Hey everyone!

I made a video last summer for the trip that Jo, Leland and I took to some of the National Parks in California and Oregon. I found it whilst digging through my computer files and thought, "hey! I should actually do something with this." So I did.

Enjoy!

Late! But worth the wait?

*Disclaimer: I fully realize that the Holiday Season is over and that this post should have been done weeks ago, but I had stuff to do (like finish watching all the seasons of ‘Friends’)!

Jo and I spend a majority of the winter break in Washington visiting my parents. We flew out on Christmas Eve and returned to Vegas on New Year’s Eve. We managed to keep ourselves busy while visiting the folks, what follows is a brief synopsis of the highlights:

Christmas Day

Mom made an excellent Prime Rib. Gifts were exchanged, including new WSU hoodies for both Jo and me (yes, that is grammatically correct…fyi). Wine was consumed, then rum. Cheesecake enjoyed.

Lake Quinault

Dad took Jo and me up to Lake Quinault to take some pictures and see the peninsula. Jo wrote a great piece on it for her travel blog. It was a beautiful day spent walking around the woods and the lake and enjoying each other’s company.

Zoo Lights

Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium, in a well planned effort to increase zoo attendance in the winter, decks the entire zoo out with holiday lights for the masses to enjoy. So we enjoyed. It was pretty and pretty crowded. A good time was had by all.

Seattle Underground

Jo and I spent a day in Seattle. We went to my personal Mecca (the new Starbucks flagship store), Pike Place, and did the Seattle Underground tour. It was a fascinating bit of Seattle history that I was unfamiliar with. We had lunch at a cute little Greek restaurant and tooled around Pioneer Square for a while.

New Year’s Eve

We got home just before midnight. There is a bridge near our house that offers a great view of The Strip. We sat on the bridge and watched the fireworks. It was a nice way to cap off the year.

Here’s to hoping you and yours had a great Holiday and that this year brings you as much adventure and excitement as you can handle…maybe more.

-Cory

Press Trip #2: Jo Visits Huatulco, Mexico

I'm about a month late with this post, but better late than never, right?

I went on my second press trip in early December to Huatulco, Mexico, a resort town in the southern portion of Oaxaca. This one was only four days long and was really focused on site visits. We spent a lot of time touring the resorts along the bays and we ate every meal at a different resort. These places are high-class places, and the food was fantastic. My two new food experiences on this trip were eating grasshoppers and shark, both of which were tasty. The seafood was plentiful, and I loved the coconut shrimp I ate on our final night there. I also had a chilled cantaloupe soup which was delicious as well.

Because this trip was focused on site visits, we didn't do as much as I would have liked, but there were a few highlights:

• Taking a catamaran out into the ocean where we saw a wild sea turtle swimming in the water. Even from a distance I could tell it was huge.
• Spending the day beach hopping, which equates to sucking up some sun and floating in the bathwater-warm ocean.
• Hiking up through an ecological park where we could overlook the river flowing into the ocean.
• Discovering a "secret" beach located on the property of the resort we were staying at. It was small, quiet and void of beach chairs.
• Jumping off a waterfall ... then really pushing the limits and swinging from a rope swing from a 20-foot platform into the water. Considering the fact that I don't like diving boards, both of these were scary and exhilarating.
• Seeing a huge (2.5 feet long?) iguana in the wild.
  

Some of the more unusual parts of the trip included:

• Realizing that Huatulco, while located on the ocean, is actually a desert climate, which means there were cacti growing on the beach.
• Staying at a resort that was so large I had to call for a shuttle to take me to the lobby (a 5-minute drive away).
• Navigating my way through the Mexico City airport, which is fairly confusing as it doesn't announce which gates flights leave from until an hour before the flight is scheduled to leave. And to find out what gate you leave from in the international terminal, you have to stand in a long line and ask a single woman sitting in a booth.
• Touring an eco-archeological park that is not yet open to the public.
  

One thing that I really liked about Huatulco: It is an environmentally sound community built on sustainability and conservation. When Mexico decided to build it as a resort town, it built in plans to create schools and medical facilities that weren't originally there. It is the only city in Mexico that has received a Green Globe certification, and that was a city effort. In many places, different businesses work in isolation to achieve environmental certifications, but all of Huatulco is invested in the city's future. It has controlled growth and programs in place that ensure all aspects of the community are included in all the planning stages.

Though I haven't written specifically about Mexico at Kaleidoscopic Wandering yet, stay tuned for detailed blog posts to come.

And now the part you've really been waiting for ... a few choice pictures of the nearly 1,000 I took while there:

Sunshine and tropical climate ~
JoAnna