Photo: Sunset over the Serengeti.

We’re finally back and fairly jetlagged! Jon fell asleep in the middle of eating his burger last night but we managed to sleep through the night, even though our bodies are about 7 hours ahead. And oh, the things we take for granted here in America. The things we take for granted! It took us about 45 minutes to get back to my sister’s house from Dulles Airport – the same distance the Maasai village was from Nairobi, yet it did not involve super dusty dirt roads with potholes  and giant rocks for miles on end. I absent-mindedly flushed the toilet – flushed the toilet! and brushed my teeth with the tap running  (although I should have turned it off, I know). And pulled food out of the refrigerator  and stood around munching on a variety of items. Then I piled all our clothes into this machine that – imagine this – washes the clothes for you! One of the Kenyan staff of the volunteer organization, who was a city girl herself from Nairobi, commented on how nice it was that we Mzungas (white people, or non-black foreigners) had these machines that washed your clothes while you sat around sipping a cup of coffee.

Our flight home was interesting: in Zanzibar, my luggage was stopped at security for seashells, seashells… not the liter of water Jon was carrying or the nailclippers they tried to find in Ethiopia security… but my seashells. However, for a small tip, I can still remove them out of the country.

Then we flew from Zanzibar Island to Dar es Salaam (a nice 15-minute flight in a Boeing 737) and then to Addis Ababa where we changed planes and wandered the gift shops for Ethiopian treasures that looked suspiciously like Kenyan and Tanzanian and Indian ones, then to Rome for a quick refueling of our jet although I was asleep for all of Rome. Then finally back to Dulles, where my brother-in-law and niece kindly picked us up from the airport and we took hot showers and drank water from the tap.

I’ll post more stories about our adventures, and I’m sure the novelty of electricity and running water and all that will wear off quickly. In the meantime, I have to figure out how to get pictures of my defunct memory card (everyone pray that I am not about to lose all my Africa pictures!) but here are some from Jon’s point-and-shoot, when we wanted to be discreet. People did NOT like having their pictures taken, even if you were just taking a picture of the street.

Jumping around to a Maasai song by the crocodile park in Nairobi

Zebras in Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania (they stand this way to keep watch for predators)

Me, trying to appear like a nonchalant shopper at the market in Arusha, Tanzania.

We’re now in Dar es Salaam, staying at our friends Natalia and Brian at their new place by the ocean which is clean, white and sparkling (her apartment, that is). Brian works for a coffee company and Natalia is a nurse at one of the new emergency rooms (a new concept here). We took real showers and slept in their spare bedroom and are learning much about Tanzania. We head out by ferry to Zanzibar tomorrow, land of white sand beaches lining the Indian Ocean. Of course, I don’t need another tan, because after looking in the mirror for the first time in five days I realized I had gotten pretty dark. Dark or dirty, it is unclear.

All of this… fits into below.

Hark. We’re driving to Chicago. In a car. From Baltimore. I don’t know why this is such news, considering I did this route many times between St. Louis – New York during college, and Chicago- New York during graduate school, and even Los Angeles- New York when I moved out west. But perhaps now that I’m no longer 19 years old, the concept of driving all night (“ROADTRIP!!!”) is no longer as exciting. I mean, what’s wrong with an airplane? I’ll tell you what’s wrong with an airplane: it would have cost us more than $700 total to jet to Chicago for the weekend for Jon’s friend’s wedding, thanks to airline mergers, fewer seats, higher prices, overbooking, summer vacation and the recession.

So we’re driving. (Also because the in-laws really want us to take things from the basement to our house.) The trip is slightly shorter than if we left from New York (12 hours), which is good, and cuts down the time winding through Pennsylvania significantly, which is also good, but we’ll still have to contend with the long stretch of Ohio, which is bad and boring. I’m contemplating making a few stops in Amish country, and maybe even in Cleveland after seeing the hilarious video about the city which was so funny, I’ve had to post it here.

However, I have learned quite a bit about driving long distances, which I’m happy to share here.

1. Check your oil, tire pressure, windshield wiper fluid, brakes, battery, etc. It helps to have your car in good shape before you head out.

2. Use RainX on your windshield. Especially in winter. The directions say to “squeeze a small amount on a cloth and wipe” but the actual directions should be “squeeze large amount all over windshield, then use a lot of paper towels to rub it until no more streaks show.”

3. If you’re packing a full trunk, make sure you can access your spare easily. My friend was stuck unloading her truck in the middle of an Arizona desert and putting her laundry, fax machine, bedding and pillows on the highway after a flat.

4. Keep a phone charger in your car.

5. Don’t play the see-how-far-your-car-can-drive after the gas light goes on. Fill up before it reaches the E.

6. Have kids in the car? Read this blog entry I wrote a couple weeks ago.

7. Keep Wet-Ones and napkins/ paper towels within reach. And a plastic bag to act as a trash collector.

8.  Switch drivers often. Drink coffee. Eat beef jerky and carrots. Sing songs together. Contemplate short-term and long-term life plans. Listen to weird religious talk radio in other states. It’s an educational and cultural way to learn about our country.

More importantly, we’re headed to KENYA and TANZANIA the weekend after, so stayed tuned for the more exciting updates on that (I assure you, they will be more interesting than the blog entry about the cheese we try in Dutch Pennsylvania).

If I could have planned my snow week with one day’s notice – say, last Thursday they said: by the way, this storm coming your way is going to shut you in for the rest of the week. What would I have done? Here’s my wish list.

Grand Canyon. I would have packed up my little Civic with our camping gear and bags of Trader Joe’s groceries and headed west, young man. I did it before in that little car and I would have tried again. Jon and I missed the Grand Canyon on our last roadtrip across the country (though I have been twice already on separate trips) and this would have been a perfect time to head out to explore, when the crowds are few. We would have hit a few other sites along the way, possibly Canyonlands, Arches, Zion, and wherever else that wouldn’t involve much snow. Four days driving roundtrip, leaving 5-6 days of exploring.

Colorado. Again, packing up the car with snowboarding gear and attempting to drive it through the snowy mountains of Colorado to experience some fresh powder. Yay! Again, four days of driving roundtrip, leaving 5-6 days of snow fun.

Hawaii. I would have hopped on a last-minute ticket flight to Hawaii, no matter how many times we had to change planes, and gone hiking through volcanoes, surfing on giant surfboards, wearing scenty leis and gotten a tan.

Paris. Flights to Europe are cheap in winter. So why not catch the next flight to one of my most favorite cities in the world? Wander through some smaller art galleries I missed last time, eat macarons, check out the latest fashions at Le Printemps, pick out some tres chic items for our house at BHV.

Dominican Republic. The country’s tourism is hurting because of Haiti’s earthquake. An ideal situation would be to sit on the beach, perhaps away from all the other tourists in Punta Cana, and maybe hike around the tropical forests, and then spend some time volunteering to help Haiti. Portions possible to write-off on taxes, too.

The federal government declared a snow day, and so will My Travel Hats as we attempt to dig out our car from the unplowed streets of Baltimore. Three feet of snow = flights cancelled, Amtrak cancelled, basically all travel of any kind involving the mid-Atlantic region from Philadelphia to Richmond was nonexistent. If you’re in the area, you’ve now figured out that states below the Mason-Dixon line have no idea how to handle snow and don’t have enough snowplows, salt or sand or money allocated to handling more than, like, 3 inches of snow for the whole season. Which is why everyone runs shrieking to the supermarkets, emptying the shelves of food (for real: this happened at Whole Foods on Thursday) and schools close even if there isn’t any snow yet but just the prospect of snow. They know: MD/DC/VA are completely unprepared to deal with this. If you’re headed in this direction, you’ll be okay on the highways (be wary of drivers – there are still lots of accidents and ice on the roads) but be forewarned that the side streets are NOT plowed and you may have to park and hike through knee-deep snow to get to your destination.

If you’re lucky and have 4-wheel drive and live in the area, you can get to some of the little mountains for some of the best skiing the region’s seen in years.

Photo: Jon as he attempts to climb out of our house through the back door in the kitchen.

1. a regular editorial calendar

2. more great tips/ great trips!

3. contests, polls, and fun interactivity

4. and for all you who keep sending me press releases (and I thank you!) – we are working on getting ADVERTISING for you!

After I am done helping Jon put shrink-wrap all over our windows with a hairdryer and finish unpacking from our holidays, I will upload a few wonderful winter scenes I shot up in New York. Stay tuned!