December,
2011
Happy 2012 to Friends and Family
Everywhere,
Back to our bad post-New-Year letter
habit. And,
it appears we have not carried out last year's threat to go
all-email with our annual letters, although we notice many
others did. Here
are our highlights for 2011:
Travel: After a
ŅdownÓ year in 2011, while Hal was recuperating from his
knee replacement surgery, we resumed our active travelling. The highlight of
our year was a fantastic three-week trip in the fall to Peru
and Ecuador where we visited the Amazon, Machu Picchu, and
the Galapagos Islands, with short stays in Lima (same
climate as coastal Los Angeles, despite its proximity to the
equator) and Quito Š see some of our photos at end. Read Turn
Right at Machu Picchu to learn the fascinating history
of Inca reign and their Lost City. This was our first
time south of the equator and our first trip to South Ame
rica. (We're now up from 2 to
5 continents visited in just over three years.) We also spent a week
on the Big Island of Hawaii in March and a week in Las Vegas
in August, along with periodic trips to New York (Ruth) and
Providence (Hal). We
flew to Hawaii via San Jose, which gave us the opportunity
to reconnect with several grad school friends and where we
were given a tour of Google by one of RuthÕs Internet
friends and her husband.
Geocaching: In March, we were
introduced to a new activity that quickly became an
obsession. Geocaching
is a high-tech treasure/scavenger hunt, where players use a
GPS to locate caches (typically,
small watertight containers with logsheets and sometimes
trinkets for trading) that have been hidden by other
players. Hides
range from quick Park
& Grabs to vigorous hikes and difficult
concealments. Amazingly,
there are more than 5 million geocachers and more than 1.6
million geocaches hidden all over the world, with more than
300 within a 5 mile radius of our home. Beginning in May,
we geocached for 214 straight days (Erika filled in for us
while we were in South America, though we did locate several
there, including one in Machu Picchu itself), choosing to
stop the streak right before the rains came a couple of
weeks ago. Among
other things, itÕs given us an exc
use to
investigate some of the trails all over the Palos Verdes
Peninsula that weÕve been ŅmeaningÓ to hike for the past 35
years. Thanks
to our grad school friend, Rich Ragan, who showed us the
ropes while we visited their Mountain View home prior to our
Hawaii trip (where we geocached every day). We went over 500
caches found on Dec. 31; intend to try hiding some in 2012
and turning our focus to less traditional Puzzle & Multi caches. For those who are
interested, check out www.geocaching.com
which includes a 2-minute introductory video and where
players maintain accounts
(we're StHart) for logging
finds and automaticly keeping all kinds of statistics. At right: our
Magellan geocaching GPS.
Omnilore: We continue our heavy involvement in
Omnilore, our unique peer-organized, peer-taught learning-in-retirement organization (see Omnilore.org). Both of us run the
ingenious scheduling program every trimester. Hal continues as
the equipment manager (increasing
technology usage), coordinates the popular Shakespeare
group, and took on the job of co-webmaster in early 2011. Although RuthÕs
term as President mercifully ended in 2010, she continues on
the Board of Directors as Past President and also serves on
the Curriculum Committee.
We continue to take an eclectic set of classes and
have joined the Hiking Club (where we first learned about
geocaching Š see above).
Family: The year ended on a high note for Alison
as she has been working in the Advocacy Department with
Habitat for Humanity of Greater Los Angeles since October,
where she had first interned for a year. She is making
lots of contacts with local elected officials and other
non-profit leaders, which she hopes will come in handy in
the future. Now
she and her boyfriend Jay are looking forward to another
winter without snow!
