No Place Like Home for the Holidays

Setting out on a Winter Road Trip that would take the High Plains Drifters away from our Pacific Northwest home between Thanksgiving and Christmas seemed pretty peculiar to a number of our acquaintances there.

We’d be missing those weeks of rushing around to replace Thanksgiving decorations with Christmas-appropriate décor, writing the annual Christmas letter, shopping for, and delivering, presents and of course,cooking.

We’d also be missing winter weather (the likes of which we left behind on Thanksgiving morning – this scene on Snoqualmie Pass, WA).


And, worse, friends exclaimed, we wouldn’t be ‘home’ for the holidays’.  But, oh, contraire!



We are home.  We are settled quite comfortably into our ‘interval world’  home, this one an adobe casita which is part of our Four Seasons Resident Club in Scottsdale, Arizona. Here we own a fractional piece of deeded property which can be used or traded for another locale.  The best kind of second home for our nomadic lifestyle.

I should note these photos were taken before we cluttered it with ‘our stuff’ which certainly does make it feel – and look -- like home.


We’ve been hooked on this type of second-home lifestyle for several years now; having first taken the plunge with Hawaiian ownership.

It really is like home:  we cook (there’s a full kitchen) , do laundry and go grocery shopping – just like at the other home back in Washington. However, here we can walk to the gym a few yards from our casita and later sun at poolside, with attendants setting up the lounges and bringing us beverages while back in the room, the maid is bringing new towels and making the bed (you get the idea).

Oh, but what about Christmas and all the decorations and celebrations? 

Well, let me show you:

I chose to feature  the Residence Club and the nearby Four Season’s Hotel lobby – in later posts I’ll show you more from Phoenix and Scottsdale.

Last night we strolled the paved walkway that links the residences to the hotel for a Happy Hour Margarita and were greeted at the hotel’s entrance by these young musicians who played Christmas caroles – their music setting a seasonal tone throughout the development.



Here it seems everything is decorated for the season; even our cacti and the best part is that we didn’t have to raise a finger getting them so:



Arizona’s weather, we are told, is unseasonably warm this year. It’s been in the mid- to high-70’s but a colder spell is on the way.  Supposed to drop to 61-degrees on Friday. With that kind of weather on the way, the High Plains Drifters will be heading back to the Pacific Northwest.
Oh, but what a holiday at home we have had!