Ennen Family Trip Zambia – Chobe National Park 20Dec17 – NNs On the Wind

December 20, 2017January 8, 2019 Kathleen Ennen

CHOBE NATIONAL PARK

The 2017 Ennen family trip with Candy and Shea Ennen, son Henry, daughter Charlotte, taking leave from her post with Peace Corps, and Kathleen and Thom Ennen, depart for S Africa on 9 Dec 2017.

Our second day involved a full day tour, with various cars and drivers to drive to the Zambezi River, catch a small boat across, then, with another driver, go to the Chobe National Park in Zimbabwe. It was a land based tour, and then following a big lunch at a resort, a river based tour near the park. Lots of animals!!! The most exciting was the very large the multifamily herd of elephants coming to the river to drink and play. Our boat driver had never seen so many elephants in one place at the same time.

We were driven back to the river crossing and met at the other side by our earlier driver. On the way back to the Airbnb we spoke of the many animals we’d seen. The driver remarked that very close to our route back we’d be going by a small preserve where Zambia was trying to protect the white rhino. He called his mates who were guards at the park and they agreed to let us in with the hopes of seeing some. We were very lucky to be able to see and spend a little time watching a mother and her young calf. On the way out we spotted a male in the bush. Three white rhinos in one day.

What a day!!!

WHITE RHINOS

We have traveled over the years and retired in 2017, when we started on a nine month long adventure departing in December 2017. In the past we’ve traveled to Sri Lanka, Africa (several times), Turkey, and made a number of trips to Europe, and St Lucia. Our 2015 trip to Turkey, took nearly 3 weeks to explore Istanbul, Cappadocia and the areas in proximity to Izmir.

This is a chronicle of our travels, past and present. We love to travel by trains, planes, ships, and cars – and love sailing whenever and wherever we can.

We retired from the US General Services Administration, the Federal Government’s landlord! Thom worked at planning and large scale program management of numerous projects and Kathleen, a registered professional civil engineer, was a project manager for many infrastructure and building renovation projects, including both design and construction aspects, in New England, Florida and the metro DC area. We lived in Washington DC for 12 years and upon retirement sold the house, putting a few things in a 5’x5’ storage unit and started traveling.

On return to the US in September 2018, after traveling to 21 countries, we bought a Class C RV – 2019 Thor Freedom Elite 24FE. We enjoyed our week long camping trip in New Zealand in a small converted van with few amenities, so this seemed liked a good way to tour the US. We hope to visit family along the way and as many US National Parks as possible.

UPDATE – the Covid pandemic made travel more difficult for us. We were abroad for several months when the pandemic started and returned to the US in July 2020. After several months in the RV to visit Utah and Albuquerque NM, we moved east, bought a house on the Northern Neck of Virginia, and sold the RV. For 2021 and 2022 we tended to our new house and cottage, gardens and various boats including a 18’ 1977 Marshall Sanderling catboat and a 25’ Steiger Craft Chesapeake fishing boat, and kayaks and a canoe. Hopefully travel will start again one day!!

May 2022