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****Click on title or picture to see all our pictures from each trip!****
Off to California to visit with our most favoritest woman,
Samantha. We leave the house at 2 AM and make it to San Diego with no
problems by 11 AM. Off to Coronado island to see the famous hotel and
stretch our legs then back to Sam's cute apartment for a nap...but no, we just
can't sleep! Too much to talk about and Mike ends up doing what he loves,
working on Sam & Eric's bikes. So we just chill out and talk bikes,
wedding, work, school etc. and get caught up...funny how being in a new place
with the right people still just feels like home. Next day Mike & I were
off to visit the vinyards in Temecula, but unfortunately I had a horrible cold
and couldn't really get the full experience. Stopped by Oceanside at the
beach to watch some surfers, can't wait to try that!! For our last day we were
off to see whales...which I've never seen! Not a problem, within a few minutes
of hitting the open water we were watching a few grey whales as they milled
around. Almost more exciting were the Pacific white-sided dolphins which
were playing in our ship's wake. Very exciting and rewarding day.
Next morning we were back at the airport for our flight home. Sure hope
Samantha finds a job in CO soon! We sure do miss her, but it was a great
visit.
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Mike & Jen on whale-watching boat with San Diego in background
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Jen heads off to accomplish one of her lifetime goals in
visiting Australia, and not just any visit, but 6 full weeks...and in charge of 12-50 students! While it was very hard to leave Mike & the critters for so long I knew it was something I had
to do. We started in LA with faculty orientation, then were thrown at our
students and put on a plane across the ocean. The
company I worked for was very unorganized, but things went along smoothly if you just went
with the flow and didn't expect anything until the last minute. So we
landed in Melbourne, 2 days later than we left after only 16 hours of flying. Hopped in
vans for 3 hour drive to Hamilton. Where I was to learn that I was to drive a
van for this project...no worries, mate? Oops! They drive on the left side
of the road, and it was a manual!! After a quick night-time lesson with 12
students in tow I had it down, most of the time. After 2 weeks of working on the
striped-legless lizard project we headed back to Melbourne for our flight to
Sydney and the start of the adventure tour. During the tour we traveled by
bus from Sydney to Cape Tribulation stopping along the way to repel in the Blue
Mountains, learn to surf (yeah!) at Byron Bay, see HUMPBACKS (!!!) and dingos on
Frasier island (the best place by far of the whole trip), and finally
snorkle, scuba and sail on the Great Barrier Reef. Then I was back
to Sydney for my second group of students and project, a habitat reclamation
project, at Waratah Park. Overall, the students were OK, but not the
conservationists that I had imagined, most just wanted to party. But
it was still worth the experience to see the outback, even with the very very
long (>24 hours traveling) trip home. I could so very very
easily live there, and can't wait to visit again with Mike!!!!
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Jen feeding a wallaby at a wildlife park in Ballarat, Australia |
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After the most wonderful winter mountain wedding at the
Wild Basin Lodge in Allenspark
(Estes Park) off we were for our 2 week honeymoon in Ireland. No, not the
usual beach and booze honeymoon for us, we wanted to get back a little bit to
the Feighny roots as we started our life together. We landed in Dublin,
immediately rented our car and drove (this time Mike got to try his luck on the
left side of the road) up to Belfast, then onto Ballycastle, Sligo,
Galway, Killarney, Cork, Waterford and back to Dublin. We stayed a couple
nights in not-as-nice-as-Australia hostels and most of the time at Bed &
Breakfasts. But one night, our "its-our-honeymoon so lets splurge" night
we spent in the Waterford Castle on its own little island. Very cool, and
they had red deer on the island!! Throughout our travels all over Ireland, we saw the Giants Causeway, many many castles and beautiful green green vistas, the Ring of Kerry and Dingle
Peninsula, Cliffs of Mohr, and the Temple Bar area of Dublin... and had only a
day or so in the rain. But the highlight was Waterford Crystal where
we were able to take a tour and see the process, standards and of course with
Mr. Socialite Mike we met and talked to a bunch of the very skillful "regular
Joes" who worked there. We will never look at crystal the same again.
After 2 weeks of exploring, and quite the whirlwind month, we headed back
home, as very happy newlyweds.
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Mike & Jen at the
Cliffs of Moher, Ireland |
