A Wintry Exploration of Central Oregon

December 21 - 25, 2013
Crater Lake National Park, Bend and Eugene, OR

As Scott had both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day off from work, we took the opportunity for a brief holiday road trip up to central Oregon. What a hidden gem of a region! It's so stunningly beautiful (if a bit gloomy at times) and yet it's not commonly mentioned as a travel destination, in particular the mountainous area between Bend and Eugene, among Californians anyway. 

Crater Lake National Park, OR

Happy Holidays from Scott and Caroline!

Wishing you the Merriest of Holidays!

Merry Christmas (oink, oink!)
and a Happy New Year!

Scott, Caroline, & Santa Pig!

A Very Merry Holiday Party!

December 14, 2013
Oakland, CA

Many thanks to the wonderful friends who joined us on Saturday evening to celebrate the season with drinks and dinner at our humble abode.  We truly enjoyed opening our home and sharing our food and drink with each and every one of you and look forward to making more memories with you in 2014!  Happy holidays to all!

Thank you, Dominique, for capturing some of these moments on our camera!  

Cheers!

Happy Thanksgiving from Lake Tahoe!

November 26-30, 2013
Northstar Resort, Lake Tahoe, CA

This year, we once again traveled to Lake Tahoe to celebrate the holiday with friends at their home at Northstar, near Truckee, CA.  

This poster from our eldest honorary niece was waiting for us upon our arrival

SOLD! - The End of an Era

November 26, 2013
Puerto Vallarta, Mexico

At long last, we officially sold our condo, located in the Zona Romantica section of Puerto Vallarta, just two days before the Thanksgiving holiday!   As new construction in the busy resort town boomed, our well-located but older property, dubbed Casita Encantada for rental purposes, had languished on the real estate market for almost two years.  We were beginning to despair of ever being able to move on from that snap decision we made back in 2005.  It was a highly rentable, charming little condo with lots of great memories attached to it, but since moving back back to the US in 2007, it no longer fit our lifestyle.  It had become a bit of a challenge to manage from afar, to say the least.  It was time to move on.

Casita Encantada

Happy Birthday, Scott!

November 24, 2013
Golden Haven Hot Springs Spa & Resort, Calistoga, CA

Although Scott (obviously) celebrates a birthday every year, it was an unusual occasion this year as it was the first time that Caroline can remember that Scott's birthday did not fall on our near the Thanksgiving holiday weekend.  Typically, Scott's birthday gets 'celebrated' at the annual casino night we go to with the friends we celebrate Thanksgiving with in Lake Tahoe every year.  In other words, poor Scott's birthday usually falls by the way side, being swept aside in favor of other traditional holiday activities.

It's been a stressful time for us this fall.  Following Nestle's many reorganizations over the summer and Scott's recent promotion to Finance Manager, Scott has been spending more time  than ever at the office.  Add to that that we have been jumping through paperwork hoops trying to close on our Puerto Vallarta condo - yes, we finally found a buyer! - which is scheduled for today (fingers crossed!) and will be leaving to drive up to Lake Tahoe tomorrow morning for the Thanksgiving holiday, where Scott will spend the day working remotely amidst the pre-holiday chaos and there just wasn't much time to plan (or energy to participate in) a birthday fete.

Desperately needing some relaxation (and a massage sure wouldn't hurt either), we decided to book a couple's mudbath and massage at an old favorite, the Golden Haven Hot Springs Spa & Resort up in Calistoga.  Easy. Relaxing. Enjoyable.  We've been going to the Golden Haven, known for their restorative mudbaths, for well over twelve years now, so there were no surprises and no guesswork involved.  It was a beautiful, sunny weekend and the grape vines were ablaze with fall color, only adding to the enjoyment of the weekend.  It was just what the doctor ordered.  Happy birthday, Scott!

Posing in the cutouts simulating the couple's mudbath experience

Haleakala - Up the Crater We Go!

August 30, 2013
Haleakala National Park, East Maui

While planning our Hawaiian getaway, we decided that we wanted to witness the sunrise from the top of Maui's volcanic crater, Haleakala.  A co-worker of Scott's recommended that we partake of this particular adventure early on in our trip while our bodies were still on California time, making it a little easier to get up and venture out in the middle of the night.  So on our first full day on Maui, we set off  from our hotel at 3:45 am in order to make the hour-and-a-half drive up the crater in time to enjoy the pre-dawn show at the top, beginning at about 5 am, an hour before sunrise.  We packed up all the winter gear we could manage, since we knew it would be cold at the top, and headed off into the dark.

Happy Anniversary To Us - Let's Go To Maui!

August 29, 2013

Wailea, Maui, Hawaii

Ka'anapali Beach

Beautiful scenery, warm weather, tropical drinks, copious amounts of slow cooked pork products...  Is there a more romantic destination than Hawaii?  Just under five hours by nonstop flight from the Bay Area, Hawaii is an extremely popular destination for Californians, and one that we had never visited in our 15 years as Western Americans. It almost seemed too close, too easy, and therefore easy to put off for "some other time".  But close and easy being prerequisites for our 15th anniversary celebration, we decided it was finally time.

The Last Hurrah - One Night in Barcelona

July 20, 2013

Barcelona, Spain

After saying farewell to our barge-mates on Saturday morning as we all went our separate ways, we headed for Barcelona, where we would catch our flight home the next day.  We had a stressful ticket-buying experience at the station in Narbonne - the clerk could not get her credit card machine to work and Scott had to run all over town looking for an ATM while fearing we would miss the train - but eventually we arrived at the pleasant, modern station in Figueres de Vilafant, located just over the border in Spain.  Here, we would transfer to a Spanish RENFE train traveling on to Barcelona.  We had planned to have lunch at
the station while we waited for our transfer but were dismayed to discover that the only food available at or near the station was located in a vending machine.

Life on the Waterways (Still Enjoying the Good Life, But Now in France)

July 13 – 19, 2013

Canal du Midi, France

On Saturday afternoon, after a pleasant, high-speed train ride into Narbonne, France, we met up with our traveling party at the small but bustling station.  From there we taxied on to Le Somail where our barge was moored, ready and waiting for us.  It was hot as blazes, with little shade in sight, but we gamely unpacked our bags in our floating accommodations and did some preliminary food and supply shopping in the only shop in town, charmingly located aboard a permanently moored barge.

The Narbonne, our floating home for the week

Enjoying the Good Life in the Spanish Countryside

July 9 - 12, 2013
Can Ferrer, Catalonia, Spain and Around

After brushing off our travel dust, we spent an enjoyable four days relaxing and catching up, in very low-key fashion, with our friends whom we had last seen seven years ago.  It wasn't your typical Spanish vacation, spending sweaty days touring the sights, bemoaning sore feet, tired legs and sunburned shoulders.  As Daniel and Leonne are Dutch, not Spanish, and speak fluent English and we encountered very few people in our countryside wanderings, at times it was easy to forget we were even in Spain.

Off to Europe...Eventually...

July 6 - 8, 2013  
San Francisco International Airport to Barcelona

About three years ago, while we were still living in Albuquerque, our friend Christopher began talking about the European adventure he was dreaming of in celebration of his 50^th birthday.  It began as ‘5 for 50’ as in five months in Europe for his 50^th birthday.  Well, the trip went through many iterations over the years (not the least of which saw five months turn into a mere three), but in the early stages when Christopher mentioned inviting friends we knew that we would be there!

Looking for the 'old' scottandcaroline.com? Here's the link!

Interested in seeing what we were up to between 2004 and 2013?  Click this link:

http://sco3110.ipower.com/archive.html