left for Nairobi, Africa.
Susan was not there to pick us up at the airport. Someone got a hold of her and she did come eventually. We stopped to see her husband, Jim, who worked in a building with iron gates for protection. We had to walk through them to get to the elevator and see Bill’s office. The elevator stopped half way up and we had to be pulled out or we would have been trapped for the day.
After visiting Bill’s office we went to their house. It was surrounded by a security gate with a security guard. The security guard carried a Billy club. He used to lie down and sleep throughout the day, so I’m not sure if he was that efficient in protecting the family. She had a cook, a house boy, and a gardener. All of our meals were wonderful. Susan did everything for us.
When we went to bed at night they boarded up the windows in the living room and set a burglar alarm. The alarm wouldn’t help though because there weren’t any police that would respond. We also had great big bolts on our doors, so if we heard anything we could bolt the door shut. The windows had security on them as well. I felt pretty safe.
We were up every morning at six o’clock to have breakfast. The house boy would wash all the clothes we had. The gardener didn’t stay there but the house boy and the cook stayed in a little house with two rooms and a kitchen in the middle. The house boy had a wife and children that lived somewhere else.
Susan’s house didn’t have an address. It was just known by the last name of the previous owners. This was the only house in Africa that Susan could bring her mother to visit that was safe.
Susan had an old Volkswagen whose starter didn’t work most of the time. But, we still went everyplace in it. We went to the reserve in Nairobi. She drove us all around and would drive off the road at night and shoot the lights to see the wild animals. It was a little scary. You couldn’t buy a new car in Africa. You had to order it somewhere else. A lot of people drove old cars there for that reason.
On Nov 23, we departed for Tree Top. We first drove to Fig Tree, had lunch and then on to Tree Top. The trip to Fig Tree cost $42.00. We then boarded another bus for $79.00 and headed to Tree Tops to arrive before dusk to watch all the wild large and small animals come in to water at the pond. Low and behold Ralph Alcere and his wife Delores were on the bus at Fig Tree. He thought that I was dead, but I was clearly still alive!
Tree Top is a hotel that was built about 40 feet above ground and sits on stilts. From the bus stop you then walked about a half mile to the grounds. The compound is surrounded by a wall so you can get behind to protect yourself from the animals. We went to the top of the building to watch the baboons and you had to be careful because they would take anything they could get their hands on. We saw rhino, hippos, wart hogs, water buffaloes, baboons, and elephants. One of the tiny elephants came with its mother and that was so very cute.
Doris and I had a little room with two beds in it and then a bath that everyone shared. We had dinner in the dining room that had a long table with all the food in the middle of it. Across from us were two young men that had worked with two famous people that were writing a book. One of them was from England. He was very nice and gave us some of his wine from England. This person that was across from us, that worked with the famous couple, told us that some woman had died from a lion attack and that the husband was murdered.
Tree Tops is where the Queen Elizabeth was when her father died and she was made the Queen of England.
Susan knew everywhere to go in Africa and she kept us very busy. We had to shop different places for meat and vegetables. You had to bring your own packages for the meat. We went shopping at a market. We went to the African stores and I bought 30 baskets for my friends that were all handmade. I think I paid five dollars a basket.
We drove everywhere in the Volkswagen that didn’t have a starter believe it or not. We went up to Lake Nevisian where they had a sail boat. Coming back, one time, we came into the reserve and the car stopped. A fella gave us a push to get started. Susan slowed down and we stopped again. We got another push from the same guy and we started again. I told Susan that she better drive fast this time so we wouldn’t stop again. We stopped at the first filling station we could. They were all African. They had to put in a new kind of part (the stations there don’t have any repair parts so you have to bring in your own parts).We arrived back at our house and the cook was very worried about us because it is dangerous for white people to be out at night.
When we went through the ditch there was a great big lake with tons a hippos in it. I kept thinking if we got stuck in the ditch, we would be attacked by hippos!
People in Africa sell rabbits and all sorts of animals on the side of the road which is an extremely different experience from living in the USA. We took the bus downtown and people would carry all sorts of things on top of their heads and carry big things of straw.
We went to the Massai country. We rented a van for this trip so we didn’t have to worry about the car staling. Jim drove Susan, Doris, Helen and I. We all had to sleep in tents. Animals were all over the place. That was scary because the toilet was a part of the tent, but animals could get inside. There was a monkey that took food out of the kitchen so they tied him up until after dinner.
When we were in the Massai country we saw hyenas, great big ant hills, herds of zebra, water buck, gazelle, wilder beast, impala, Silver and black jackals. The female hyenas would kick out the male hyenas. We saw lions, buffalo, giraffes, foxes, and hippos. We crossed over a great big ditch. Tim got out of the car to make sure we could get through. It scared me to death. When we went through the ditch there was a great big lake close by with tons a hippos in it. I kept thinking if we got stuck in the ditch, we would be attacked by hippos!
We saw rabbits, purple and green lizards, a golden eagle, three kinds of vultures, a green snake, ostrich, and all kinds of animals. We saw leopards. We didn’t see the lions right away, so we hired someone to take us to see the lions. Now the lions won’t run from you. Neither will the elephants. The other animals run away. The lions will wait for you to get close and then just attack you. I don’t know how Tim found his way around, because there were just dirt paths going around. Out of all my trips, that was the most interesting because everything was completely different.
We also went to a show there, “Little Miss Market.” All Kenyans were in it. The Indians were the ones that were most predominant. They were the owners of the buildings and the shops, not the Africans. We always drank soda or canned drinks because we couldn’t drink the water. I even drank beer, which I wasn’t used to.
Helen, Pearl, Doris and I played cards every Friday night.
Every time we saw any white person, Susan knew them. Otherwise it was all black. We stopped at the filling station to get the car fixed, there was a family there that had a little girl that had to go to the bathroom. she didnt have any pants or diapers on and she just squatted and went.
We watched some African shows where they had African dancers. African women had all these beads around there necks to stretch them out, so they all had long necks. The men had orange clothes that they wrapped around themselves. And they had their animals that they would put in brush enclosures. They also slept in little thatch shacks that they made.
It seems to me that I spent around $2,000 dollars total on this trip but possibly more. A little over a thousand on airfare and a little over a thousand while in Africa.
Jim and Susan used to come to Minneapolis to buy up loads of food and other things you couldn’t buy in Africa. They also shipped their sail boat to Africa. You couldn’t send food in the mail. It would be stolen before it arrived.
At the end of our month long wonderful trip in Africa we were planning our trip home. Susan talked to the taxi driver and paid him to take us to the airport. It is very dangerous at the airport. Every few feet there were armed guards!
1983: We left at 11:45 pm for Hamburg, Germany and arrived at 6:30. We had dinner at the Crest Hotel.
We went on a tour. We drove to Copenhagen and went on a castle tour.
We then drove on to Stockholm and took the ferry ride. We ate at the hotel and had a delicious steak dinner.
We went to Norway and toured the beautiful city. We had dinner at the hotel and went on a Viking ship. We did a cruise on the Forges. We did a lot of shopping. People in Norway ride bikes a lot and have pet dogs. They are allowed to bring the dogs into the hotels and dining rooms as well.
On Aug 11th, 1983 we drove to Gothenburg, Sweden. We ate at a cute place on the lake. We did a city tour and shopped all day. The next day we were at Augushurst, Denmark. Then, the next day, we went to Hanover. Next, we went to Lego Land in Germany.
We stopped in the Netherlands, Amsterdam. We were at the Ibis hotel and had a very good fish dinner. We spent all day in Amsterdam. We went on a canal tour and saw a mausoleum. We went on the boulder dam and saw lots of cows and sheep. We had a very good dinner at Weinershnitzels.
We left for Frankfurt, Germany and stopped in Cologne and went to the Lindbergh Cathedral and then to the airport to leave for home. We were on the plane for 24 hours. Mildred picked us up at the airport.
That was on the trip when Virginia was with me and when we arrived at my house and we drove up to Brainerd’s so she could see Silvia. We stayed at the Holiday Motel. Our room was next to a bunch of drunks and the cops were called so we switched rooms. When we got back from Brainerd we went to see Helen and we ate at Shum Ackers.
I did a lot of babysitting for Hal during that time too. I saw Brenda and Bonnie and also Chris. I was playing a lot of cards during this time with Pearl and Edna.
Sept 29th 1983, Kermit’s Mother died. My mother died exactly one year earlier on Sept 29th 1982.
I used to take little Sarah when I went to play cards with Doris and Brownie. I also saw George Carpenter, Bev, and Roger. I use to see Peggy, Gloria, Bob, and Brownie. I had quite a few dinner parties at the house, too.
In Oct of 1983 I had Milly, Anne, Connie and Jim, Marguerite and Mary Reid over for dinner. I had stuffed turkey and wild rice and the works. I did that quite a bit. I played a lot of cards. I had a shampoo bowl in my laundry room and a hydraulic chair and a hairdryer. I did all my friend’s hair. I was kept very busy with all of them.
Christmas of 1983 I left for California. I drove through snow storms and arrived safely in San Diego California to see Grandchildren.
On Sept 15th 1989 I went on the star princess with Doris, Ed, and Marcella. We had a very good time touring the little islands. I went on the Panama Canal.
Then, in 1995, I went on cruise to Vancouver and Anchorage, Alaska. I went with Gerry and her husband, Doris, Rita, Sally Harris, and her husband.
In 2000 I went to Australia to see my grandson and wife, Chris and Lisa Wilson who were living there. I had a wonderful time.