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10 May 2007

Dad delivers the stash

I met Dad at the airport last night, for just a few hours, on his layover between Denver and Nairobi. He is on his way to Africa.

We had a few hours to kill at Heathrow airport. Dad and I agreed that Heathrow is a complete dive. It's one of the worst airports we've hung out in----and between me and Dad, we've seen a lot of airports.

Dad made the interesting observation that Heathrow has all the ambience of a Greyhound bus terminal.

I was really excited to fetch my stash meet Dad. Dad is always good about sending me yarn and knitting needles that I order online and have shipped to his house. But, in this case, he hand-delivered my newly ordered knitting stash to me at Heathrow. I am so excited! More yarn! At inexpensive American prices!

Dad showed me a map of all the interesting places he's going in Africa.

This is the photo I'll release to CNN if/when Dad's kidnapped.

Dad is backpacking alone through these countries:

Kenya
Uganda
Tanzania
Brundi
Rwanda
Zambia
Namibia
Botswana
Zimbabwe
Mozambique
South Africa
Madagascar

I asked Dad if he'd seen the movie, Madagascar, and he said yes, Patrick made him watch it. (Patrick is the father of the Tuesday.) This doesn't surprise me. Patrick made me watch the movie, too.

Dad is a tree-hugging liberal who systematically donates money to various charities and organizations, including the Zulus.

Dad knows all about civil wars in Africa, rebel camps, uprisings, coups. He loves all that. Being air-lifted out by the Red Cross doesn't phase him in the least. Dad likes adventure.

Some people have another name for it.

Anyway, Dad and I escaped Heathrow for a little bit. He stayed at a hotel outside Heathrow, for just a short night as his flight was very early the next day. (We had to kill almost three hours at the dive that is Heathrow, before the hotel shuttle bus would come fetch us. Now that's British customer service for ya!)

We were told that there's a nice quaint pub down the road, so we took a walk. We happened upon this thatched-roof house, which we were sure was the pub. The thatched roof was so beautiful. It's my dream to live in such a house.

We continued down the road and found the real pub, built in 1534. Now how cool is that! That's just another reason to love this great country: all the great old historic pubs. I just love it.

We stayed there at the pub and had a nice drink while we observed the natives in their natural habitat.

Now is it me, or is Dad more and more resembling Hemingway and Santa Claus?

In many ways, though, Dad is indeed like Santa Claus. Check out the great new green yarn he hauled across the Atlantic for me! I now have a whole new array of superwash sock yarn. I've caught the sock bug. Dad also delivered a nice stash of white superwash merino (no poly at all) so I can have fun in the dye kitchen. Thanks, Dad!