We were on safari in Ngorongoro crater, staying in a fancy safari lodge. Ab, Brad and I split one room and Britton and Jax were in the other. We had just arrived in the rooms and were getting settled and upacking our things. Suddenly, from the other room we heard Jax screaming and screaming. It was very un-Jax to scream like that so we thought something was really wrong. So we all ran over to the room just in time to see the ass-end of a baboon scrambling out of their window. Apparently Jax had opened the window for some fresh air and the baboon had let itself in. Apparently it started to ransack the room so she scared it off by screaming at it.

It’s not surprising that she opened the window—she was excited and interesting about everything new that we were seeing—all the animals, the landscape, baobab and acacia trees, and she probably wanted to let the outside in. You could tell she was excited to be there because she would point out all the new animals and everything she thought was interesting, which was pretty much everything. She was having a great time. And, bring Jax, this included the pointing out the blue-testicled monkey. She was an honest person and if she wanted to say something, she wouldn’t shy from it, whether is was a little off-color or a little blue-colored. By that time she knew us pretty well, and that we all would enjoy having the monkey pointed out to us.

So this is one (of the many) good things about Jax—she was very engaged in whatever adventure she was on—getting the maximum experience out of everything—Africa or skiing or hiking or whatever—and that appreciation for the natural world and also for the new people she would be genuinely interested in talking with and getting to know—this was a great character trait. It was a joy to go adventuring with her and to just hang around with her.

-- Bill Davis

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