Traveling Fool

One of the activities that I enjoyed when I was in Costa Rica was the river cruise and when I was planning this adventure, I wanted to make sure I did a couple of them and the Kinabatangan River did not let me down, except they are never long enough. The early morning is usually the best time of day when animals are feeding and it hasn't gotten too hot. We saw proboscis monkeys on almost all of the cruises, egrets, kingfishers, a few red leaf and silver leaf monkeys, lizards and saltwater crocodiles. There were probably a lot more birds that I could barely see, even with my binoculars. I really hoped to see elephants and while I didn't get to actually SEE the elephant, we saw proof it was in the vicinity and I do have an audio, and honestly, that was still pretty cool. You really aren't guaranteed to see anything, so I feel lucky that we saw as many proboscis monkeys as we did, and that big crocodile, and the egrets are so graceful.  Lizard on the beach Dusk on the river Eg...

The entire motivation for going to Borneo was to see the orang utan (Malay for person of the forest). People have asked why (why do I do anything really?) and I guess it's because I find them just amazing animals, they are endangered and I wanted to have an experience. Seeing wild animals is really different in reality compared to what one plans, which may seem obvious, but I like to hear myself talk. The odds were pretty low that I would be hiking in the rainforest and come across an orang utan, so seeing them in a rehab center and the sanctuary was still amazing and captivating. At the Sepilok Orang Utan Rehabilitation Centre  you can see animals that may have bene orphaned or injured in the wild and if possible, they will be nursed back to health and released into the wild, others will remain at the Centre. On the other side of the centre is a sanctuary where orang utans can come and go as they wish, maybe coming in for feeding, but if they are getting food on their own, they ma...

 In mid-2024 I started planning my next adventure to Borneo , home of the orangutan . Admittedly, I had no idea where to start, so I worked with Audley Travel to plan out this expedition. The first step was to actually understand where and what Borneo is, because I totally misunderstood what it is. Borneo is the third largest island in the world and is divided/shared between three countries: Indonesia , Malaysia and Brunei . The part of Borneo I was visiting was the Malaysian part. Where is Borneo? Borneo is southeast of Malaysa and east of Indonesia, bordered by the Celebes Sea , the Java Sea and the South China Sea . It is divided by the equator , which is why it is so hot and the sun is so powerful. Ok, geography lesson over, let's get down to other practicalities. Flying to Malaysia from Minneapolis I was going to cross the international date line and be twelve hours ahead of my home base. My travel planner suggested that in order to adjust to the time difference and jet l...

 I had this trip to Nebraska planned for several months, and I was really looking forward to it after being cooped up all winter. I think cranes first entered my consciousness after I spent a couple hours at the International Crane Foundation in Baraboo, Wisconsin on a road trip to Cleveland . And then a friend mentioned the Sandhill crane migration that goes through the Platte River region in Nebraska in March/April. It sounded amazing. I just needed to start planning; the weather in this region in March can be horribly unpredictable, would I run into a snowstorm or would it be dry and blue skies? Turns out it was a little of both. Just a few days before I started out, there was a major snowstorm in Nebraska, which made me nervous, but I had great weather.  There are a few different ways to see the cranes and probably the best way is to connect with one of the conservancy groups that does educational work on the cranes and the diverse wildlife on the Platte River. They offer ...