Closing Out 2014

In keeping with this year's (obvious in hind-sight) "work first" theme, we waited until a bunch of work stuff had been finalized before getting on the plane to visit E's family for the holidays.  After boarding, we worked in the air,  and then E's folks picked us up and drove us through a crazy thunderstorm to their house, where, per Southern hospitality, they fed us very (too?) well.

One of the best views of Tahoe I've ever seen.  It was CLEAR!

Christmas Eve started with more work, and then we had the traditional lunch at the Varsity with E's father's cousins.  From there it was dinner at E's sister's house where our brother-in-law made an *amazing* paella.  Lobster, shrimp, chorizo, chicken thighs, and white fish all combined with spices to make the most rich and delicious broth.

In case this wasn't enough, he also made pumpkin tiramisu to die for.

That night, we skipped out of church with E's parents in favor of C's Christmas Eve party and then headed home.

Christmas day was the classic wake and presents and heavy delicious breakfast followed by meal/table/hosting prep.  E's mom runs a solid kitchen (and is a hostess as only a woman who has sat on multiple non-profit boards and hosted countless church, non-profit, and professional parties in the South can be), so I've learned how to make myself useful to her.  This year, I split the sous-chef duties with my brother-in-law (fastest Xmas prep on record in E's childhood household since I've joined the fun!) and I was thrilled to be able to slip out for a quick 2.6 mile loop in the hills before returning for round 2 of the holiday meal festivities for the day.

E's parents always host a formal sit-down Christmas dinner for their entire extended family and at least 2 other couples (sometimes up to 3 other extended families), and this year was no different.  The full spread was no less than 8 delicious dishes, but the most impressive was the beef wellington.

Boxing day was a bit tight as both E and I hadn't yet really switched to EDT and we both had some work to do, plus I crammed in another run (5.67 @ AVG pace 12:15 in the hills including some walk breaks for traffic).  All of this was before we stacked an hour at a friend-of-the-family's boxing day cocktail party followed by dinner with friends who live out of the country but had come home for the holidays. 

In addition to all of that, before we left for our New Year's trip, we managed to fit in a lunch out with E's parents, a full lunch of Christmas leftovers and wine, and a dinner of Indian food prepared by local friends, plus I fit in another run.

Sunday, I fit in my 3X14 pushups after waking up so I could actually hit my 3X15 goal for the end of the year. Then, we flew to Costa Rica (yay hotel points and airline miles!) and did nothing but relax after arriving at our resort.

At times like this, the business travel chaos seems worth it...

We slept 12 hours the first night and around 10 hours each night since.  It's been an exhausting year for us.  Great.  Full of adventure and hard work in the work and home construction departments and the associated rewards.  But exhausting.  So we're here to recover before jumping in to next year.

Unlike last year, we aren't completely disconnected, but each of us has really only had to do an hour or two of work most days, and we're in such a tranquil environment that we can't help but unwind immensely.

I'm a big fan of the lounge chairs under the jungle cover...no sunburn despite hours of reading!

Tuesday we'd planned to drive to Rincon de la Vieja and hike, but rental cars are insane here and after too long of a wait (the temperature just kept rising) we opted out of the day entirely.  I'll spare you the details -- Just trust me that in general Costa Rica doesn't feel as chaotic as Mexico, Puerto Rico, Uruguay, or Argentina, but when it comes to rental cars, it's definitely worse.  Today, we actually took a car off the property all day without a contract (mind you, we'd filled out a bazillion forms, but we hadn't actually *agreed* to anything, legally...).  Someone just gave us a key and we left, they weren't concerned 'til we returned and they couldn't find our contract -- no doubt something similar happened to our reservation on Tuesday.

Since the hike in the National Park wasn't happening without a car, on Tuesday we chilled at the beach, read, did an hour or so of work at the hottest part of the day in our air-conditioned room and eventually walked about a total of 5K to and from the local marina (and then to-and-fro again because we didn't have enough money to pay our bill on the first visit -- yup, we were those gringos).

On our second trip we enjoyed the sunset

This morning (the last day of the year) our rental car situation was still in chaos, but we did manage to finally get a set of keys and drive out to the park to do my new personal slowest 3K ever (2 hours!) at Rincon de la Vieja.

Truly, this was a great way to close out the year.    So many natural sights all in one park.

The sketchiest bridge I've ever crossed in a National Park.

Broken slats, iron just sort of gently curled around supports, rusted chain link as structural bits -- Exciting!

The significantly safer-feeling fallen tree crossing with a rope hand-guide (your other option was rocks across the river, but it had rained recently, so the tree was definitely the way to go on this day).

Just saw off the top of the tree that fell over and you've got a solid bridge.

Forest.  Monkeys.

Waterfalls.

Mud pots.

Thermal boiling waters.

After the strenuous scramble (tons of rocks, trees, obstacles, mud, etc.), we drove into a nearby town to have an authentic local's lunch.  In doing so, we drove the wrong way down a few unmarked one-way streets.  Interestingly, no one follows parking rules and most streets aren't labeled with their names, much less their direction or stop/yield/direction rules, so the only way we'd know we were going the wrong way was when someone came at us head-on shaking their finger through the windshield in a friendly, "no you shouldn't" motion. But, they'd always make room for us and not a single person honked!  (Huge difference from other Latin American countries I've visited.)

The charming Liberia Cafe:
150 y/o historic building
complete with adorable Costa Rican hostess
and
delicious food from the French chef.

After lunch, I spent yet another 1.5 hours (not exaggerating) at the resort figuring out what was going on with our rental car.  I refused to give back the keys and the person to whom I was escalated seemed to understand and respect my commitment.  Eventually, they brought me a contract to sign which seems to indicate roughly what I expect to happen between now and when we leave.  I think we should be able to drive to the San Jose airport and get home.  But if we don't make it back, you'll know why!

And with that, I'm happy to celebrate the end of 2014 with 1406.21 total miles (ran, jogged, hiked and walked), *and* I'm ready to bust out my 3X15 pushups tonight to ring in the New Year.

Happy New Year!