There is a period in any lengthy trip when you miss work. Really. That wonderfully simple yet complex undertaking of getting up and going to work. Which is, after all, the act that lends structure to most of our lives most of the time. Obviously I am speaking for the many of us with meaningful, challenging and/or agreeable jobs—not for the billions who head off to long days at someplace comparable to a Bangladeshi sweatshop or North Korean rock pile.

The thing about travel is you realize how amazingly diverse the world is—piquing your curiosity for even more global adventures. While simultaneously offering up a chance to contemplate how important the ordinary actions of an everyday life are: going to work, buying groceries, vacuuming the rug, watching Netflix, the morning paper, the noontime Fritos and bean dip, the afternoon abs class, the evening bowl of cereal while you read the morning paper.

Yes, you guessed it right. The end of three weeks of travel. Phase One (me and the kids and their intro to Africa) Phase Two (dad and bro arrive and it’s adventure time in South Africa and Botswana. Only Phase Three to go…we can do it. Actually we are all probably ready to come home—that end-of-three-weeks-on-the-road travel dip in enthusiasm for me—and enough with the loud music down the street or across the pond for everyone. Except Steven the Younger who needs these extra 10 days to plan the rest of his life of 75 years or so.

What’s the right way to say ‘my eyes are bigger than my stomach’ when referring to travel?—once again, my wanderlust is greater than my wander-stamina! But by tomorrow morning when Steven and I board the plane for Johannesburg to Dubai to Oman I will have revived. Somewhat.

Steven has been researching Oman and has discovered there is nothing to do there, but men and women must wear long pants at all times and internet is expensive. Actually I’m a little bit excited; unlike the other Gulf States Oman has a rather exciting history and all those connections with Zanzibar which is a splendid place. And while there I will have lots of time to write my big Okavango Delta travel pieces and Steven will have time to get that future under control.

So here is a small photo album from Cape Town. Since I did not go shark cage diving or hike Table Mountain or even re-visit the penguins (my children have those pictures), my photos are rather prosaic.

SINCE STARTING THIS POST I WENT OUT TO EAT WITH KIDS AND THEN DOWN THE STREET TO GET SOME CASH. SLICK GUY AT ATM MACHINE PULLED A ‘HELPING’ SCAM AS I WENT TO USE CARD, TOO SLICK AND FAST TO DESCRIBE EXCEPT TO SAY I WAS STUPID AND FELL FOR IT FOR ABOUT 30 SECONDS WHICH WAS LONG ENOUGH FOR HIM TO GET THE CARD. Thanks to Leau at work where the bank called with a fraud alert and my best friend Angela at US bank downtown I think all will be well. Last time something like this happened was at my gym in Albuquerque (car window smashed) so just have to deal with it everywhere. In this case I was just too slow to respond when I should have been kicking and screaming. My bad. Well actually the bad guy’s bad I suppose.

ON WITH BEAUTIFUL FUNKY HIP CAPE TOWN. LONG STREET AND THE BEACH.

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AFTERNOON WITH ME

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NIGHT TIME ON LONG STREET