Posted by David Porter on September 18, 2010 · Leave a Comment
L’Auberge de Sedona – Today we awoke to find the sun brightly shining in our Vista Suite sitting high atop L’Auberge de Sedona. These units are part of L’Auberge’s recent $25 million renovation. We also learned that every single existing unit on the property also received a complete makeover; making all lodging at L’Auberge shiny and new.
As you can see, the new units are currently a little stark. However, as the new landscape begins to mature, these units will inherit the stunning landscaping that the mature units currently enjoy.
Furthermore, as I pointed out in my earlier article, the interior design of these units are first rate. Above that, when you sit on your deck and marvel at the stunning view before you; only then will you completely understand why these units were built.
Here’s the view from our deck…
After a hot cup of coffee from our in-room Keurig coffee pot, we donned baseball caps, flip-flops, and set out to explore the property.
Here’s what we found at L’Auberge’s creek-side (Oak Creek) units:
At 8:00 each morning, the staff at L’Auberge de Sedona feeds a large crowd of resident ducks along the banks of Oak Creek.
Somewhere in the cells of this man lies a primal urge to wade in creeks. Therefore, no longer able to withstand Oak Creek’s beckoning, I marched out into the middle of Oak Creek to capture this “duck’s eye view”. Oak Creek really is quite stunning. Isn’t it?
Here’s another shot of Oak Creek a little further upstream…
After playing in the creek, Mrs. Roaming Boomer announced that it was time for me to stop playing and have some breakfast.
Party Pooper!
Fortunately, L’Auberge de Sedona has an incredibly beautiful place to enjoy breakfast. 
We listened to the captivating sound of the creek, watched gray squirrels gathering walnuts, listened to the intermittent song of the cicadas, and enjoyed a scrumptious plate of Huevos Rancheros.
After our delicious breakfast, we had to accept the fact that is was time to leave.
Don’t you sometimes just hate those words?
Here’s a shot of Carol catching her last glimpse of the morning’s muted views as we gaze into the sun from the deck of our L’Auberge de Sedona Vista Suite.
Although we were sad to leave L’Auberge de Sedona, stay tuned, we have more to share with you in two more articles!
Yaaay!
Posted by David Porter on September 16, 2010 · Leave a Comment
L’Auberge de Sedona – Today we made a journey “up the hill”, as they call it here in Arizona, to Sedona, Arizona from our home in N. Scottsdale. Our home in N. Scottsdale sits at an elevation of roughly 2,600 ft., where here at L’Auberge de Sedona we sit at around 4,500 ft.
The drive up I-17 is a stunning mountain journey. As you approach Sedona, the color of the soil and rock turn to a most beautiful shade of terra cotta. This is one of the many glorious views as you approach the town of Sedona.
As we pulled into L’Auberge, I was immediately dumbfounded as the hotel staff greeted me by name! How did they know my name? I have never been here before.
Clearly, L’Auberge did a little homework on us and decided to make a powerful first impression. Wonderfully, this was not the only display of impeccable service and attention to detail. Every encounter with the L’Auberge team has been a decisively wonderful experience.
L’Auberge was generating wows from us from the very first encounter. Impressive!
The owners of L’Auberge de Sedona have just invested $25 million dollars of updating to celebrate the 25th anniversary of this fabled creek-side Inn, and we were going to stay in one of their brand-new red rock view cottages.
The cottages are reminiscent of a French country lodge. As we were riding in our chauffeured electric green-mobile I was feeling a little apprehension as I didn’t know how these lodges were going to stack up with our expectations.
Although the cottages were very charming in this creek-side setting, I really wasn’t in the frame of mind to be “roughing it” on this particular journey.
What a wonderful surprise awaited us when we open the door. The inside of these cottages are completely modern, tastefully appointed, and contain all the niceties that a discriminating traveler would desire.
Nice!
Here’s our living area:
our bedroom area…
…and our wonderful bathroom. Complete with an outdoor shower!
After unpacking our suitcases, we lounged on our deck and enjoyed the spectacular views along with a nice Pinot Noir and goodies that we found in our room from L’Auberge. Thanks L’Auberge!
Not being ones who will normally enjoy a bottle of wine during the middle of the day, we decided that a power nap would be a good thing and enjoyed a nice 20 minute snooze.
We then set out down the hill to explore L’Auberge’s Oak Creek setting.
We found comfy chairs set all about the creek…
and enjoyed Oak Creek views.
We spent several hours enjoying the creek, the ducks, the shade from the hot sun, the cool breeze, and each others company while seated in a wonderful creek-side lounge swing.
After a most relaxing afternoon, we hopped back in the electric green-mobile which whisked us back up to our red rock view cottage to find this amazing display of God’s creation from our deck.
I’m dying to tell you about our exquisite and romantic dining experience, but as already mentioned, I will tell you about that in a separate post.
As we finished our evening, we found a beautiful moon glowing in the Sedona skies…
and decided it was time now to enjoy the luxury of our recently turned down room.
I must confess, I wasn’t expecting L’Auberge de Sedona to be quite this magnificent. We are both looking forward to another day.
See you tomorrow with more adventures.
Posted by David Porter on September 15, 2010 · 9 Comments
As I was floating in the indescribably beautiful waters of Caneel Bay, I determined then and there that I must possess a camera that allowed me to photograph the glorious scenes that were occurring beneath me.
I have been using Canon products for my point and shoot camera for quite some years, but they don’t currently offer a reasonable solution for a point and shoot underwater camera. As I began my research, I quickly learned that most camera manufacturers rely on bulky clear plastic housings to obtain underwater capability.
This just didn’t seem plausible for a couple of roaming baby boomers.
Happily, I learned about the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TS1 and made a purchase from Amazon.
Here are a few of the things that appealed to me about this particular underwater camera solution:
- This baby is waterproof down to 10 feet, and pulls this off without any extra equipment. You pull it out of the box and jump into the ocean with it. Cool!
- It’s bright orange. If I drop it in the ocean, I will be able to see it down below.
- The unit is also shockproof from falls up to 5 feet, and dust-proof.
- At only 5.8 ounces, and 2.5 x 0.9 x 3.9 inches, it is easily transportable.
- It is the world’s first waterproof, shockproof and dust-proof digital camera to also feature AVCHD Lite High Definition (HD) video recording capabilities. Nice!
- It has also received a fair amount of praise for its photographic capabilities that are far too numerous to mention here.
There is currently a newer version of this camera available, but I didn’t see the benefit of spending nearly $100 more for the latest model.
My hope is that this camera will give me spectacular photographs in situations where it isn’t practical to carry around my Nikon D80, and offer me the ability to capture a completely new world of underwater photography.
I will come back and report to you my findings in a future post.
For now, I can’t wait to go jump in the pool with this baby! 🙂
Note: The Roaming Boomers, LLC is an Amazon affiliate.
Posted by David Porter on September 14, 2010 · 2 Comments
Mooooo! Round-em up! Yippee-Kayay!
The world is often repulsed at the tight quarters given to calves who will one day be served up as veal in a fancy restaurant. Just looking at the cramped tight quarters purposed in the new SkyRider aircraft seat gives me anxiety, claustrophobia, a major case of the heebie-jeebies. and makes me desire to bellow like a caged calf.
Can you say airline cattle call?
From Wired:
“The new seats are due to be launched next week at the Aircraft Interiors Expo Americas conference in Long Beach. As you can see, part of the passenger’s weight is taken on their legs, and the legs are tucked under the seat in front. Just how close are the seats? Aviointeriors says that the seat-pitch is just 23-inches. Seat-pitch is the distance between the same point on two seats, and the smallest seat-pitch on economy-class flights is around 31-inches. Even low-cost carrier Southwest has a pitch of 32-33 inches on its planes.”
What’s next? Subway type leather straps hanging from the ceiling with no seats at all?
Sound off! What do you think?
(HT to WorldHum for the story)
Posted by David Porter on September 13, 2010 · 2 Comments
Photograph from Library of Congress (1910)
This is the 1910 Stoddard-David Camping Car. Its owner, Senator T. Colman du Pont bought it to live in as he was promoting a highway running due north and south through his home state of Delaware. As you can see, today’s side flip-out motor homes have nothing over this baby.
This was a rich man’s automobile. The sticker price on these cars were anywhere from $1,200 – $6,200, while Ford was cranking out the Model T for $399.
The Roaming Boomers
