Day 30, 31, and 32: July 7, 8, and 9, 2026 Rochester, Minnesota, and eventually Minneapolis, Minnesota

The next two days drastically changed in terms of the focus. We were very grateful we were in Rochester to be helpful, as well as Patti’s sister. Paula was back from her leg cabin to get some dental work done and so she was available. And then the main stay was Patti’s brother, Perry.  He lives three blocks away from Mom and is her primary caregiver.  He does an amazing job.

The next two days consisted of taking shifts of spending time with our mother at the local hospital. There was a whole variety of doctors and providers and social workers and anesthesiologist who needed to come and meet with her and create a care plan. It was decided that on the ninth she would have a surgery getting several pins and screws put into her ankle. The main concern was, she could not put any pressure down on that leg with those fractured bones moving around. There was lots of pain and it was a pretty confusing process. It’s not easy as an elder to be in pain and in the hospital. Especially with so many people coming in and out of your room all night.

Patti, Paula, and Perry worked together as a team splitting shifts to have time there with Mom.

The plan also included once she’s released from the hospital that she would need to go to a rehab care center rather than return to her home right away. This is very disappointing to her, but she is going to need to be in a wheelchair and get serious rehab. So there are lots and lots of steps that needed to happen working with the social worker and finding who had openings and making plans.

The surgery happened first thing in the morning of the ninth and went well. So following an opportunity to be at the hospital a little bit when she was out of recovery, Perry, and Paula supported Patti and Dick continuing on our way, as was our original plan. We needed to start our journey home which will happen over the next week and a half and include about 3000 miles.

Early afternoon on the ninth brought us to Minneapolis. We could see a variety of signs that clearly linked to the struggle with ICE earlier in the year. South Minneapolis, where we are staying, was a the heart of ICE action, including where they killed two people. We will visit those sites over the next few days. We found our Airbnb home in where we would settle in for several days of resting and visit visiting friends.

The visit to Rochester didn’t end the way we had hoped. But we were grateful to be able to do our part in helping to care for Patti‘s mom as well as to do some things like cleaning the house and clearing out the refrigerator since she was going to be gone for a while. Oh, it’s so hard to be so far away from family as we all age.

Day 28 and 29: July 5 and 6, 2026 Rochester, Minnesota to Eau Claire, Wisconsin back to Rochester

Sunday morning brought us to church at Bethel Lutheran Church. This is a church where Patti grew up and her mom has been a member of for nearly 60 years. It was lovely to see their head Pastor, Anjeanette. She is a very special long-term minister with our family. Always lovely to see her. And the service was full of really well done patriotic music with a very fine inclusive message. It was nice just to be able to stretch out the Fourth of July, a little bit longer.

After lunch, we headed off to Wisconsin. We first stopped at the National Eagle Center in Wabasha. This area has a tremendous amount of bald eagles, especially in the winter. The Center participates in rescue and educational programs. We’ve been here one time before, but we really were glad to see their latest exhibits. One of their animal educators was available to talk to us for quite some time before a bus load of people from a river cruise arrived. We were glad those people were getting a chance to experience the wonders of these magnificent birds. And, we enjoyed a special exhibit about the American bicentennial centered around an eagle theme.

The drive was so very green.  Green is a color that when you see it in souther California in the summer means there has been intensive irrigation, not rain. We mis the green!!

Another hour further down the road, we came to the home of our nephew, Matt and his new wife Sofie. We were at their wedding a few weeks ago and we were really pleased to get the opportunity to come and see them in their home. We had a delightful evening together over dinner and sharing stories of our African safari and their lives. We appreciated hearing about Sofie's role as a middle-school Social Studies teacher and volleyball coach. She is so creative in her approach to teaching. Matt is an accountant in an agency helping people with employment and housing needs. He loves being part of an organization helping people,. They are really a wonderful young couple and it was fun to hear about their work and other things going on in their lives.

Then we were back to Rochester ready to settle in for several more days before we needed to hit the road.

It was a quiet day on Monday the sixth. Dick became more and more sure that it wasn’t allergies or a cold that he had picked up while we were in Africa, but indeed  a sinus infection. We got some help from our local family to find the easiest urgent care and had a really positive experience there where they confirmed yes it was a sinus infection and yes, he needed antibiotics. He was really tired of feeling so tired and having his head hurt so much. So we were pleased to get the medication and he was needing and to spend extra time sleeping just fighting off the infection.

Patti went back to her brother's home to use his WiFi to complete several work obligations.  While there she looked out the back window to see a deer. Perry and Jodie feed them in the winter but here was one on a warm Summer Day.

As we were about to go over to another nephew's house, Josh and his partner Makiah, Patti’s mom had a terrible fall as she tried to step out the front door to check her mail. She was able to call for help from a jogger who was running by, who alerted us.  Patti then called her brother. It was clear that Joan had really hurt her leg and, after quite a struggle, we got her into Perry’s car and he whisked her away to the emergency room.

She was seen by a doctor with x-rays and scans, and it was clear that she had broken three bones at the bottom of her leg and ankle. So she was admitted to the hospital and the long week of dealing with the medical system was underway.

Day 26 and 27: July 3 and 4, 2026 Rochester, Minnesota

So we are really back in the US, although not really on the right time yet. Jet lag can really kick your butt, especially when it’s a seven hour difference.

Both of us tried our best to sleep in but woke up too darn early. Dick appears to have picked up some kind of a sinus infection and is needing extra sleep right now. It’s nice that we have some time. We have about a week at Patti’s mom’s where we can kind of kick back, have some family time and relax.

In the morning of the third, Patti had some work things to print off for work and was able to do that over at her brother Perry‘s house. Then, Perry, his wife, Jodi, and Patti and Dick hung out for a while and then went out for lunch. Jodie was taking advantage of it being a holiday for 3 July so she felt like she was really sneaking away to be able to go out for lunch on a Friday.

Next, we went and got the oil changed on our car which we knew needed to happen while we were on the trip. So nice to be able to hook up with a local Toyota dealership and get the 30,000 mile check up with our car and oil change so we’re now good to get us back to San Diego.

For dinner, we went out to Canadian Honkers. This is an iconic Rochester restaurant that was started years ago when there were lots of Canadian geese in a park in downtown Rochester. They were attracted to the open water year-round due to the power plant. We all ordered the all you can eat shrimp and walleye. We are not starving on this trip. Eating so much food.

Then a quiet evening and off to bed.

We woke up early on the Fourth of July thinking happy 250th birthday USA. It’s a strange and odd birthday time. There have several years recently that we’ve been in Rochester on the Fourth of July, and the plan is to join Patti‘s brother and sister-in-law down at the local park for a concert and watching fireworks. Crossing our fingers it won’t be raining.

The concert in the park was excellent.  Everyone had a wonderful time.  We all settled in following the concert to wait for the fireworks to begin.  They started at 9:45 and were lovely. And then they stopped at 9:47. Everyone sat and waited.  Was there some type of problem with the fireworks, maybe a computer glitch.  Most people stayed in place.  Finally after around 15 minutes, they turned the flood lights on.  Was it REALLY over so soon?  No announcements, and people began to leave.. Over the next few minutes, as the crowd was moving, we could hear the thunder, and then the rain started lightly. We wished the people in front of us felt more urgency. We were not too wet by the time we were at the car but the skies soon opened and heavy rain began to fall.  

No one could understand what had happened. A two minute fireworks display was not what we expected! Later we found out it was a perfect storm of troubles:  It was reported that some of the fireworks crew had heat stroke, which was surprising since it wasn't that hot. There were other technical problems with setting the fireworks off. And then the storm was coming. Since they had already taken down the sound system so no way to give announcements.  A rather dud of a way to celebrated the 250th year of the US.  But, as many people said, maybe appropriate for the type of year we had had.  Happy Independence Day!

Day 24 and 25 July 1 and 2, 2026 Victoria, Falls, Zimbabwe to Johannesburg South Africa to Atlanta, Georgia to Minneapolis St. Paul

Today would be a long day of travel. We expected to be traveling over 34 hours from door to door as we headed back to Minnesota. We slept in and did initial packing. Then got up and had a big breakfast at the hotel. We had asked for a little bit late check out to take some pressure off so we had a chance to finish packing and work on some blog and picture posts.

Then we went up and checked out, having had such a fine experience in this peaceful hotel. It was definitely the favorite of the hotels we had stayed in in southern Africa. Very peaceful and the staff were all top level, good people.

So then we were transported to the airport with some extra time there, went through border control to officially leave Zimbabwe before settling in at our departure gate. Patti did some shopping while Dick continued to hang out and work on Photos. We boarded our plane without problems.

Then, onto Johannesburg, South Africa, where we had five hours in the airport there. We went through South African Border Control and had a chance for a bit of a nap. Their concept of a transit zone is different from other countries. Once we could finally see our departure gate announced we moved to find it. We soon found that we had to go through their security before we could proceed to our gate. 

We settled in at our gate and got all of our electronics charging on the one outlet in the whole room. A garbled announcement was made and some of the people around us began to move. To our surprise, that announcement was that everyone was going to have to go through another security inspection at a temporary arrangement of tables.  No x-ray, just poking through our carry-ons. A very nice gate agent helped us jump the line. Everyone around us was a bit baffled by the process. The biggest surprise was that they would not allow any plastic water bottles to be taken on the plane, whether full or empty. We had just purchased a new bottle of water for the flight. After another 90 minutes we boarded our plane and started the 16 hour flight to Atlanta, Georgia.

What a long flight this was, cramped in the cheap seats at the back of the plane. The crew did not seem to understand that we arrived on board without water. We had to seek it out regularly. This kind of flight has to be endured and we did. We arrived in Atlanta a little before eight in the morning. We’re now onto June 2.

We had enough time to clear American customs and get on the final plane going up to Minneapolis Saint Paul. Why are we not going home? Because our car is at Patti’s mom’s house. We will have nearly two weeks in Minnesota before we start the long journey back to California.

All the flights were uneventful and we slept as much as we could. We knew we were gonna be so topsy-turvy by the time we got home.

When we landed in Minneapolis in Saint Paul on time, we were able to go over collect our luggage and hop on a shuttle going from the airport down to Rochester, Minnesota where Patti’s brother picked us up and brought us over to her mom’s House.

We had been to Africa and now we’re back. Wow.  

Day 23: June 30, 2020 Victoria, Falls, South Africa to Chobe National Park, Botswana

Well, we knew the drill and asked for a breakfast pack as we were getting picked up at seven in the morning. Patti was especially touched by the welcome and kindness shown by a security guard at our report.  His name was "Gift" and indeed he was a gift to all of the guests as we went off on our adventures. There were so many logistics that happened in the course of this day. The first included driving around to several hotels to pick people up.We loaded into another larger bus and headed off 80 km down the road to the border of Botswana.

At the border, we were off the bus, checked passports, sanitized our shoes and hands, interviewed by immigration people assuring them we were there for a one day day trip. And then we were split up into two pick up trucks (similar to what we rode in at Kruger National Park), and headed off to see the animals. 

We had to go a ways into the country before we got to the edge of Chobe National Park. There we all got out and our guide checked our group in. This stage just had so many checking in checking out kind of times. We are used to being able to cross the whole United States without having much of this kind of bureaucracy. But, today we were in indeed headed off to another country.

Chobe National Park looked quite a bit like Kruger. The first half hour produced no animals, but a lot of really bumpy dirt roads. This was a little disappointing, having heard that they had an amazing amount of animals in this park. But, soon the animals started showing up.

During the course of the day we saw giraffes, lots of warthog, Impala’s, Cape Buffalo, many different kinds of birds, hippos, and lots and lots of elephants. We also saw a pride of lions.

We were so glad to have one more day just to soak in the beauty of these amazing wild animals. There were so many wonderful photos and opportunities. We can never share all of them here, but rest assured it was such a blessing to be seeing so many wonderful animals.

Eventually, it was clear we were running late for lunch and had to leave the park and go to a resort where we had OK buffet lunch. The highlight there was an enormous, ancient baobab tree in the middle. We loved seeing that. After we finally all finished for lunch. We hopped back in our trucks and went a little ways down the road to where we would catch a boat to take us by water on the Chobe River to see the places that the animals visited this wide wide, river. Some more logistical trouble that there had been confusion about the size boat we needed and the one that was available had space for only 17 passengers while they were 18 of us. Law did not allow us to have more passengers than their receipts so they had to split the group up and a third eventually went on another smaller boat.

The time by boat was really sweet. It was where we were able to get very close to crocodiles as well as watch a pod of hippos, underwater and coming out of the water, including a baby hippo. There is an island that is in the middle of the Chobe River between Namibia and Botswana. We got to see how many animals would swim over and graze on that land, which was partly covered with water at this time of high water. It was really interesting place to be.

We also made an unscheduled an illegal stop on the beach at Namibia for about two minutes where anyone who wanted to could hop out and declare they had now been to Namibia. People were uncertain if they should do that, but Patti led the charge. Why not, here we are. We both thought we have never entered a country illegally before. In these crazy times that takes on a little bit deeper meaning.

Finally, it was time to head back, but about 10 minutes out the motor of our boat quit working. We were stranded. Our guide called one of his fellow guides from his company for help, but she was already on another errand going to the border. So, he had to wave over and ask a guide on another boat for some assistance. The two of them got the motor started, but it immediately quit. The other boat pilot offered to tie up the two boats and get us into shore. His kindness was really appreciated.

Patti was reminded of the old TV show Gilligans Island where they were going on a three hour tour and ended up stranded for many years on a deserted island.

Luckily, we were not stranded and got in pretty quickly. Then, we all piled on our trucks got back to the border where we went through all the bureaucracy again.

One of the interesting people that we met on that day was a woman from Hawaii, Cynthia, who is traveling for a little bit before she was headed off to a wonderful experience working with a traditional music teacher in the villages. We adopted her and helped support her as she had some things that were very confusing about her visa.

But eventually, everybody was through. We hopped on the bus and drove about an hour back to Victoria Falls. We both agreed we would not try to do any packing in the night because we didn’t have to leave in the morning until a little after 11. Another amazing day in South Africa.