Venice, St. Petersburg, Florida Keys

Typical Venice Florida sunset.  This was from our first sunset with the Koehlingers near the condos.

Exotic birds every time we went outdoors.

A great blue heron at the jetty's. And below is an Ibis near the beach.

We found quite a few shark's teeth and enjoyed a lot of sunshine together.

Pelicans at the jetty's.

Sunset near our condo in Venice.

Bougainvillea on a day trip at a historical mansion.

Sunset dinner and cocktails with Bette, Roger and Dave at Pop's.  Delicious!

Alligator at Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park.  We went to see the birds and manatees.

Flamingos at Homosassa.  We saw our first roseate spoonbill there as well as tons of herons, pelicans and other gorgeous birds.  Below is outside the Dali Museum in St. Pete.  We loved it!

 Dave and I at the Dali Museum.  Amazing art and architecture.

 A beer break between museum and beach, with this harbor view.

Roseate spoonbill in the wild!  Hanging out at the beach in St. Petersburg.  How cool!  Below is post fishing cruise, in Key West with my dear friends cutting bait.

My first night after my 6 week Antarctic fishing cruise was here in Pelican Bay at Key Largo.  Thank you so much Dave!  I love you!!  I spent countless hours in that hammock.  Then ate blackened mahi.

Key West susnet from Andrew's boat.  After we set a cute fish trap and cruised the bay.  Below is one of the main beaches on Key West.  A really laid back island with a slow, peaceful pace.

Pink plumerias at the city garden, but they're also in many peoples yards.  Below is Connie and I enjoying the city garden.

Dave and I had a wonderful three weeks in Venice Florida before I deployed!  Before we arrived, we had a few days in Denver (orientation) to catch up with some loved Antarctic friends.  We met up with a lot of our Fuels friends that Dave hasn't seen since 2012 (Jeff, Steph, Keros, Kristy Carney, Tadd, Storm and Joe).

We stayed at a condo down the street from Roger & Bette, and played a lot of cards together, watched sunset, watched basketball, visited downtown Venice, relaxed on the beach and ate a ton of incredible meals together.  The time flew by incredibly quickly.  Because I deployed from Florida, my tickets after my Antarctic fishing cruise returned me to Miami and I stayed a few days to visit my friends Connie & Andrew (from McMurdo Station) in Key West.  Florida was incredibly colorful, tropical, vivid and luscious!

Washington DC & San Francisco

After returning to the US, I had a day to business suit shop with the great help of Dave, and flew to Washington DC for a job interview in the Planning Office. 

I flew in and had dinner with the future coworkers, three interviews including one at lunch and then headed home the next day.  But I did get a chance to stop at the Arlington National Cemetery, which is incredible.

After some wedding planning, Dave and I took a few day trip to San Francisco to wedding ring shop and sight see.  Neither of us had ever since so much of the city.

It was my first trip through Chinatown, which I liked a lot.

 Lots of great markets...I got some sparklers for the wedding here.  Fun!

 Seaweed on posts at Fishermen's Wharf.  This was right outside the Exploratorium.

The Coit Tower from the piers.  And below is the sea lions at Fishermen's Wharf.  Love seeing and hearing these guys! They are always a highlight to every San Francisco trip I've taken.

 Alcatraz seen from Pier 39.

 Colorful sailboats at Pier 39.

I'm thrilled we went here, the Ghirardelli Chocolate Factory.  Also glad I captured Dave in this picture.  Hanging out on the green grass here is one of my favorite memories of Dave when we first met.  We used to park our tour vans nearby and while our passengers were sightseeing, we'd sit in the sun and joke around.

This is the city from Hyde Street and Lombard.  Lombard has the windiest section of street just below this photograph.  I love the Coit Tower all light up like that, and the bridges.

We rode the cable car!  It was scenic and fun, and a great break as we had in our earnest desire to see more of the gorgeous city, walked about 20 miles...up and down Market street, to the piers, across town to Golden Gate Park and the Botanic Gardens, around Chinatown, The Castro, Alamo Square and Haight-Ashbury.

I like that I got the conductor in the photo too.  Below is lunch at Boudin Sourdough bread factory.

Pier 39 is the most famous/touristic part of Fishermen's Wharf and has tons of shops and even an aquarium.  It was the tulip festival there, so lots of flower arrangements and pots full of flowers.

Love these historic rail cars...they're from all over the world and a quick way to get around for only a couple bucks.

The San Francisco Botanic Gardens were incredible!  Lots of native plants, a redwood grove and international trees and plants throughout.

 The loveliest smelling exhibit was the hyacinths, but there were also magnolia trees in full bloom.

 Loved walking around Market street at night!

This is the top of the Coit Tower.  We hiked up on our last day before we caught the ferry back to Vallejo.  It had some incredible painted murals on the inside.  It was an exceptionally wonderful trip, and we got to see and spend some quality time with my aunt and uncle in Cordelia.  I don't know why we haven't gone more often, it's a stunning city with tons of things to see.  Very romantic of course when you're wedding ring shopping as well.  Thank you for looking at our pics, love you!

Chile, Antarctica, New Zealand

View from my room at the Dreams Hotel in Punta Arenas, Chile.  Spent a lovely week there hanging out with my boss Mark Furnish after work (I've worked for him on and off since 2002), facilitating the move of our hazardous waste shipping containers from Mardones Pier onto the ship.  Incredible steak dinner Il Brocolino, lots of delicious prosciutto & arugula pizza at the new pizza place, drinks at the Shackleton Bar and the best New Years possible with the Filipino families and Captain Sebastien.  Happy as always to return to Southern Chile.

The sailboat Europa at sunset.  It was nothing but ocean and some icebergs for most of the 21 days to McMurdo Station, but this was a magical sight.

Deploying ARGOS floats for Glenn Pezzolli at the Scripss Institute of Oceanography with Krista and our scientist on board, Avery Snyder from UW Applied Physics Laboratory.  These machines float at neutral buoyancy and transmit location, temperature and depth data for 10 years!!! They are all over the world in every ocean and that's how we monitor the health of our oceans.  Krista and I were roomates at McMurdo and a night in New Zealand, and the only ladies on the ship.

Incredible icebergs one we were far enough south to see them.  Each one more shapely and bigger than the last, and isn't it cool to think that only 10% of each is above water.

The first time you cross the Antarctic Circle is a celebration in costume with performances and visit by King Neptune and his people.  It was awesome!

Helping Avery test his EM-Apex floats (they are incredible!  They travel to the bottom of the ocean and up to the surface everyday and transmit temperature, salinity and location data back to remote computers for a whole year until we pick them back up again).

Craft time!  I made a couple copper wire hats for my girlfriends at McMurdo from leftover science parts.  We send XBT's (bathythermographs) into the ocean hooked to these wires through which the data travels back to our computers.  Because the ocean isn't always deep there is always leftover wire, and now hats for friends instead of trash.  Although I did take back the leftover copper to McMurdo to recycle.

 The NBP (Nathaniel Brown Palmer) next to the pier at McMurdo.  It was a wonderful cruise and amazing to finally get to work on her.  Had a blast, lots of jokes at lunch, movies with friends after work and cool science projects.

 The NBP leaving McMurdo headed to Hobart, Australia for two months.

 This year's cargo vessel with the Transantarctic Mountains as a backdrop.

The cargo ship with this year's supplies (450 20 foot shipping containers, went back with the same 450 containers filled with recyclables, resale items and 70 containers of hazardous waste from Palmer and McMurdo Station to be treated at facilities in the USA)

The main reason I was on the ship as a Hazardous Waste Technician was to accompany 10 shipping containers and several drums across the ocean to McMurdo Station from Chile, and be the legal representative as well as the Spill Response Lead in case of incident.  (This project saved the program $150,000).  We got to have a hazmat drill with the Captain's crew of men and I got to advise on procedures, as well as package 5-55 gallon drums full of the ships hazardous chemicals from previous scientific cruises.

 More gorgeous icebergs on the way.

The last few miles to McMurdo Station were in this channel that the US Coast Guard Cutter (Icebreaker) cut for us and the cargo ship and fuel tanker.  You can see the Cutter in this picture up ahead.  Below is: Craft project: We painted these styrofoam coffee cups and sent them down with the water sampling machine to 4,000 meters (13,200 feet) and the pressure from the depth compressed the air bubbles out of the cups to shrink them to shot glass sized containers.  Pretty fun!

 

It was an amazing journey and I got to fly to New Zealand after a wonderful week catching up with my girlfriends on an LC-130 (9 hours) to Christchurch.  We even had a get together with McMurdo friends and everyone on the ship at Hut 10, as well as several morning coffees with the girls and dinners.

I took Krista to some of my favorite NZ spots, including the Boat Shed Cafe next to the Avon river where they punt (like in Venice) and have exceptional cappuccinos.

Springtime in the Botanic Gardens in Christchurch.  I took Krista there, then Ken my boss on the ship, then went my last day by myself and feel exceptionally lucky to have seen the spring blooms and roses.

Christchurch Botanic Gardens (I also got to see the Wellington Botanic Gardens with my niece and the San Francisco Botanic Gardens with Dave).  Below is the tourist area behind the Cathedral in downtown, now open again after the earthquakes.

Hanna & Tiora, now 4 & 8.  So proud, Tiora has read almost 900 books as verified by their local library.

 We went to a Hungarian friend's lovely 40th birthday party.  So great to see family again, lucky to get to spend time together.  Thanks guys!  Love you.  (They are now living in Oslo, Norway).

 My brother's house and the neighbor's tree in full bloom!

Dora & I did our traditional girl's day out at a nice restaurant downtown and a few days later a good movie.  I spoke again at Dora's work, the Campbell Institute about Antarctica and had lots of pictures.

Our annual girls day with Tiora was a metro into the city, pink sushi, cable car up to the Botanic Gardens and a lovely walk.

 Blossoms in the Wellington Botanic Gardens.

An awesome bush walk in Otari-Wilton before my flight that Tibor & Dora took me to.  Incredible native plants and birdsong.  Tibor and I got to spend some time together in downtown Wellington out for sushi and a beer with his boss. 

Flowers in downtown Christchurch.  I can't believe how many places I've gotten to see so far this year, lucky girl.  It was a bit busy in Christchurch doing my medical and dental tests for my job as well showing friends around the city.  Got to see Tibor and Dora for a week up in Wellington and had a wonderful visit and helped them a bit with their packing as well as enjoyed the flowers and food.  And had a great time on the NBP sailing across the Southern Ocean to McMurdo Station.  I lucked out and got bumped from several flights out of McMurdo, so I had more time to catch up with more friends.  Even got to sift through my four boxes in storage there and mail one home and gift the rest.  It's great to just be a tourist there and see all the familiar faces and places.  More pictures coming soon of Washington DC and San Francisco with Dave.  Love you, thanks for reading!