The humidity is so thick I can almost see it in the air so the slight breeze has little effect. The sun bobs in and out, but all it does is highlight the haze. The last two days the AC was on so this morning I turned it off and opened the doors and windows to freshen the air in the house. Gracie likes the back door open because she is able to go in and out her dog door, but once the panting starts, Gracie is in and the air conditioner is on.

Last night, a red fox darted across the road in front of my car. Luckily it was quick as I wouldn’t have been able to slam on my brakes in time had it been just a touch slower. The fox was small, probably young. I haven’t seen a fox in a while, but the Cape has many. Come to find out, it also has bobcats for the first time since Colonial days. An iPhone film of one was taken by a man who saw the bobcat in his yard. He highlighted it in his headlights, and the bobcat stood long enough to be filmed. Wildlife experts have confirmed that it was indeed a bobcat, Lynx rufus. They are common in other parts of the state but were designated rare to absent here. The experts figure the cat probably walked across the bridge. They think this one is a juvenile because of its size. Last year it was bear; now we have bobcats again.

I have probably told my story before, but the sighting of a bobcat reminded me of my wild animal sighting in Ghana, and it’s a great story, worth the retelling. It was mid-morning, and I was on my motorcycle riding on a dirt   on my way to a small village to visit a friend for the weekend. The road is so untraveled that the only car I saw stopped to ask me if I was lost. I guess a white woman on a motorcycle is as rare a sighting there as the bobcat was here. I told them where I was going and they said I was on the right road. That kind of made me chuckle as it was the only road. I kept riding until I saw what I first thought were men crossing road, but I stopped to get a better view and noticed these were hairy men on all fours. I knew right away they were baboons; there were about five or six of them. I was totally enthralled by the sight. I mean, really, in Africa riding on a motorcycle on a dirt road and seeing baboons would make anyone fascinated. I watched them crossing the road and was, I thought, far enough away, but one of them stopped, turned and looked at me. I didn’t move but immediately formulated an escape plan just in case it became a bit more than curious. It didn’t. The baboon joined the others and all of them left across the grassland and out of sight.

That is one of my favorite memories of Ghana. I knew there were wild animals, even elephants, still roaming the savannah grasslands  of the Upper Region and around Bolga where I lived, but I never expected to see any of them. I often rode my motorcycle on the dirt roads just for the ride, but I never saw any animals close to where I lived. That was an adventure, an unexpected wonderful adventure.