Elephant Rides 2006

As you may or may not know, Bobby Gibbs had three brothers Casey, Buck and Bingo. When beng introduced Bobby used to say it sounded like a dog act. Yesterday I received this picture from Casey (the Midnight Cowboy) with news that his brother Buck Gibbs (in the white shirt above) and his friend Charlie had just returned from a three week African Safari. They started in Cape Town and took the grand train trip to Pretoria. While on safari they stayed in tents with wooden floors, heating, air conditioning, hot tub and gourmet dining. Along with the picture came this incredible story from Buck: "On May 4 in Zambia we took an elephant safari that included six elephants, we had no choice on which one we would ride so we just waited until we were called to mount the saddle. We ended up on the big bull and once we got on, Charlie asked what his name was and the Guide told us that his name was "Bobby". Out of the other five elephants, not one of them had an English name, only Zulu names. I asked how this came about and the Guide told me this elephant had been saved from the culling that took place in 1984 and was named for the man who raised and trained him. Bobby, the man who saved this elephant, had recently passed away. Go figure?