Skip to main content

Home, Kind of

Daughter No. 2 has returned from her trip to the South Pacific. She still isn't home because now she is in Florida with her youth group. During her brief touch-down at home, she deposited some great pictures from her stay in Fiji, in New Zealand, and in Sydney. Brief photo tour:

Her view from the Warwick Hotel in Fiji.


No. 2 in the middle--with two students from a Fijian high school. Funny, we were told to send school supplies, so everyone loaded up on Dora the Explorer type things, thinking they would be spending time with little kids. They cleared out the elementary age gifts before handing over their donations when they realized they would be spending time with kids their own age. Oops.

The entire People to People delegation on top of Mount Manganui in New Zealand. The story goes there was a beautiful woman mountain and a smaller slave mountain, not so beautiful. The slave mountain mooned over the beautiful mountain and sent night fairies to send his message of love. Upon rejection, he asked the night fairies to end his misery by sinking him out to sea. They got only so far when the sun came up, and they dropped the poor guy in the middle of the ocean where he sits to this day--Mount Manganui.

Given the sheep to people ratio in New Zealand (12:1, or 15:1, depending on who you ask), one must return with a sheep photo.

Sydney Harbor

No. 2 and the Blue Mountains of Australia.

No. 2 hugging a lonely kangaroo at Featherdale Wildlife Park. As daughter said, she'd hate to live in a petting zoo, so no wonder the poor little guy looked so forlorn.

Comments

dive said…
Wow! What a fabulous trip!
Gorgeous photos, too. Daughter no.2 looks so grown up already. You must be very proud of her, Robyn.
Old Knudsen said…
The Fijian kids will bust a cap in Swiper's ass.
Anonymous said…
wow! i cant wait to see the rest of her pictures... right now i'm attempting to type on a french keyboard... all the keys are in the wrong place!
Maria said…
Nice photos...

And I have always wanted to visit Sydney.

I must admit to a terror of kangaroos, however. I witnessed a zoo employee getting kicked by one as a child and it gave me nightmares for weeks. Kicking kangas STILL show up in my nightmares occasionally.

And now she is in Florida. Ah. A beach. Sounds lovely.
dive said…
Maria, you should visit the Skippy Museum (yes, there is one). The little fella is stuffed so you can go in there and poke him without fear of retaliation. He's kinda hard to stare down though.
Anonymous said…
I can't wait to see more pictures and hear her stories!
Sassy Sundry said…
What great photos. It sounds like a wonderful trip!

I'm jealous.
Gina said…
She's so gorgeous!

And what a great trip that must have been!
Great photos Robyn. Glad you had a wonderful time No. 2! You look just lovely too. Mum's going to frame those for sure.

Popular posts from this blog

Am I Stupid, or What?

In two weeks, I will climb up into a charter bus, take my assigned seat, and ride 22 hours straight to Orlando, Florida. I will be a chaperon with the high school marching band, which will perform at Disney's Magic Kingdom--me and 180 people on four big buses for seven days. We will travel together, eat together, play together, fall down exhausted together--and after 22 hours, I suspect stink to high heaven together. Because of the crazy schedule, we will leave Ohio at 6 pm, travel all night and most of the next day, and spend several hours at MGM Studios before ending up at the hotel sometime after 7 pm. After I check in with the eight girls I am to supervise, I intend to shower and shower and shower. I intend to wear clean clothes and socks and brush my teeth until my toothbrush wears out. Of all the things I could be concerned about on this trip, being dirty seems to weigh heaviest on my mind. One of my eight charges could run off and do bad things with her boyfriend, but I'...

No More Mr. Nice Guy

It's good to be a nice person--to say nice things, to do nice things, to write nice things--but I declare an end to the use of the word nice. Nice is what you say when you can't think of any other adjective. Someone shows you a picture of their back yard--that's nice. Someone tells you about their afternoon adventure--that's nice. Or someone describes their childhood in great detail and sometimes with painstaking effort--that's nice. It's a lazy word, and it's non-descriptive. Nice is like mashed potatoes with noodles and chicken gravy all in a big pile on one plate with some canned corn for garnish. Everything is the same color and texture and base substance--starch (this is a favorite Amish dish). Nice is like a partly cloudy day in April when outside feels like inside, and you can't tell a difference between the lighting and the temperature of your living room and the lighting and temperature of your front yard. Nice is a glass of lukewarm water. ...

An Offending Pile

So, I'm standing in my living room letting my mind wander for a minute or two as I stare out the window and watch the day go by, and I see my neighbors walking their dogs down the street. They are nice neighbors who are always friendly and responsible with their property. That is to say they aren't like the other neighbors who heap rubbish behind their house like Ma and Pa Kettle and let their dogs bark for thirty minutes at a time . Anyway, I see the nice people walking their dogs, a big golden retriever who is as sweet as can be and as dumb as a post—he once ate a sock and nearly died before it was surgically removed—and a new golden retriever puppy. Then I see Neighbor Wife suddenly run down the street with the big dog. Then I see Neighbor Husband stopped in front of my house with the puppy on its leash. And then I see the puppy taking a huge dump in my grass. Let me tell you, that is not done in this town unless the dog owner has a plastic bag handy and is ready to pick up ...