These photos were taken about a month before my scheduled trip to UGANDA (where I'd be tracking and photographing the SILVERBACK GORILLAS in the misty mountains, as well as other even faster moving animals). This is the primary reason I schlepped all my camera gear up to Idaho, during a trip to visit friends at their new lakeside home in Idaho -- I wanted to practice using my camera's human and animal eye tracking feature on fast-moving subjects. Our day out on the lake in a speedboat seemed like the perfect opportunity, and what resulted was a series of fast shutter action photos that make a simple day of lake rafting look like a cutthroat olympic sport of epic and dangerous proportions.

The fun-time gal who was driving the boat kept throttling it faster and faster, and as we approached near highway speeds, I remember thinking that (other than birds in flight, which I don't really care about), the only way any safari animal could ever possibly move this fast on the savanna is if it got in the Jeep and road with us. So I'd say I have nothing to worry about in Africa as far as my Canon's eye-tracking ability goes, it performed admirably. I can go back to worrying about other things, like malaria and LIONS EATING ME. I've been to Africa several times, so by now I have a long list of things I'm prepared for.

I think this is probably why you see so many older people traveling with so much luggage, or older ladies with ginormous purses, they've lived long enough to have witnesses so many things go sideways on trips, that they are now over-prepared with solutions to too many hypothetical things.

Speaking of things going horribly sideways, last night I watched a Nat Geo show about the rare, tree climbing lions that exist only in Uganda. They don’t know why these 400+ pound lions do this, and why they are the only ones in the world that do. It was all very sweet, and you get very attached to the beautiful lion family as they they teach their four adorable cubs to climb the trees for the first time. It was a tad contrived and a bit schmaltsy, but still,  it made me super excited to see them next week in Africa!!! 

Well, the show was winding down…wrapping up… when  — out of nowhere, at the very end— they added a 2-3 minute addendum that, shortly after filming, the locals killed and slaughtered the entire lion family and all the cubs. 

THE END. 

Wtf, National Geographic? I thought we were having a lighthearted Disney type of time with these lions?! But just before rolling the credits, you tell me they're all dead, murdered by the local people for killing their cattle?

This would be like if you clicked on the above photo of SETH on a raft, expecting to maybe see a few more fun action pics of a day out on the lake, but instead got a bunch of photos of dead bloated bodies floating face down in the water. 

How would you like that?!

Well, don’t worry, there’s no bait and switch here today, it’s exactly what you were expecting.

Seth did keep ramming Janelle repeatedly with his raft, however, she refrained from murdering him and everyone survived the day.  (Unlike the lion family, which I will probably continue to think about for many, many years. Do you know up until the surprise ending, part of me thought there was even a chance Id get to photograph those actual lions in Uganda?!)

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Find out why I’m not a bird person HERE!