| 2006 Year In Review |
| What we did in 2006, including bicycling the Pacific Coast and a lot of travel. |
 FeedbackBy Preston Hunt and Aimee Green, 31 December 2006 |
Season's greetings!
We're thankful to say that 2006 was a happy, healthy and fun year. Each year, we strive for one big trip, and this year's highlight was a two-week, 835-mile bicycle ride from Portland to San Francisco along the Pacific Coast. The trip was all the more special as Preston's parents from Florida were able to join us. His mom, Pam, bicycled the entire trip with us, and his father, John, magnanimously provided support services with a car.
Preston and his mom both had cycled across the country before, but this was Aimee's first long trip. And she survived just fine, save perhaps the cuisine: Although Preston didn't seem to be bothered by the ubiquitous greasy fish-and-chips fare at restaurants along the Oregon Coast, Aimee was elated to enter Northern California with all of its vegetarian hippies and organic fare! We met a lot of interesting people, enjoyed countless miles of sublime seaside sights, and stored away many happy memories. And, yes, cycling across the Golden Gate Bridge on the last day of the trip was pretty darn cool.
We also spent a week in Maui this spring, sightseeing, snorkeling, hiking, and improving our surfing skills. We have been to most of the Hawaiian islands now, and while Kauai's quiet and idyllic natural beauty is still our favorite, Maui is a close contender. This was also our first visit to the tropics in which we didn't get sunburned at all, thanks to Aimee's Internet mail order purchase of not-yet-FDA-approved-in-the-United-States sunscreen from Canada. In the fall, we took a brief trip to New York to visit Aimee's brother and attend our friends' wedding.
On the work front, Preston weathered countless waves of layoffs at Intel and continued his travels to interesting places around the globe, including Las Vegas, Hannover (Germany), Tokyo, Taipei (twice), Boston, Beijing, San Jose, San Francisco, and Seattle (three times). All of this travel has been tiring, but seeing the diversity and wonder of the world is always a privilege. And we now have almost 275,000 frequent flier miles, which should provide for many good future vacations!
Aimee bade Oregon City and all of its colorful characters good-bye after a year-long stint reporting on crime and the court system in Clackamas County. Her new beat at The Oregonian is covering the Multnomah County jail, the parole and probation system, and the state prison system -- pretty cool stuff in the reporting world. Aimee also is getting to live the dream: She now works less than a mile away from work and walks there each morning. She's seriously considering converting all the way to city life by selling her car and getting a FlexCar membership.
We hope that 2006 was similarly propitious for you and wish you a very merry Christmas and happy New Year!