Happy New Year!

We've been having a fun, but very relaxing, and therefore boring, holiday. So in an attempt to blog something, I am shamelessly ripping off my son's idea (which, apparently, was shamelessly ripped off from someone else's) and blogging a review of some of the year's high points:

an example of winter-clear river water, taken on last year's New Year's Day Paddle...
we hope to be able to join our friends in this tradition again on Sunday

we actually had SNOW last winter! Once...and just a smidgen...but SNOW!

in May I had my second annual float down the Rio Chama in New Mexico...

best scenery from a river anywhere?

our second annual 2-sport weekend in Houston featured immersion in Forever Orange...
the Dynamo made it to the championship finals eventually...the other sport? let's just not talk about that 

BTW, Dynamo will be in a great new stadium in 2012!

a summer trip to New England provided some wonderful R-n-R
(as in "rest and relief—from Texas heat")

but we braved the heat to take in the new San Antonio River improvements...
and there will probably be more of these to showcase in 2012

a trip to Colorado in August brought more heat relief...
and we made one more in November, which made 2011 a Colorado-trip record year for me...
a record I hope soon to break

a highlight of my business trip to Washington in October was getting to see
the new MLK monument on an absolutely gorgeous day

a shorter October trip to Austin was highlighted by having
a front-row seat for the Congress Avenue bat-show

two trips this year to the old alma mater made us promise to visit more regularly in the future

We'll be heading north at the end of next week for some skiing, if they can get a little more snow before then. If not, maybe we'll snowshoe. But in any event, I should have some exciting (but hopefully not too exciting) photos and stories from Colorado for you soon. 

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But in the meantime, happy new year to all!