Today is a busy day, so I’ll need to hurry through today’s post and be on my way. At 11:30 am, Rita is picking me up, and we’re heading to Malalane for her chiropractic appointment, and then we’ll head to lunch at a popular restaurant, The Deck. I can’t remember the last time I attended a “girl’s lunch” although I’ve had several “girl’s breakfasts” at Stoep Cafe with Kathy and Rita.

Tom and Gerhard are driving to Nelspruit to drop off the rental car for Tom to pick up another, which will be the last car we’ll need until we depart four weeks from today, on March 23. Time flies by quickly as we savor every last moment in the bush.

Most likely, when we return in December, we won’t be staying at this house. The animals we know and love most likely won’t find us at the next house, a few miles, km, from here. But Little found me when we arrived here after a two-year absence, so maybe, he’ll find us again.

The animals can wander an area of a few kilometers each day, so we never know who we may see again when we return in December to a house we hope to rent, owned by Louise and Danie and recently remodeled.

Lately, Hal and Broken Horn have become quite a source of delight for both of us. Although they may appear simultaneously, most often, it’s one, then the other, as was the case this morning. Their personalities and demeanor are uniquely different. Hal is more easy-going with the piglets and moms, while Broken Horn doesn’t hesitate to show them his horns.

He never hurts them, but an injury could happen. We often see mature warthogs with severe injuries from messing with wildebeests and kudus. The bushbucks back off entirely when a larger animal is near. We’ve never seen a bushbuck with one of those gaping holes due to an angry larger animal. Overall, the animals get along well.

We are cautious when tossing pellets to ensure no unnecessary competition between species occurs. Of course, there are occasional scuffles within each species, mainly just chasing one another off. We humans need to avoid inciting any disharmony between the wildlife. Their lives are hard enough to have humans making it worse.

This morning, I am on a more frequent walking schedule, hoping to get in as many steps as possible before Rita gets here. I haven’t missed a day since I began, shortly after the start of the new year. I’ve managed to meet or beat my prior week’s number of steps each week. At this point, 8000 to 10000 steps per day seems to be the number that works best for our lifestyle and available time.

When we get to Florida, I will be able to walk outdoors. There are plenty of birds and marine life photos I’ll be able to take since we’ll be situated right on the water. Of course, I’ll be taking my phone or camera if I see any alligators. It has been over two years since we’ve been close to the sea in India in 2020/2021.

So that’s it for today, folks. I have to get a few things done before heading out, including some photos to this post and wrapping it up.

I hope you have a great day wherever you may be in the world.

Photo from one year ago today, February 23, 2021:

This morning I awoke to two annoying email messages. One was from Google Fi as follows:

“Hi, Jessica,

Thanks for contacting Google Fi support!

I see that you’ve contacted us to request an exception for international roaming. Let me look into this.

After reviewing your account, it shows that you are not verified via Sheer ID. Eligible users include Military statuses other than active duty or reservists, like retired.

Military or State Department employees who are in the US and don’t serve abroad
People that work on a military base but aren’t in the military, like contractors
Dependents who aren’t in the same group as the eligible military or State Department employee
If you fall under one of the above categories, please submit documentation through goo.gle/fi-sheerid. If your military status or branch isn’t listed as an option on the verification form, you’re not eligible for an exception. I hope this helps!

If you have any further concerns and questions, please reply to this email or contact us over Chat or phone (available with a limited team). We’re here to support you 24/7.

Thanks,

Sai

Google Fi Support”

Subsequently, we will have to research a suitable alternative and set it up when we’re in the US at the beginning of April. This is frustrating. We purchased expensive Google phones for this purpose. Our phones will work with other providers, but the costs for data and calls will be outrageous on a roaming basis. We’ll update what we find here in the next week or so.

Secondly, we received an email from one of our credit cards:

“Thomas,

We’re writing to inform you of an upcoming account review scheduled for April 2022. Over the last several months, the highest balance on this account has been significantly lower than your credit limit. Because of this, your credit limit could be decreased following this review.

If your credit limit is decreased as a result of this review, we’ll notify you and make sure to keep your credit limit significantly above your highest balance from the previous two years.”

We have excellent credit. But now, when we haven’t used this particular card over the past year, why do they want to lower the credit line? That’s ridiculous! We called the company, opted out of the “review,” and tried to use this card regularly to avoid losing the good credit limit.

With these two things on our minds, we felt frustrated this morning. As soon as I’ve uploaded today’s post, I’ll get to work on researching a new cell provider, so we don’t have to spend a lot of time on this when we get to Florida. In any case, whichever company we choose will cost us a lot more than we’ve been paying. Our monthly bill with calls and data hasn’t ever been over US $80, ZAR 1206.

Many such issues exist for world travelers, including health insurance challenges. We will be in the US for about eight days. During that time, the only coverage we’ll have in the basic included Medicare plan, certainly not enough to cover in the event of a medical emergency. Our current health insurance with United Healthcare Global, SafeTrip, doesn’t provide any coverage in the US.

You may ask, “With these inconveniences, is it all worth it?”

We aren’t letting various agencies and organizations prevent us from our freedom of traveling as we choose. We often think of people in countries where they aren’t allowed to travel at their leisure. As US citizens, we are grateful that we can but never allow any company or provider to dictate what we can and can’t do.

If all else fails with cell service, we can always return to buying SIM cards in every country we visit. We did this for the first seven years of our world travel journey, and if we have to do it again, we will. It just seems illogical to go backward in technology based on some arbitrary regulations to make companies more money.

Anyway, on a lighter note, yesterday afternoon, we met Rita and Gerhard at Two Trees overlooking the Crocodile River. We didn’t see much. Many animals have access to water holes throughout Kruger National Park with the recent rains and may not venture down the steep ravine to the river to drink and cool off.

Fortunately, we took photos of these two elephants from afar. The photos aren’t as clear as we’d like, but they were across the river from us up a steep hill. They never came down to the river, although they stayed nearby. They appeared to be two males, one much larger than the other. They may have been “kicked out” of the main herd based on their ages.

Once an elephant reaches puberty and can impregnate females, they are banned from participating with the larger herd, usually by the matriarch. She intends to preserve the “family line” integrity by preventing young males from mating with their sisters and other family members. This makes so much sense. These wild beasts are so intelligent!

That’s it for today, folks. Tomorrow is another day, and hopefully, we’ll have found a resolution for our cell phone needs by then.

Be well.

Photo from one year ago today, February 16, 2021:

There was no post one year ago on this date due to a power and WiFi outage resulting from storms.