Agate Fossil Beds National Monument is out in the middle of the prairie many miles from any sizable city, in fact the closest town is Harrison, Nebraska 25 miles to the north, a community of less than three hundred people. What was once the Agate Springs Ranch, it’s the site of some incredible paleontological finds of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. We knew it was rich in fossils, but we didn’t expect a wonderful collection of Native American artifacts that were gifts to James H. Cook from Chief Red Cloud and other members of the Lakota. The cross cultural respect reflected in this collection is profound!
Queen Mary 2’s arrival in the Port of Dakar, Senegal was heralded in the local press and greeted with ceremony. Our own excursion took us on a coach journey through the streets of the capital city to visit a Wolof village and the shore of Lake Retba, the salty lake famed for an intense pink color.
Today’s safari adventure transported us out into the Dorob National Park to have up close encounters with little creatures that are well adapted to the extreme heat and lack of water in the Namib Desert.
With a UNESCO World Heritage Site, two national parks, dozens of museums, and hundreds of tours offered in the Cape Town area there is more than plenty to do. For our two day visit we opted to concentrate on African wildlife visiting the Aquila Private Game Reserve and the Boulders Beach Penguin Colony for a wonderful chance to these fabulous animals in their own habitat.
An article from 2018 gives a nice overview of the collection of artifacts from the Cook – Red Cloud friendship: https://www.starherald.com/news/local_news/agate-display-gives-insight-into-a-friendship-across-the-ages/article_90b1a972-eb4d-52f3-bfc5-6fb475a2c5e7.html