Kruger National Park South Africa Bucket List Trip for ~$1500 from the US?? Hell Yeah!

If you are interested in wildlife on the African continent, you have probably heard of South Africa's Kruger National Park. If you haven't you should! It's certainly in the top 5 in terms of viewing the continent's wildlife in a natural setting. For all the traveling I've done, it's perhaps the most amazing place I've visited that doesn't have an active volcano!

Parents - Your dislike of math may do YOUR children a great disservice

Soooo.....  You don't like math.

As a science professor, I hear this all of the time. Students. Friends. Parents. Colleagues in other academic areas.  "I am bad at math". "I hate math". " Math is hard". "I took all of these math classes and have never used any of it". "I'm successful and I never use math".

Well, good for you.

But I will counter with this - here is a link to an article outlining the 10 highest paid jobs according to a 2016 article in Forbes.

http://www3.forbes.com/business/the-highest-and-lowest-paying-college-majors/5/

Product Review - Flyover Country Travel App

First, some disclosure. I'm receiving no pay or compensation for this review. It's straight up my take on an app that I thought would add some enjoyment to flying, something I sorely need in my life.  I will give a quick impression of the app in the first few paragraphs for those just looking for a quick review, then get into the details for those who might want more information on how it actually works.

It's a rare traveler who hasn't looked out the window of a plane and wondered what they are flying over. There's a relatively new app called Flyover Country that attempts to solve this dilemma for you. This app is available for both Android and iPhone, was created as part of an NSF-grant to a couple of geologists at the University of Minnesota, and has great potential for turning any flight into a learning experience. Obviously, as a geology professor I have both a personal and professional interest in this, so I put this app through a trial run as I returned to Denver from Seattle a couple of days ago.

Millennials - As I see them

I've been a university professor since I was 27 years old, so I have had thousands of students who are now between the ages of 18 and 45. For those of you between 30 and 45 years old who have recently been criticizing millennials, I have the following to say to you. Millennials, in my experience, have been my favorite generation to work with. They work just as hard as previous generations (despite recent claims), are far more open minded and adventurous, are far less judgmental and act no more entitled than your generations. I find that most of those who complain about millennials haven't exactly set the world on fire with their accomplishments, and I don't find their put downs very compelling. Sure, I'm generalizing but for me, if you've raised a millennial, congrats. Most of the ones I work with are great young adults.

Namibia - A Beautiful Country with some Horrible History

I'm guessing many of you do not know much about Namibia.  Perhaps you have not even heard of it before. That's understandable I guess - it is the least densely populated of any African nation with a land mass bigger than California but only 2 million people. If you like to travel, you should put this one VERY high on your list. If all the countries we visited, Namibia and Vietnam are the two I would revisit first. In fact, I promised Aspen a trip for her high school graduation (which she hasn't collected on yet) I was so impressed with my trip to Namibia that I am trying to convince her that this is where she should visit.

Why should you travel here? Well, first of all it's really pretty easy to get around and to speak to folks. I was surprised to see that they have a very well done and well maintained road system, with nice asphalt highways. The traffic is light, especially in the rural areas, and there are only a few cities.

Second, most everyone speaks English, which makes communication very simple.

Third, it has spectacular natural beauty. I mean SPECTACULAR. Namibia is home to two of the most unique deserts on Earth; the Kalahari and the Namib. The Namib is a coastal desert - yep, nearly a thousand mile stretch of sand piled into enormous dunes (some a thousand feet high) that run right to the ocean.

Favorites with a Month to Go

I was thinking about some of the best things that have happened these first few months, so I decided to make a list of favorites and least favorites, mostly for me as I look back on this in the future.

Favorite Food – Well, this one is impossible to answer. Everything we ate in Vietnam and Japan was perfect, but Myanmar, India, and China were not far behind. If it has noodles and a broth, I seem to love it. Ostrich is amazing too - my favorite meat! I ate oryx (below), warthog, springbok, ostrich, zebra, eland and a couple other mammals that aren't coming to mind just during our visit to South Africa and Namibia. It was all tasty!

Neptune Day!

This ain't no pleasure cruise!  Well, at least that's what we keep telling ourselves as we head around the world with 650 college students. In all honesty,  we actually do work hard, and travel hard, and try to take every opportunity to learn more about the world and become better people in the process. But, on occasion....

Point any camera at a group of college students and this is what you get. Smiles are even bigger if you have a freshly shaved dome.

NEPTUNE DAY! Today is probably the first day where we haven't had any education at all (actually, not true, we did take the morning off to play, but classes are back on track this afternoon, and I'm grading papers and writing a proposal). This morning however, was 100% about having fun.