We spend a lot of time exploring Oregon’s many state parks. A LOT. So we were beyond thrilled to finally make our way to experience Cottonwood Canyon, Oregon’s newest state park, and check it out for ourselves. Opened in 2014, Cottonwood is a mere 30minute drive off of the mighty Columbia Gorge Highway, sitting scenically next to the John Day river.
As mentioned in my last post, we are making it a quest on our long drive south to visit all of the Pueblo Magicos, the Magic towns of Mexico. On our recent trip with Trafalgar, we were fortunate enough to not just visit vibrant Alamos, but also colorful El Fuerte.
We have long dreamed of visiting Alamos, one of the Pueblo Magico towns of Mexico. In fact, one quest on our route south is going to be our attempt to visit ALL of these magic towns, an epic quest if there ever was one, with 64 currently on the list! On our recent Trafalgar trip around Northern Mexico, we were lucky enough to check three of the list. All wonderful, but alas, all scream out to be further explored at a later time!
Anyone who reads this blog regularly knows how totally IN LOVE we are with Mexico. Having just returned from a trip into the less touristed regions of Sonora, northern Sinaloa and Chihuahua states, our love affair has only increased. Stories are racing through my head, all to come out on these pages soon enough, but below please enjoy a short photo essay of our magical time away to whet your appetite.
The very definition of a “room with a view”
We have, quite simply, been really busy lately. Busy at work, busy at the house, busy with friends. Simply busy. While this keeps us, somewhat, out of trouble, it also means we have been able to indulge less often than we prefer in our favorite activity ~ camping and convening with nature.
The waves sloshed onto the shore, as the sun warmed us. Having walked a couple of miles from camp down the beach, we stopped for a rest on a downed log, luxuriating in the absolute solitude. Not another soul disturbed our peace, other than a few pesky sea gulls, but even they seemed more subdued than normal. Aspen took a break from exploring to come in for pets, as Porter leaned back against me, raising his head to the sun, eyes mere slits, the picture of complete contentment. On this uncharacteristically warm, non-windy day, at the Oregon coast in FEBRUARY, life was good.
Rather than write a long narrative on the year that was, I wanted to simply look back on the photos. Reminisce on the thousands of memories, and countless adventures that emerged on this past trip around the sun.
In no particular order, here are some of my favorite moments of 2014.
As another year draws to a close, it’s readily apparent that our highlight of the year was the time spent with friends, both old and new.
Christmas is next week. It snuck up on me this year, and I was a bit startled to realize it is already upon us. Mentally, we are so removed from the idea of acquiring things, seemingly the sole purpose for the holiday these days, that my focus has been far, far away from shopping malls and Christmas shopping. Oh, I still love the holiday for the festivity of it all, and spent much of the last weekend simply sitting and admiring our lovely tree, adorned in dozens of ornaments, all with a story. Every single ornament on that tree was picked up by us at some random point around the world, or given to us at our annual Christmas parties by dear friends.
Stopovers. In our experience, they’re generally a waste of time, money, and effort. At various times we have decided to break up a long flight with a stopover in, say, JFK, and I have to say, they never live up to our hopes. Instead of a luxurious sleep in, for instance, before a 17 hour flight to South Africa, we were advised we needed to check out by 10am or pay a late check out fee, which amounted to an entire additional night at the hotel! After an expensive, not great night, we still spent hours sitting at JFK. Not my idea of a great time.
