Glacier

On December 23, 2016December 26, 2016 By rrainefioreIn New Zealand, Travel, Uncategorized1 Comment

Time to move on. Two hours after leaving Christchurch, the tour company called our driver and told him he had to pick up people up from the airport. So now we are behind schedule four hours which makes for a long day of driving. He dropped us off in a small town and we just wandered around for a couple hours while he went back to Christchurch. I don’t like this part of the tour. Just when you get to know people and bond with them, they leave and new people come on. Maybe my future husband will be one of the new people. It was a full day of driving to the tiny town of Franz Joseph. The drive was so beautiful. There were so many waterfalls that we started playing a game to see who could call out the new ones fastest. All along the trip whenever we are near the ocean, people have been telling us we might see an orca and of course no one has seen an orca. So, we decided if you see a waterfall, just call out Orca. I can’t even count how many orcas we saw. My future husband is not in the group of new people. After dinner they had dance music and the younger Italian guy likes dancing. He pulled out some dance moves I can’t begin to explain. It was like gumby crossed with Saturday Night Fever, some chicken dance and a dash of the Rockettes. It was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen. The older Italian wanted to play cards so I tried to teach him Rummy. It was very difficult to teach so I left out some of the harder rules and let a lot of wrong moves, like playing out of turn, slide – Rummy Lite. All was going ok until he decided he didn’t like the game anymore and proceeded to try to teach me a game. It looked kind of like Rummy, but with more cards. No matter what I did, it was wrong and he’d get upset because I wasn’t playing right. He’d then tell me what I was doing wrong. Unfortunately, no matter how many times he’d tell me, I still don’t speak Italian. So, he’d tell me again and I still hadn’t learned Italian.

The next day 8 of us went on a glacier hike on the Franz Joseph Glacier. Because the glacier has receded so much in the past few years you can no longer hike to the glacier. You now have to be taken by helicopter. This made the hike very expensive, but also makes you feel like a bad-ass. For those of you who don’t know, I am in love with snow. Ice is equally as wonderful. I would have been happy to spend a week up there. It’s so beautiful. In 3 hours, I took 320 photos. I won’t post them all, but I will probably post more photos than you want to see. Sorry. Sort of. No, not really. After the glacier, spent some time in the hot springs, then all you can eat pizza. Good day.

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Allergies

On December 22, 2016December 26, 2016 By rrainefioreIn Australia, UncategorizedLeave a comment

I’ve had horrible allergies most of my life. I had to take allergy medicine every day of my life from 2^nd grade until about 4 years ago. I was allergic to all grasses, pine trees, dust, anything that blooms, citrus, tomatoes, all green vegetables, all melon, cats and dogs. With all the investigation I’ve done and the awakening work, I discovered that I had a belief that life is not safe. I was adopted. I have a deep fear from this, from whatever I experienced in my first days, weeks, months of life. Because this is long before the cognitive part of my brain existed, it is stuck in my nervous system, my blood system and in the deep parts of the brain. Because this belief is so deeply rooted, I cannot talk, reason or think it away. Because it’s so basic to who I am, I actually created a world that is not safe by being allergic to everything. I created a world to match this belief. After much work on this through movement and letting the fear and loss be expressed, my allergies disappeared. The past 4 years I’ve been able to live with only taking allergy medicine once a month or less. Since I’ve been on this tour, I’ve been sick with a sinus infection and now that is better, my allergies are horrible. My nose and eyes are so itchy that I think I may go insane. I’m sneezing a lot. Ah ha – this is completely connected to the “not enough for me” I was feeling earlier in the trip. This is just a different manifestation of the same issue. Then I also have an issue where I get so tired of people not listening to me. I get interrupted. I have to say things 2 or 3 times because the person wasn’t listening. Or I just get ignored. I try to be understanding, but it just makes me not want to talk, not want to connect with people. (My magic tattoo isn’t working). I had a minor meltdown yesterday because of this. This is the same issue too. Add on that I’m scared about going home. I’m scared of reverse culture shock. I’m scared of finding how I fit when I’ve changed so much. Life is not safe = Not enough for me = I’m small, insignificant, unimportant, unloved, unwanted = back hurts = feet hurt = allergies = fear.

Dolphin

On December 21, 2016December 26, 2016 By rrainefioreIn New Zealand, Travel, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Our next accommodation was nice. We had small houses in the mountains. We went to the hot springs and dinner. Then on to Akaroa. We were supposed to go to Kaikoura which is famous for dolphin and whale watching. But because of the recent earthquake we were not able to go there. Three of us went on a dolphin watching cruise in Akaroa and the rest wandered around the town. It was a warm sunny day and we saw lots of Hectors dolphin. I had never seen them before. They are tiny. I didn’t get any pictures of them so the picture I’m putting in is from the internet. We saw little penguins swimming and fur seals. We saw lots of birds and one sheep (not swimming). The boat was a family run business, small group of people and the boat staff was wonderful. They also had a dolphin dog. He ran around with his little life jacket on. He can hear the dolphin so he would run to the side of the boat where they were long before we could see them. After Akaroa, we went to Christchurch. Christchurch was nothing too exciting. A bunch of us went to the botanic gardens (free) and then wandered around downtown. Christchurch is still rebuilding from the earthquake years ago. It feels like a ghost town. Most buildings are abandoned and there were hardly any people around. There’s a bunch of Burner type art and murals around town. My favorite mural was one of penguins. On the left the penguins looked normal, but then toward the right, the penguins were melting.

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20161221_124750 — Buster the Dolphin Dog

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20161221_134247 — Can you find the fur seals?

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Zorb Video

On December 21, 2016 By rrainefioreIn New Zealand, Travel, UncategorizedLeave a comment

I tried to upload this video days ago, but wifi in New Zealand sucks. I finally got good wifi for a night.

Abel Tasman

On December 20, 2016December 21, 2016 By rrainefioreIn New Zealand, Travel, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Next was a long drive to Wellington. We had a tour of Weta Workshops booked. I really wanted to go, but I’m still sick and this was the last opportunity to see a doctor for a while. Heidi and I skipped the tour to go to the doctors. Just to see the doctor and tell her I had a sinus infection and her to go, “yes you do” cost me $200. Ouch and ouch. We went out for dinner. It was the last night we would all be together. Half of the group would end their tour in Wellington and half of us would go on to tour the South Island. It’s sad to say goodbye to some of our group. The next morning was an early start with breakfast at 6:00am.. Half the group got on bus or had other plans. The rest of us got on a ferry to cross the Cook Straight. I’ve never been on a big ferry before. This boat was huge, full of semi trucks, cars and cargo on the lower levels and people on the upper levels. The views outside were stunning, but the wind and cold made it uncomfortable outside so we spent the 3 hours in the café area. We stopped for wine tasting. It was a tourist area with some shops – I could have skipped this part. We had lunch near a river where part of The Hobbit was filmed. I took a picture of the river, but can’t say it looked familiar.

We got to spend two nights near the Abel Tasman National Park. Two nights in the same place is a small luxury! The first morning we got picked up by a water taxi. Because of the big changes in tides, they load you into the boats and take the boats out to the water by tractor. That was a fun unique experience. Our boat took us to Split Apple Rock. Then we went to a nearby island and looked for fur seals. Our guide told us they were technically sea lions, but they never changed the name. We saw a few. They dropped us off at a different bay and we hiked back. There are a bunch of trails in the park and some go along the tops with great overlooks and some go down to bays. We did some beach time and a lot of hiking. We saw dolphin, but no orca. I keep hoping to see orca – maybe later in the trip. It was a little more hiking than I wanted. We got back around dinner time. It is one of the most beautiful places I’ve seen.

They have a great sea gull here. He’s very white with red eyes and red feet. There was one on the beach that tried to sneak up behind us in hopes of getting food. He snuck all around us – up one side, then the other, round back, back and forth in front. It was a lot of work of pretending he didn’t notice us as he searched for scraps. He came up empty. The sand at the beaches is golden due to iron in the minerals. Some of the sand is black which was obviously metallic because it stuck to the magnets on my backpack, creating cool crystal like structures on the magnets. The water was too cold for me, but a few people swam.

Then it was time to move on. We drove through some of the prettiest mountains – very rugged and very green. More cows, sheep and farms too.

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Some Random Thoughts

On December 19, 2016 By rrainefioreIn Awakening, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Here are some of the random thoughts running around in my head lately. They may or may not be related to each other.

A feeling that is coming up a lot for me is the feeling that there is not enough for me. It has been coming up every day especially around the time to eat and when we get to a new accommodation. What if I’m the last one in line, there won’t be any food left. Oh my god, I have to make sure that doesn’t happen. What if there aren’t enough beds for me? What if I have to sleep in a room with 10 people? Oh My God. I have no idea where this is coming from. It’s somehow connected to the unwanted thing I’ve been feeling too. So, more on this later as it makes itself clear.

It seems that everywhere I go, there is a cute guy. I kind of hoped I would meet someone special on vacation or while in Thailand, but I always find myself attracted to one person on the tour or boat that I’m on. Then I start wondering what they think, who are they, are they interested, etc. Why can’t I just enjoy people’s company without there always having to be a potential of my future boyfriend. It’s very frustrating. Is this just human nature or am I still resisting alone and oneness? Has anything really changed on this journey? My feet have been hurting a lot lately and I think I am noticing that they hurt more when I’m thinking about a guy. Then again, if I’m thinking of guys, my head is in the future. So, is the foot hurting more global about living in the future instead of being present. I feel like 80% to 90% of me is present most of the time, but the rest is living in thoughts about the future. Then I am aware that I am in the future. Then I’m in the future and present at the same time. Future = Foot hurts.

Here are some good AH Almass quotes from the book I am reading. They better explain what I was writing about a while ago. Even if what we are experiencing isn’t “happy”, “peace”, “joy” or some other perceived good thing, we can still be present with it and see what we learn. It doesn’t have to be seen as bad or suffering. Instead, be curious and experience it fully. “Even if we can stay present with an emotion or manifestation, it doesn’t immediately transform into its True Nature. An emotion is not just a simple reaction to whatever is happening in the present situation. Usually the emotion has an entire history”. He’s talking about being aware, being an observer on the outside. I am very good at this and it’s happening almost 100% of my day. But he is also talking about a different level of being present. This, is what I tried to explain in past blogs: “Normal awareness is observing experience from a distance, with the detachment of a subject viewing an object. Not only noticing it, but you are also in contact with it, you are touching it, feeling it, sensing it’s texture and quality. You are not only looking at it from the outside, you are aware of it from the inside as well and from all directions, from everywhere. So presence brings in the quality of immediacy of awareness, which means having no distance between the awareness and what we are aware of”.

I think Americans are the loud kid on the playground – Hey look at me!

I would consider doing odd jobs and “lesser” jobs to live abroad, but not at home. Why?

Maori

On December 16, 2016December 17, 2016 By rrainefioreIn New Zealand, Travel, UncategorizedLeave a comment

The Maori show/dinner was fun. The bus driver that picked us up was funny. He taught us “Kiora” which means “Hello, Goodbye, How are you, etc”. Then he proceeded to translate it to almost every language in the world, including accents in that language. At the dinner/show they did a ceremony before letting us in. Then there were different educational stations where they showed us different parts of their culture. They were warriors and great sea navigators. Many of their games were based on hand eye coordination and agility to make them better warriors. After that they took us to a room where they did traditional song and dance. I found it interesting that they shake their hands a lot in the dancing and they explained that this was the life force. Louise, are you reading this? They believe shaking of their hands is life force. Then dinner. The dinner was similar to a Hawaiian Luau where the food was cooked in the earth. After there was more singing and dancing and more funny bus driver who knew the national anthem of many countries.

On Day 3 of the tour we started off by going to see some mud pools. There is a lot of geothermal activity in the area. It was exciting for a minute. Then we went to a place where two creeks met, one was cold and one was warm. A few of us sat in the creek for a little bit. There was supposed to be skydiving today, but it got canceled. I wasn’t going to skydive anyway so it didn’t matter to me, but I think the mud pools and two creeks was an attempt to fill the extra time. Then we went to Huka falls. It’s a very impressive waterfall. It’s not tall, but it’s a tight rock canyon and the volume of water being pushed through it is insane. A sign said the volume of water could fill 5 olympic sized pools every minute. After that we went to Blue Duck Station which was a ranch in the middle of nowhere. We were supposed to do some 4wd touring of the ranch, but because it was raining, we didn’t go very far. They spent a long time telling us about the ranch instead. It was very beautiful, but it would have been more interesting if we could have seen more of the ranch.

On Day 4 of the tour we were supposed to hike the Tongarino Crossing. It is supposed to be a live volcano, but I don’t think you can see lava or anything. It got canceled because of weather. Everyone on the bus was so cranky about it. So we did a smaller hike to a waterfall. Half the group did that and then went back into town for lunch. The rest of us did a hike from there that went to two lakes. The hike was longer than I expected and it was all above tree line with a lot of exposure – it was so windy. I decided I wanted to spread some of Scott’s ashes above the lakes. I got one guy to take the picture and I tested the direction of the wind. Right after we had a discussion about how many times I’ve been covered in Scott’s ashes. Just as I let the ashes go the wind changed direction and blew Scott all over another girl on the tour. She was a bit freaked out about it. The guy and I kind of joked about it and that freaked her out more. I felt a mixture of embarrassment and humor. I wanted to laugh, but didn’t think that would help much.

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Zorb

On December 14, 2016December 16, 2016 By rrainefioreIn New Zealand, Travel, UncategorizedLeave a comment

My last day in Auckland I did laundry, packing, and crying. I asked my hosts if I could do laundry and she told me she’d let me know when she was done with the washer. Hours later she was nowhere around and I had just been sitting there waiting. That’s what prompted the crying. It’s a silly thing to get upset about, but it just triggered feelings of being unwanted/unwelcomed. So, I think there’s still some stuff around being adopted coming up. Laundry got done and all was fine.

The first day of my 18 day tour of New Zealand was a mixed bag. Most of the people on the bus had been together for the past two days so they all knew each other and I felt left out. More unwanted/unwelcomed. I can recognize that the feelings don’t match what’s really going on, so I just sit with the feelings and notice. That’s all that needs to be done.

The other two new people on the tour are an Italian father and son. The father doesn’t speak English, but still tried to talk to me anyway. Both of them are just so excited to be travelling and grinning ear to ear all day. That helped me feel a little better. The tour included accommodations in hostels, the bus ride, a guide, some of the meals and some of the activities. Most of the activities are add on fees though. “Say yes to everything” is going to cost a lot on this trip. On the first day we did quite a bit of driving and a grocery shopping stop. Then we got to Hot Water Beach. At low tide, a small crack in the earth’s crust creates a warm beach. People get shovels and dig holes in the sand to create small “hot spring pools”. We only stayed there for about a half hour, and there were a lot of people there, but it was neat to see. Some of the water pools were very hot and felt like boiling water. Then we went to the campground in Hahae where we were staying. The rooms were new and pretty nice. I was lucky to get in a room with only one other person. Hahae is a holiday town. Hardly anyone lives there in the winter, but in the summer, a bunch of people holiday there. A bunch of us went on a sea kayaking tour to Cathedral Cove. It was a very expensive tour, but also very beautiful and enjoyable. The weather warmed up nicely for it. Our guide made a salad and bbq for dinner. There’s around 20 people on our bus. Another bus from the same company was also there, but their tour didn’t include food or accommodation or the guide. So they were a big bus, but it’s a hop on hop off bus so they can continue on with it or stay in one place longer and get on the next hop on hop off bus. I’m glad I did my tour instead, but I thought it would be the same people for the whole 18 days. Some started earlier, some will only do the North Island, and I assume new people will join us for the South Island. My roommate for the night is a German lady who is going through cancer treatment. We had some discussions about ATP and she is very interested and thinks I should come to Germany to do some work. So, I wonder, is that what’s next? Because it was a hostel and had two bus loads of people, it was loud, but I still managed to get some sleep.

Day 2 we drove from Hahei to the town where the Hobbiton tours leave from. The activity choices for today were Hobbiton or whitewater rafting. I have no interest in rafting. Yesterday we were told that we couldn’t go to Hobbiton because the bus was full. I would have booked that for after the tour if I had known, but I booked a day tour to do something else. Crap. We can go zorbing instead. Zorbing is where you go rolling down a hill inside a giant inflatable hamster ball. I thought that sounded fun. Then when we got to the town we went to the i site and our guide found out he had the wrong information given to him. So, the Hobbiton tour was back on. And Zorbing was still an option. And I have 5 minutes to decide. Ahhhhhhhh…..slight panic…..I can’t do everything. I want to do everything. I can’t do everything. I decided to skip Hobbiton. Zorbing was fun. It was a real short track, but I did it twice. After that we checked into our hotel and some people went to do other things. I went to eat and wander around town. I decided to get a massage. I figured I’d be crying through it since I was close to tears for no reason at all just before the massage. It wasn’t a very good massage so no crying. I left a little more relaxed and my feet felt better so that’s still a win. Tonight we are going to a Maori dinner and show. It sounds like it will be like a luau.

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20161213_162934 — This is what happens if you get a bad henna tattoo in Bali – Girl on our trip

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20161214_102308 — This drink is popular in NZ

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20161214_130659 — It’s a cold day for zorbing

Bay of Islands

On December 11, 2016December 12, 2016 By rrainefioreIn New Zealand, Travel, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Joel and I decided to do a long day trip north to the Bay of Islands. We booked a 2 hour boat tour and decided to drive up and see what we see along the way. The drive is about 3 hours each way. The area north of Auckland is very hilly and very green. More hills, more green, and lots of cows. I do believe there may be more cows in New Zealand than people. The first stop was a honey store / coffee shop. It was a giant shop on the side of the highway in the middle of nowhere. Next we went to the i site (information center) in the town of Whangarei. The lady there told us about a waterfall and a harbor area full of restaurants and shops. We decided to do the waterfall on the way to Bay of Islands and eat dinner in the harbor after. The waterfall was very pretty and easy to access so it fit nicely into our schedule. More green hills with cows, a few more stop offs and we were in the town of Paihia where we were to get the boat. The Bay of Islands is a bay full of islands. It was the first area of New Zealand to be settled by Europeans. The big draw besides dolphin watching, beaches, hikes and the history is the Hole in the Rock. The last island in the area has a big hole in it. We arrived early and tried to check in. The lady told us the tour we booked was for tomorrow. Crap. She said she’d upgrade us to the 4 hour trip that was leaving now. It was that or no boat ride so we took it. Two hours would have been plenty of time. It was pretty. We saw some dolphin, some islands and the Hole in the Rock. We stopped at one island and did a 20 minute hike. On our drive home we took a more scenic route that went through green hilly areas with cows. It also went along the coast for a while. We jumped out at interesting points to take pictures or just look at pretty landscape. At one point, within a 2 minute span of time, we saw wild turkeys, wild pheasant and wild parrots. I had never seen wild parrots so that was so neat to see them flying past the car. We got to Whangarei much later than we wanted. They had a park we had wanted to walk around, but we skipped that and went straight to the harbor to find dinner. There were no restaurants at the harbor, just some businesses. We headed into the downtown area. There were a ton of restaurants there, but most of them were closed. The entire town looked like a ghost town at 8:00pm. We found one that was open so at least we didn’t have to make a decision. We’ll eat there. They had lattes by the cup or the bowl. I had a bowl of latte with my pizza. We got home around 11:00pm. Sleep!

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20161211_150438 — The famous Hole in the Rock

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20161211_163415 — A lot of people on the boat

20161211_180602 — All the black dots in the distance – Cows

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20161211_185844 — A man walking his pony

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Auckland Animals

On December 10, 2016December 12, 2016 By rrainefioreIn New Zealand, Travel, Uncategorized1 Comment

After Cairns, I flew to Sydney. I decided to spend a little extra money and stay at a hotel instead of an airbnb since it was just a short stop in between flights. The hotel I booked in Sydney is best described by its bar. It’s the place that old low income men go to drink beer at the middle of the day. They were delightful old men that wanted to ask me all about America and why in the hell did we elect Trump. So, that conversation again while I waited for the manager to get back from a meeting to let me into the hotel which was above the bar/casino/restaurant. If I wasn’t sick and exhausted, I would have left to find a new hotel as this one smelled bad and was dark and scary. But, I just didn’t have the energy. The restaurant was decent and an early morning taxi to the airport.

Australian immigration is fully automated. You stick your passport in a machine and look at the camera. It spits your passport out and then the gates open. Done. I flew on one of the giant double decker airplanes. Just seeing the line of people waiting to board the plane was mind boggling. How can that many people fit on one airplane. I’ve flown on these before, but it’s still just difficult to fathom.

Landed in Auckland New Zealand! The traffic leaving the airport was so bad that my taxi fare was $44 before even leaving airport property. By the time I got to the airbnb it was $98, but the taxi driver was nice and only charged me $70. My airbnb here is wonderful! It is a beautiful old house with gorgeous gardens, a comfortable bed and nice hosts. The husband loves to talk and talked my ear off talking about everything. The room includes breakfast, but they made me dinner too. I wouldn’t mind just not leaving the garden for 4 days.

My first full day here, I spent the morning trying to see if I could get my phone fixed. It randomly decided not to recognize a cell signal. Went to two repair places that couldn’t help. I went to a phone store. I could get a phone and sim card for $80 for the month. That’s not too bad, but I couldn’t make a decision so I decided to wait a day. Later I met up with a friend of a friend, Joel. We went to the beach for a while and then up to one of the many volcano cones. There are a bunch of old volcano cones here – not craters, just very very large hills with great views. We also had dinner. She is a very nice woman and we had a great time. I got to see fireworks from the house I’m staying at – Christmas festival downtown – beautiful!

The second day, Joel and I went to the zoo. Why not? Since I seem to be on the world animal tour. We got there in time to see Tasmanian Devil feeding and Penguin feeding. All of the penguins are rescues. I’m not sure, but maybe all of the animals at the zoo are rescues? Some of the penguins were missing a flipper or had a foot that didn’t work. It was sad to see, but delightful to know that the zoo was taking care of them. Another treat was running into two zookeepers taking the pigs for a walk through the zoo. They clicker train the pigs. We got to pet them. The meerkats were fun! We saw a turtle trying to mate, but he had the wrong end of the other turtle. There were many baby turtles so someone in that enclosure had it figured out. After dinner, I was just exhausted. I’m not feeling sick anymore, but I have sniffles and a lot of coughing. I get tired easily.

I got a massage because my feet have been hurting so bad. She said my feet problems were because of my tight shoulder. Yea, I knew that. My whole body is just screaming for help. I know it’s from all I’ve experienced over the past year and how that ties to some of my core issues. I’ve only touched the surface of processing it all. For some reason, I can’t seem to process it. I keep feeling like that will happen when I get back to Colorado. I’m not sure what I’m waiting for. The few times I’ve tried to process, nothing happens. I also question why I need to process. Is it possible to just drop the old story, the old lies without having to be emotional? It seems like this should be possible at some point, but not yet. I assume this is why I’m sick again too. I’m just trying to see and do everything in a relatively short period of time.

On the subject of going back to Colorado, I have a plane ticket for January 4^th. I can have my old job back. I have a place to live temporarily. I have a car although it might be in horrible shape. I had planned to spend the past three months travelling and looking for a new job abroad. Looking for a new job never happened. I feel like it’s time to go back. That doesn’t mean I can’t live abroad again. But, I don’t want to do a job I don’t enjoy just for the sake of living abroad. I did that, I learned a lot, and now I feel like it’s time to figure out how to integrate all of that. So, I will go back to Colorado and regroup, process and start figuring out where I will live and what life has in store for me next.

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20161209_183554 — Smallest Ginger Beer Ever

20161210_142939 — Blurry, but you can see how big the Devil’s teeth are

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	eaglegenuinec87d1476… on Going Home
	delicately4f6d967f14 on Going Home
	delicately4f6d967f14 on Icebergs
	delicately4f6d967f14 on ATV Tour
	eaglegenuinec87d1476… on Kluane

Rraine Drops

Tag: rrainedrops