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Michelle Elliott

@meeshelliott

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🗺️ 📍✈️ Traveling around the world
🌍Incentive trips & global events
👩🏻‍💻@projectpineapplehospitality✨
✋🏽Michigan based

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Home ➡️ Palm Springs ➡️ Santa Monica ➡️ Islamorada

Fueled by bubble baths and beautiful humans.

Your girl is tired and she is grateful 🫶

#shejustcantgetenough

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The countdown is on… we are going back to the Keys. 🌴 Part work, part play, but isn’t that always the case? This time, we’re headed to Islamorada for a site visit at @cheecalodge followed by a FAM trip.

Someone has to do the research. 🌊🐢

#ProjectPineapple #FloridaKeys #IncentiveTravel #Florida

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Wakey, wakey, Billie!

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Mountains, Meat, and the Magnificent West

Michelle and I had the pleasure of introducing Jackson Hole, Wyoming and Greenough, Montana to some of our clients last week.

It was fast but fruitful ✨

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A little wild, a little Western, and one hell of an entrance.

#backside #jackson #antlerarch

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Summer, you’ll be hard to beat.

#iamgrateful

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The last supper was special. To sit and share a meal with Mamai and James was a treat.

It’s crazy to think just 8 days ago was when we first met and in that short time became so profoundly grateful for them. We joked about how serious the separation anxiety was going to be. I had a hunch I’d meet some wonderful humans along the way so I crocheted a few tokens of my appreciation for the guys.

As someone whose life’s work is to create memorable experiences for others, I rarely am on the other side. This trip it happened twice!

James Smith and I met 20 years ago. If you’d told me then he and I, and our moms, and friends, would be on a safari in Kenya I would have said prove it. Yet here we are. The newest members of the Adventure Club.

Jamesy, thank you. Your planning, preparation, guidance, humor, heart, friendship, and now memories of a lifetime… all beyond even my wildest dreams and elevated expectations 😉 I’m eternally grateful.

The next morning we met James and Mamai in their new hats ☺️ in the lobby with our luggage. They loaded up Mamai’s Land Cruiser one last time for the long haul back to Nairobi. After a lengthy goodbye and more pictures, we all went down to watch one last sunrise. James stayed with us to see that we got on the airplane and actually departed the Mara 🤣 our flight was slightly delayed which gave us a chance to have one more round of Tuskers. Until we got to the pool in Nairobi that is.

#Africa #grateful #maasaimara #lastday

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Our last full day in the Maasai Mara. The mission was to witness the great migration, bonus points if we could see a river crossing.

Spoiler alert our luck continued, 3 fold.

We left the Mara Triangle and went further into the reservation to find the days creatures. 1.5 million wildebeest making their way from Kenya 🇰🇪 to Tanzania 🇹🇿 it was remarkable. The horizon was dotted as far as the eye could see.

Mamai and James got word that they weren’t crossing at the Mara River but they were starting to make their way to the Sand River. They got us there and positioned us perfectly to witness something none of us thought we were going to see, not just on this trip but like, ever.

We sat for over an hour watching the seemingly choreographed chaos. It was incredible.

We had a brief afternoon break before we headed back out for our final game drive. This time, Mamai and James let us pick. Option 1 back to the hippo pool for a guaranteed sighting or option 2 one last attempt to see big cats. Big cats was the unanimous vote.

It was cloudy evening, there was a chance of rain and it looked like it was coming. We got off road fairly quickly when a rainbow 🌈 shown in the distance. Shortly after we spotted the rainbow we saw a lonely male lion on a hillside bedded down in the tall grass.

We hung out and watched him, watch us and then we saw them, 2 more male lions just behind him.

My dad was a Leo, he loved the number 3, a rainbow guided us to these guys, we knew he was there. It was such a special evening, our last and certainly our most emotional. It was beautiful. We spread some of his ashes before we said goodnight to the lions.

As we drove away it started raining and the sun was setting. Que the song. We blasted Toto and sang Africa at the top of our lungs as we made our way back to the main road, Mamai held the CB mic up to share with the other truck.

We didn’t get too far down the road when we stopped again. The cherry on top. A serval. I’d never heard of one but learned quickly that it was an incredibly rare wild cat not often seen on safari.

Unbelievable. Indescribable. We cracked Tuskers for the ride home for the last supper in Maasai Mara.

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Before we’d set out each morning, James and Mamai would always share “the plan”. Today the mission was to find Big Cats.

It was a very busy morning. We kept our head on a swivel between the fiery sunrise, hyenas, lionesses on a kill, and wildebeests on the move, it was a lot to take in.

We left one scene for the next, 2 female and 1 large male lion, roadside, also with breakfast.

We took a break for our own nourishment and of course a @lifeiswildphoto portrait shoot and then got back on the hunt.

The day continued, our morning game drive turned into a morning turned mid afternoon drive because the Mara just kept on showing.

18 lions and 1 leopard, yes a leopard 🐆, the days mission was more than accomplished.

The evening drive was quieter on the game front but we did get stuck briefly in a creek crossing. Mamai suggested it was time for a Tusker and within minutes he and James had the funvee back on the trail 👏

While most of the photos from the day have to come with a viewer discretion, it’s what gave us an opportunity to sit with them. Them = LIONS 🤯

The sites and sounds of lions, eating, sleeping, playing, stretching, and uhhhh canoodling 😉🤭 not so unlike humans, it was mind blowing.

The Maasai Mara is the gift that keeps on giving 🦁

#maasaimara #gamedrive #wild4photosafaris #kenya #goodtimes

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I think I might’ve taken more pictures of my traveling companions than the wildlife. Well… Maybe…. @wild4_african_photo_safaris

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We said goodbye to Nairobi for a second time, only this time departing by plane. The Maasai Mara National Reserve can be about a 7 hour drive. James and Mamai left with most of our luggage early in the morning to transport the vehicles.

We had a slight weather delay so I made friends with the barista and bartender, Billy and Munyi. Munyi in Samburu means rhinoceros 😁

We were cleared for takeoff, so we grabbed our belongings, walked out to the plane, grabbed a bottle of water from the cooler on board, and a mint from the basket on the front seat. Off we went to the land of baboons, big cats, crocodiles, giraffe, hippos and so much more.

We landed on dirt air strip right inside the Maasai Mara. There, lodge vehicles waiting for us. They drove not 5 minutes and we were in the lobby of another beautiful Serena Lodge.

Mamai and James arrived just moments after we did. We got settled and ready for our first game drive in the Mara.

#maasaimaranationalreserve #airkenya #adventure #safari #maraserena

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Today was a big one. I split it into two parts…

Nairobi National Park - Part 1️⃣

The mission for the morning was to find a rhino.

We entered the park just after it opened. It was quiet and peaceful yet energetic. After a short while we spotted a tower of Rothschild giraffe 🦒 having breakfast very near the roadside.

These are the same breed of giraffe we saw at the giraffe center earlier in the week, so seeing some thriving in the wild was a full circle moment.

Down the road we came upon some armed guards at a crossroads. After a brief conversation and a couple cold bottles of water, they pointed Mamai in the direction of some rhinos in the area. He radioed James and we turned back.

Just passed where the guards were stationed, we spotted them, two Southern White rhinos, a mother and her calf.

Being there, with my mom, and no doubt my dad, was special to say the least.

Mission accomplished 🦏✨🫶🥹

#nairobinationalpark #southernwhiterhino #rothschildgiraffe #kenya #safari

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