South Africa

It's early July, 2007. Mark and AJ, our friends, guides and hosts, meet us at the Bloemfontein airport, in central South Africa. Two Toyota safari vehicles await us in the grocery store-sized parking lot, the way a pinstripe suit would stand out on a beach of swimsuits.

Nearly too much luggage, I note mentally, as I look to the year ahead. Those neck-pillow and blanket combos have to go--three extra items the size of hat boxes but with less substance than a marshmallow. Pure inefficiency, though their bearers claim I don’t understand.

Two and a half hours later we pull into Hunter’s Moon and are met by a pleasant staff expressing genuinely warm greetings. We’ve been to these 65,000 acres before, and I see that new structures are in place. A cottage with two units. A swimming pool (too deep, Mark bemoans, as the water rarely has chance to warm to anyone’s liking). And an open-air pavilion that provides shade for our welcoming drinks.

We’re on safari to have a memorable time. Three generations of Ohlhausens together at a place that delivers much of what we enjoy as a family: an active life in the outdoors, the chance to witness the vastness and beauty of nature, and, not ones to outsource food preparation to the cattleman, true engagement in life’s natural order as experienced through the ages.

In the morning, my parents and I set out with Mark. AJ heads up a less traditional shooting party: a diminutive mom in pursuit of a kudu, a young boy with warthog in his sights, and his little sister in the rear seat doing crossword puzzles. It all feels right, though.

Addendum: As a metaphor for our year, several of us leaped from a bridge over S.A.'s Gouritz River. Marshall and Katherine did the "bridge swing," while I did bungy.