The Journey Begins

Yesterday, after checking the travel website nearly everyday since we put in our deposit and chose a departure date, the news finally came through - our dates were CONFIRMED.  It looks like we are going to Africa!

I recall what it was like when we bit-the-bullet and booked our trip to Europe in 2016 (you can check that out here: Curt & Laureen - Europe 2016 if you are interested). We looked at each other with excitement and disbelief.  And now, here we are again with those exact same feelings. 

It's long been on our bucket-list to make our way to the African continent so we can take some of our own photos of safari wildlife and experience the culture.  And here we are scheduled to embark on a 17-Day African Safari Tour starting from Kenya, moving through to Tanzania and the finishing in Zanzibar. Saying we are excited about this would be an understatement. 

Safari Destinations

The genesis of this endeavour actually started a few years ago.  After assisting Laureen’s parents in downsizing their home of nearly 60 years into a seniors condo, loosing Laureen’s Mom to cancer, assisting my parents in downsizing and then suddenly loosing my father to Covid-19 and going through all of the estate matters, we decided we were going to get proactive and see where we could begin to downsize.  We did not want to burden our kids with the same level of involvement we had with both of our parents situations. We realized that we have a lot of things, many of them packed away in boxes and put away somewhere.  We decided that if we could not bring it out and enjoy it, that maybe we should get rid of it. 

Dealing with other peoples things, it’s easy to question, why they are keeping all of this stuff? However, when it is your own things, it seems to be a different matter. You have to get into that more minimalist mindset that allows you to see the clutter of things as a burden and weighing you down.  I’m surprised how many things I was able to let go of when I realized that I just didn’t need it.

I am (was) a collector of Coca-Cola items.  Over the past 30 some years, I had the great pleasure of receiving hundreds of Coca-Cola related items as gifts from many individuals. Friends who would travel to distant countries would bring me back pieces for my collection. But, probably the most ardent supplier (ya, I just referred to her as my “coke” supplier 🫣) would have been my mother-in-law, Hertha whom we lost to cancer in October of 2018. About half of my collection was displayed on one level of our home, but much of it was packed away in boxes in our sub-basement. I certainly enjoyed it, for sure; but, after considering our desire to start downsizing, I decided that it was time - the Coca-Cola collection would be put up for sale. 

We started by taking photos of each of the over 2000 pieces that I had (ya, even I was shocked) and began listing individual items on Marketplace.  When I say “we”, in this circumstance, I mean Laureen. I don’t F*cebook. Then we tried putting groups of items together in batches and attempted to sell them together.  Laureen’s last idea was to create more of a large display of everything, and the advertise individual items that people would come to pick up and then we would offer them a VIP tour of the entire collection (see above).  That was the right approach!  When collectors would walk into the room, most of the time they would be bouncing off the walls, not knowing where to look next.  

Originally, given that this was my collection, we were keeping track of the sales, and I was considering what I might do with the proceeds.  My goal when we started, was to purchase a couple of more expensive time pieces (much smaller to deal with in a downsizing situation).  I would look for them second-hand through resellers like Crown & Calibre and I had my eye on an Omega Seamaster, an IWC Pilot and maybe one version of the Zenith El Primero. Something I could pass on to my sons when I am gone to remind them how expensive time is.

At some point during the sales process I felt a little guilty as to how much time Laureen was spending marketing and selling these items.  It just wouldn’t seem right to spend this all on me given how significant of an effort this was.  So, I proposed that instead of me buying time pieces, that we use the proceeds of the sale of the collection to take that trip to Africa we had dreamed about.  With very little discussion - we were on the same page. Thirty years of collecting Coca-Cola will help to support our trip to East Africa and that safari we had been talking about as a bucket-list item would become a reality. 

So, this starts the log of our journey to Kenya and Tanzania funded in significant part by a bubbly brown syrupy liquid.  In 1963 (which was before my time), the marketing slogan for Coca-Cola was “Things GO better with Coke”. Well, here we are, 50 years later and we can most certainly say the same thing.  Our safari goes better with Coke (sales).  😊

Curt