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Lake Nakuru, Kenya: Peter's First Safari & The Demise of Peter's Camera

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Lake Nakuru, Kenya: Peter's First Safari & The Demise of Peter's Camera

We only saw a couple of Lions at Lake Nakuru, but in Maasai Mara, we’re going to see a LOT of them. Here we saw a male and female lion relaxing in the shade of a big tree. We sat here for quite a while just admiring them. These really are massive cats. But if you watch they way they behave, they really are just cats—the same as the cute little ones we have living in our houses.

The safari continued. The further we drove, the more incredible it became. There were just so many animals out here. I think I saw more animals here than I had in the past decade of my life in aggregate. These environments are truly just bursting with life! Is this what planet earth was like before humans ruined everything?

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Peter Goes Whale Watching In British Columbia's Discovery Islands

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Peter Goes Whale Watching In British Columbia's Discovery Islands

Orcas, or Killer Whales, were something of a feared creature in the olden days. Apparently, back in the 1800s when this part of the world was first being explored by Europeans, their technical/scientific classification was actually “Monster.” Hilarious as this might seem, it does make some sense. Black whales with sharp teeth and shark fins? Yeah, that would have definitely felt somewhat monstrous to me if I was an early sailor of these waters. The conventional wisdom of the day was that, if you fell in the water, you needed to get out ASAP so an Orca wouldn’t eat you. If you hadn’t already guessed this, there is, in fact, no record of an Orca ever eating a human. But this was still a legitimate fear as recently as the 1960s when they actually mounted a machine gun on a coastal bluff known as Chatham Point with the aim of shooting as many Orcas as possible. 🤯 Somehow, for the time when this gun was actively scouring the seas, the Orcas stayed clear of this area and there were no casualties. So Orca/human tensions have never escalated to be anything more than a cold war. And it was not long after this that human sentiments toward Orcas began to change for the better.

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Peter In Point Reyes, CA (Part 2): Tomales Point

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Peter In Point Reyes, CA (Part 2): Tomales Point

You can’t actually drive all the way out to Tomales Point. There’s a parking lot and a trailhead next to the historic Pierce Ranch. From there, it’s a 9.4-mile round trip hike to get all the way out to the tip and back. Over the course of this route, there’s a total elevation gain of 1,177 feet. Honestly, it’s a pretty easy hike. I did this when I was fresh off a particularly rough COVID infection, still trying to get my mojo back, so this should give you no pause.

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