We made it safely to Johannesburg, South Africa and move on to Malawi tomorrow.

I was also able to pressure buy (sales guy was unwilling to sell his, but I whined and griped and he finally did it) a power supply for my laptop... paid $135 for something worth $55, but I got one.

Note to self: Make more checklists for electronic cables before leaving on a trip!

We're not on safari yet, but I wanted you all to see just how big the elephants can get here in South Africa:



PS - Sign up and launch Skype so we can talk!!!!!!!!!!!

We leave for Malawi tomorrow afternoon. In the morning, we'll drive Lady out to the West side of town where my parents live and drop her off (sniff sniff). She always looks at us through my parent's storm door in the front of their place with really sad eyes that read, "You're abandoning me here AGAIN? I thought you people loved me!!!!!!"

What a long journey it will be to get to Lilongwe on Friday night.

Houston to London is something like 10 hours. London to Paris is 2 hours. Then the big whammy... Paris to Johannesburg is 12 or 13 hours.

Fortunately, we arrive in J'burg on Thursday morning and don't leave for Malawi until Friday morning, so we have some time to get right side up in the lower hemisphere of the world that's 8 hour ahead of us and backwards from us weather-wise... it's fall there, and the weather is cooling off nicely. 49 degrees in the mornings and it warms up to the mid 70's... nice, eh?

I'll post pix and YouTube video whenever I can on the trip and add more blog entries.

Please pray for us for safe travel, patience with each other as we move through airports while being dog-tired, and one really selfish prayer request...

Sometimes, when you ask sweetly—and coach is oversold—they'll bump you up to Business Class. I'm praying they'll do this for us on the leg of the trip from Paris to South Africa. When you pray for us in the next couple of days, would you ask God for that too? It sure would make the trip less painful... I endure some serious circulation issues when I travel and my tail bone hurts like you wouldn't believe.