This is part II of a series of ongoing essays leading up to my trip to Kenya in spring of next year (leaving March 27). Thankfully, I’m taking care of all the logistics leading up to this trip way ahead of time (see attached essay).

Word Count: 866

Kenya Kurudi

Part II

The logistics pertaining to this upcoming Kenya trip are turning out to be a lot more than some folks think. Fortunately, I’m way ahead of the game because of the fact that I’ve already taken care of numerous tasks. First and foremost, the plane ticket is already paid for. 95% of this safari I signed up for is out of the way, and I’ve even made out a list of tasks that need to be taken care of before the trip falls into place. Heck, I even started marking some of jobs off the list as the task gets taken care of. Sickening how practical I’m turning out to be in this situation, isn’t it?

From my perspective, it feels darn good to get a lot of preliminary stuff out of the way, and I’m convinced that certain people despise individuals like myself who try to be efficient in matters such as this. Do they wonder why some people can’t be like them? Lazy slobs who’d rather sit around consuming an entire bag of potato chips in a single sitting (actually, I do that myself on a regular basis). Maybe they wish they could be more like the person whose taking care of all this stuff way ahead of the game? Suddenly discovering that they’ve got more than just a twinge of jealousy, and wishing they had the financial resources to pay for a one-way plane ticket to fly the individual to Uzbekistan. Basically, so the person will be “out of sight, out of mind?” as it were.

Probably the latter, but I’m not going to lose any sleep over the situation since I happen to be on the efficiency end of the category in this situation. What’s the difference if some of these people envision scenarios where they can hunt me down? In my position, it feels good to be one or two steps ahead of the game, and hopefully I’ll be able to use the “efficiency” tendency to my advantage if in some other bizarre universe, the “hunting” script happens to play itself out.

It’s actually a very good thing that I’m trying to take care of lots of tasks way ahead of time. Here’s the best example of that so far. When I had my initial health consult way back in mid-October, the county nurse told me I needed to contact the folks at San Juan Basin Healthin order to set up dates for some of the immunizations I’d need for the trip. Thursday last week I had that first health consult at SJBH, and nurse complimented me on the fact that I’m trying to take care of all this stuff way ahead of time (“Thank you, thank you very much.”-Elvis Presley tone of voice of course). She mentioned that they’d be able to administer the Typhoidimmunization, which then had me setting up a date to have that done.

Then she off-handedly commented that the Yellow Fevershot I’d need for the trip will require me to travel to an urban environment. Basically, because the antibody is live, and it happens to be in limited supply right now. Travel options; Denver, Colorado Springs, or Albuquerque, and at least a six-hour drive just to get a shot. Mind you, a special type of immunization which will allow you to travel half-way around the world to a tropical environment feeling safer. As we all know, these equatorial environs happen to be loaded with all sorts of strange microscopic critters that should a person contract the malady they’re noted for passing to unsuspecting human beings like myself, leaves them lying there in almost too much pain, or wishing they’d never been born to begin with (pleasant thought).

Better Safe than Sorryas the old cliché goes, so I reluctantly contacted the folks in New Mexico in order to have the shot administered in February of next year. Traveling all the way to Albuquerque for the sack of this trip? Why not. Since it’s a shorter distance to drive, that’s the only reason I chose to go in that direction. 

     So where do I go at this point in terms of getting ready for the trip? This past Tuesday (12/18/18) marked 100 days before I fly out of Denver, and for some odd reason that marks sort of a D-Day for me in terms of getting ready. Will I be there? Still various tasks to take care of between now and the end of January, but all of a sudden when I first booked that plane flight way back in late September, the adventure seems closer than it’s been in a while. The next installment of this ongoing adventure might find me getting one or two steps closer to sheer panic. I suppose that’s inevitable due what some people say is my overly-cautious, but extremely accident-prone nature. Then again, hopefully that won’t happen.