afraid of heights?

Happy Monday! How was your weekend? How have you been? Are you taking time to check-in with yourself and give yourself the care, love, and attention you need? If not, it’s perfectly okay to set aside time for yourself to do whatever you want/need to do during ‘me time.’ Maybe it’s yoga, meditation, running, reading, tending to a pallet garden you built, sewing some pillowcases for your home decor, making a dress to match your homemade mask, or even playing animal crossing with family and friends. My Sunday nights always consist of a face mask and relaxation, and yesterday I even gave myself a pedicure! Whatever you want to do during your assigned ‘me time,’ make sure you’re doing it and giving yourself a break.

If you didn’t get a chance to read Saturday’s post - “cave-born shadow babies” - you can click here to read all about the Game of Thrones Filming Locations bus tour I did with my best friend from high school and her fiancé from Belfast! Also, if you didn’t get the chance to cast your free daily vote for me to be the next #MaximCoverGirl, you can click here to vote or click here to read about why it’s important to me (and then vote!). You can vote once every twenty-four hours for free, and I am so grateful for your support! Voting for the Quarter-Finals round ends this Thursday July 16th, so I’d appreciate any and all support I can get to make my way to first before the 16th! Thank you for everything so far!! If you’re all caught up on the adventures thus far and Maxim Cover Girl voting, then sit tight, strap in, buckle up - whatever you choose! Let’s take this journey to the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge!

The Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge is a rope bridge suspended 100 ft. above sea level in Northern Ireland that was first built in 1775 by local salmon fishermen. Having visited and crossed the bridge multiple times with people who came to visit me while I lived in Ireland, I’ll say that there’s definitely a bit of nervous excitement that happens when you get to the line to wait to cross the bridge. First, however, you get to enjoy a nice, scenic walk (with some incline and stairs) along the coast line. The views you get to take in while walking the trail to the bridge are incredible, and they keep getting better if you take a moment every 50 ft. or so to look back towards the parking lot.

The bridge itself sits high above the water, so if heights make you feel uneasy, don’t look down. It almost feels like the type of rope bridge you would have experienced at summer camp or at a ropes course, except that it was suspended above crashing ocean waves. Once you cross the bridge, you can see an old pulley system used to raise and lower boats for fishing, as well as beautiful views of the coastline (since you are now technically not part of the contiguous landmass). Most of the times I visited Carrick-a-Rede it was an overcast, somewhat windy day. One time, however, when the weather was nothing but beautiful sunshine, there was an additional section open once you crossed the bridge and passed the pulley system. A large open space existed where visitors could walk around the cliff, enjoying the green grass and beautiful weather. If we’d planned better and hadn’t been on a tour, we probably could have packed a picnic to have while sitting and looking out over the sea below us, stretching for miles away from us.

Have you ever been on a bridge like the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge? Perhaps one you may have encountered at a summer camp ropes course? Let me know! Subscribe in the e-mail submission box below and reach out, follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, and reach out to me on the “contact” page. I’m so happy you're here and that I’ve been receiving a lot of really incredible stories, questions, and feedback from a community all over the globe! Other people’s stories that I’ve gotten to read via e-mail, text, tweet, DM, etc. recently bring me such smiles, and I am so grateful for all of it! I hope I get to hear all about whatever stories you’ve been thinking about as we’ve been on this virtual journey together! Also, I've said it before and I'll say it again, if you have any restaurants/eateries/pubs/coffee shops/ice cream joints/theatres/lookout spots you would recommend in other countries or even in your current home town or city, I'm absolutely 100% all ears!! I couldn’t do this without you! So THANK YOU! From the bottom of my heart, truly, thank you.

And please, if you have 10 seconds to spare, I would really appreciate your daily vote for me to be the next Maxim Cover Girl 2020. Click here to vote! Voting for the Quarter-Finals is now live and continues everyday until July 16th! The race is close, and I need to finish first in order to advance, so I would really appreciate your help and support as I continue to try and become the next #MaximCoverGirl by moving ahead into round 7/the Semi-Finals of the competition! Thank you for all your support! I wouldn’t have made it this far without you! Click here or on the photo above to vote!

Sincerely,

Johny

P.S. - If you want to catch up from the beginning on this series of travel adventures, here's a cheat sheet to the posts (in order in which they were published):

1. Won't you join me?

2. grateful for starbucks and sandymount strand

3. Once Upon a December in the National Gallery

4. plant a smooch for that gift of gab

5. may the 4th be with you: Dingle style

6. cinco de mayo: the best Mexican food in Dublin

7. pizza in roma

8. mussolini’s window and the philosophers’ metro stop

9. father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife

10. it's the vatican, not the vatican't

11. spoiler alert: i did not lose my hand

12. more pizza and gelato and Neptune, oh my