Safe return home.

Today we arrived safely at home in Minnesota, Denver, and Phoenix. We started our journey by traveling to the airport at 7:00PM Uganda time and checking in at the airport. Everything went fairly smooth except that the merger of Northwest and Delta went through while we were in Uganda which caused our seats to get scrambled or needing to be reselected. At the airport we said goodbye to two of our team, Adam and Justin, who were catching a later flight to London and on to Denver. We left Uganda at 10:55PM on our 8 hour plus flight to Amsterdam. At the Amsterdam airport, we said goodbye to Bob, Larry, and Jim who were taking a separate flight to Phoenix and Judy and Tina who flew through Detroit to get back to Minneapolis. After a 5 hour lay over in Amsterdam and another hour delay due to fog, we continued our journey home to Minneapolis via another 8 hour plus flight. During the flights we were able to get caught up on our movie watching, but I at least didn't get any sleep and am looking forward to stretching out in my bed at home. The next few months will be filled with collecting the data from this trip and making plans for next years trip. All in all it was a very successful trip and more importantly a safe trip. Many thanks to all of our sponsors and freinds and family for their support. I will post a few pictures from our mission later this week.

A light Tuesday

Today we saw a light load of Milmay patients totaling 42. We were expecting 91 but that is how it goes sometimes. We were able to give some of the staff at Mildmay much needed dental care to fill out our day. Tomorrow we are scheduled for nearly 100 patients, we will see how it goes. Tonight we are going out to treat ourselves to pizza at Mamamia Pizzeria in downtown Kampala. We are looking forward to it. P.S. Everyone is healthy. We found out today that the change to Delta from Northwest is complete and it screwed up our seats for our flight. We are scrambling to get the information so we can sit together. More later . . .

Back from safari

Today we returned from safari at Paraa Lodge in Murchison Falls Park in northern Uganda. It is about a 6 hour ride in safari vans over pretty good roads for the first 4 hours and the last two hours over washboard roads. We started our safari on Saturday morning leaving Mildmay at 7:00. The roads were much improved from our last visit to Paraa except for a 5 mile stretch where they had recently laid new blacktop with rock topping. To slow down the traffic, they put speed bumps of crushed limestone about 20 feet apart. As you can imagine, this slowed down the traffic considerably. We ate lunch on Saturday at Masindi Hotel in west central Uganda. Continuing on, we drove the remainder of the trip to Murchison Falls Park and stopped at the top of Murchison Falls. Murchison Falls is a waterfalls where the Nile River is compressed into a gorge that is only about 15 feet wide. The water thunders through and is a site to behold. After the falls we continued on to Paraa Lodge which is a short car ferry journey across the Nile. As usual, the lodge provided us with cool wet towels and fresh juice to refresh us after our journey. After a wonderful buffet dinner and swimming in the outdoor pool that overlooks the Nile, we were ready for a good nights sleep. The next day we went on a morning game drive and an afternoon boat cruise on the Nile. We saw many elephants, giraffe, cape buffalo, hartebeast, Cob, and crocodiles. It was a great safari and everyone is recovered from their illnesses. Tomorrow we start back at clinic. Forgot to mention, the weather here has been 90+ degrees! Looking forward to a little cooler weather. In a side note, we were saddened by the departure on Friday by two of our mission friends. Terry found out last week that his father had passed away and he and Pam thought it best to return home. We all wish them the best.