Sister Collins and I had to postpone a short trip we had planned for my birthday on account of an unexpected death of a member in our branch. We rescheduled our trip in order to attend to our friend’s funeral, but our new plans meant we’d be traveling during a time that was forecast to be very HOT, and we knew that would temper our activities a bit. We were traveling to Thula Thula, a game reserve known for its unique herd of elephants that sometimes provide visitors with very close and very personal interactions. Unfortunately, hot weather usually drives elephants into the bush to escape the sun and to conserve energy so our chances for a close and personal interaction with them were slim. But our reservation was set, so the Monday after the funeral, we packed our bags and set out with the hope that everything would turn out well.

Indeed, everything did turn out well. The temperatures certainly were as hot as forecasted, but in spite of the heat, we were still blessed with multiple encounters with the elephants. I still am working through the experience and don’t have words yet to adequately describe it. I’ll leave it as “amazing” for now and, hopefully, the passage of time will enable me to better capture what took place. Those elephants in the photo are all packed around our land cruiser, and they remained that close to us for quite some time. They are monstrous by any standard of measurement, but when viewed up close - literally eye to eye -  their bigness and the energy you feel from them is near overwhelming. You can imagine the excitement we felt, and some trepidation, as they gathered around us, our field of view soon completely filled by them, and the air alive with their deep rumblings and the sounds of their huge bodies passing before us at arm’s length. It was an unforgettable experience.