Why Paris? Why Everywhere? Who are we? Why a stuffed cow in Paris?

In June of 2007 we fell in love...with Paris, France. It was a happenstance trip. We never talked about going to Paris until our 17 year-old son announced his plans to travel to Europe with American Music Abroad. The conversation went something like this:

Cyndi: We should go to Europe and see the band perform. Too bad they don't take parent chaperones.
Scott: We should go anyway. We didn't have a honeymoon.
Cyndi: It's expensive and we already have to pay for Zane's trip.
Scott: We can afford it....I think.
Cyndi: We couldn't go for three weeks.
Scott: We can go for a week, maybe ten days.
Cyndi: Hmmmm...I have an insurance policy that I bought when I was 25. I said "if I'm alive when I'm 50, I'll cash it in and go somewhere." I'm alive and I just turned 50.
Scott: Let's do it.
Cyndi: Okay. But, let's mainly go to Paris.
Scott: Paris?
Cyndi: Yes, why not.
Scott: Okay!

And so began our affair of the heart with Paris. Nothing compares with Paris and everything is compared to Paris. Our big dream is to learn to speak French and live in Paris for at least a month...hopefully more!

So, what's the problem? Well, we can't afford the time nor the money to go back anytime soon and, thus, the dream is on the back burner indefinitely.

Skip to last week. Cyndi joined a meetup.com group called Babes in the Woods to motivate her to get up and get out of the house. Her first outing to a local metro park was cancelled. Bummer. Scott happened to be home from work early so we decided to go do the walk together.

VIOLA! An idea was born on the first trail. Let's walk all the trails in all the metro parks in a year. We can continue our tradition of documenting it with photos AND we can take Cow with us (aka J. Cow-ouac, our stuffed cow that journeyed to Paris and showed up in photos). Hey! Let's blog about it! Let's blog about all the traveling with the cow we do! Let's..! Let's...!!

We are trying to find that spark of "home" we felt when Paris became our short-lived, much-loved backyard. We are trying to find it anywhere...EVERYWHERE...we go. So, this is a developing project. We'll figure it out as we go along.

What can readers expect? Blog entries from Cyndi. Blog entries from Scott. Combined blog entries. Photos of our travels. Bits and pieces of where we live now. Whatever we do.

Are you game? Join us!

Oh,yeah., who are we?
Cyndi: educator on the verge of retirement, mom, wife, outdoor enthusiast, photographer, queen of minutia
Scott: photographer, massage therapist, dad, husband, computer enthusiast, king of taking things one step farther

Why a cow? Well, that's a whole 'nother post.