New family member, we adopted a Dominican

(Posted by: Doug)

You read it right, after much weighing and considering, we've decided to adopt. Matter of fact our baby's home safe already. We kept quiet about this until we made our final decision/everything went through, but our new baby's now home safe and seems very happy with her new home.
We adopted her through a local orginization that helps fight the massive homeless population by finding homes for babies. We're already very much in love with our little gatita, and are currently figuring out her name. For now, though, enjoy some shots of her.

Happily napping with mom.

She's a cutie.

Her favorite spot in the apartment. She can nap but still keep an eye on all of the weird things mom and dad are always doing.

Some perspective on her size, I don't have big hands.

Still a bit awkward on her feet, she was 4 weeks old when we got her. Unfortunately mom passed away shortly after child birth and our mona was left to fend for herself.

Another shot with mom.

And one taking a nap on pops.

Pretty dirty when she came to us, we gave her a bath.
Note: she does not like baths.

(p.s. Stace still needs to catch up on this thing and do some posting. To all of her fans, I've been bugging her about it.:P)

Los Galeras, Oct 16th-18th

(Posted by: Doug)

Because, as things get chilly, as you turn up your heaters and wrap yourself in layers, as you check the 5 day forecast before you think of heading out of town for the weekend, we know that you're not at all sick of seeing photos of us sipping mango shakes and munching coconuts on spotless Caribbean beaches, we're back to tell you about the best one yet.

This weekend we went to the Samana province, off on the East part of the island, to a small beach town called Los Galeras. After some adventure getting there, including running away from a crazed old lady, we finally made it and chose a (bad) place to stay. Los Galeras is known for having "Playa Rincon" in its vicinity, which carries the tag line, "one of the top 5 beaches in the world." Though we were close, we actually never even made it to this beach. We did, however, see some pretty great stuff but did not bring our camera for much of it. Here's what we did take some shots of, though. Fairly short post on this one.

Argh.

Looks nice, but the dumpiest place we've stayed so far by a long shot. On the other hand, super nice restaurant here run by an awesome Romanian family.

Hands down the best food we've had in this country. Run by a super nice Italian lady with remarkable culinary skills.

From left: Bridget, JP (who's clearly very pleased), Stace, and Caitlin at dinner.

Island off the coast of the main beach (but by no means the nicest) of Los Galeros.

More dinner.

We ran by this painting of the main character from Stacy's favorite book of all time, The Little Prince. Except for a few motorbikes, it was nice and quiet here. Good times.

P.S. Please email Stacy and/or leave comments requesting that Stacy once again grace this blog with her presence. There's a bunch of shots from her birthday that need to get posted, but I have as yet been unable to talk her into it:(

Constanza, Oct 30th-Nov 1

(posted by: Doug)

For my birthday, Stace and I took a trip with frequent travel collaborators Caitlin and JP (Who I unfortunately had to share my birthday with this year, what are the odds...) to Constanza. The four of us rented out a cabin for the weekend at Rancho Macojo (which I name if only for promotional purposes). It was nice to get away from so many cars/people, to smell pine trees and dusty hills, and to get more dirty than what a bit of prissy white sand can do. More than anything, it was nice to be cold without the use of a stupid air conditioner.

I loved Constanza; easily my favorite spot on the island thus far. This small mountain community is located near the geographic center of the island, and is further up the hill from previously blogged about Jarabacoa. In a lot of ways it reminds me of Idaho, especially around my family's cabin near Idaho city and the north. The beach is nice, don't get me wrong, but ultimately it's a rather passive experience compared to the more interactive approach that mountains, mud, forest and big scary bugs encourage.

JP and I got things started off right with a giant seesaw. I had no idea these things were so fun.

The lady who owns/operates Rancho Macojo was so nice she let us basically borrow her cat, "Eva", for the weekend. She (the cat) slept in our cabin and everything.


Shot of one of the other cabins. Oddly we never took one of ours.

Main lobby of Rancho Macojo. Good food lies here.

The "ranch" boasts several animals, and is something of a mini zoo (although I'll say I'm not crazy about seeing these guys locked up).

Cool photo by Stace.

Constanza countryside. Much garlic, potatoes, onions, flowers and strawberries and grown among these hills.

Pretty sweet.

We hired someone to take us up to this waterfall, which is a three-teared behemoth and the highest in the Greater Antilles. This is the lowest level.

Also, you can see me being and idiot climbing down to the water over the railing and several slippery rocks. If I would have taken half a second to look there was a perfectly functional staircase which directly to the pool.

On the hike/climb up.

Stace and Caitlin. Sorry there's not many pictures of Stace on this blog, she takes a vast majority of the pictures so doesn't get in many of the shots:(

View from the top.

The upper falls. We were super muddy from the hike but pretty happy to be sitting here.

Cool shot of JP

Preparing to take a dip. Swimming here was invigorating to say the least and without a doubt the coldest I've been in a long time.

On the way back down.

Two culinary experts man breakfast.

Stace and I found this charmer in our room as we were about to leave. Cute, huh?

Adios.

Zona de Colonial, Santo Domingo Staycation, Sep 19th & 20th

(posted by: Doug)

We live in a beautiful city. A fact that had basically escaped us for the first month because of our hectic schedules: work, get situated, work while getting situated, etc. We'd caught glimpses of Santo Domingo in taxis and on busses out of town, but hadn't quite gotten our hands dirty in Santo Dominicanness. Therefore, we elected to stay in town this particular weekend and explore some parts of this massive city that still very much remains a mystery to us.

*note: this is way out of order, but it takes forever to fix. I've screwed this up enough times now to know how to work it, so next time should be much better. Enjoy:)

Small protected port in the middle of SD. If you look at a map ouf our city, this is the part where the water splits it in half.

From the top of a castle/fort type thing in the Zona de Colonial (Colonial Zone), SD.

Artfully, I give you some perspective on the orientation of our apt in SD.

And here's a nicer shot, minus the squiggles.


A large Catholic cathedral is in the middle of Parque Colon; the Colonial Zone at it's most colonial and the first church started in the New World (not the first finished, though. These things take time). We'd just gotten out of mass this day. Unfortunately, due to my emergent level Spanish, I caught none of it.

More parts of the cathedral.

Mas.

Muy mas.

Large complex/fort in the Zona de Colonial, where Columbus and his goons set up shop.

In the same complex. Likely the entire Dominican military force...

Different angle, same place as above, but you can see that the entire place is protected by high walls.

Me.

Us.

From the top of that big tower you can see behind us in the above picture.

Mas.

Other direction.

This part kind of reminds me of Portland. Nonetheless it's really pretty here.

From inside one of the buildings.

Stace showing her adventurous side.
Streets of the Colonial Zone.

Stace decending into the darkness.

We snuck up to the top of this building and saw the bell tower, some statues and got a great view.

Though not tourist season yet, as you can see they're beginning to encroach...

Art at the top of this building.




Midd right are a lot of cool resteraunts we frequent on the weekends.

Finally, a cargo ship with some soul.

Stace outside of the Zona de Colonial

Parque Colon, the cathedral from above is right behind this. Also, the pigeons are nasty and I hate them.