Jesse Barnum

Day 12, 13 & 14: Rome

2011-10-24T22:17:00.008-04:00

We were scheduled as one of the last groups off the boat so we spent a relaxing morning onboard before disembarking and catching the train from the Civetevecchia port back to Rome (about 45 min on the fast train). From the train station in Rome we were 'greeted' by a taxi driver who did not speak a word of English and was not the friendliest who complained about everything from the traffic to the pedestrians in Italian speaking to no one in particular. We were dropped off a few blocks from our apartment and met at the apartment by Manuel, our apartment Manager, who happen to be an Atlanta Falcons fanatic (pointing out his tattoo of the Falcon he had done just before Michael Vick was arrested).

The apartment was charming with dark wooden ceilings and rafters and big windows that opened to what we discovered later that evening to be the cross-road of a very lively nighttime cafe & entertainment section of Rome, a little 'old city' neighborhood called Trastavere.

After settling into the apartment we took off on a walking journey to sightsee - walking to the Vatican & St. Peters square only about 30 minutes away to just take a look around as we had already planned a tour inside for the next day. After being overwhelmed by the size and beauty outside the Vatican at St. Peters square, we followed the Vatican wall and can now honestly say we have walked around a COUNTRY (since the Vatican is actually it's own country) in 1 1/2 hours.

On the walk home we stopped at the local market for our cheese, fruit and crackers… oh, and of course Prosecco for Lisa and chocolate for Jesse.

Dinner was quaint at a local trattoria. With so many right outside our apartment it was hard to choose just one restaurant - but we ate on the patio (meaning at the tables just outside the door to the restaurant on what was a street during the day with little candles lit on a checkered tablecloth with umbrellas overhead - just as we had pictured a night out in Italy).

The funniest part of the day came as we walked back to our apartment - a little disoriented as we approached as our little, quiet front door entrance had been transformed while we were gone to a full service street-side restaurant with tables and chairs inches from our front door. Had not expected that and don't think it occurred to Manuel to mention this to us earlier in the day.

The locals loved to party… and they did right outside our apartment and on the immediate little roads and alleyways until 2am. Luckily the apartment has the most amazing windows that once shut block out most of the individual noises (laughing, partying, firecrackers - YES firecrackers at midnight) and turn it into white noise - so as tired as we were we were after our long journey that day we were actually able to sleep through it all.

The next morning we ventured out by 8am to again walk back to the Vatican to start our 6 hour walking tour of Vatican, Vatican Museum, Sistine Chapel, St. Peter's Square, then the metro to the Colosseum, the Forum, the Pantheon, and the Fountain of Trevi. Our tour was through a company called 'Enjoy Rome' which we'd highly recommend as it was extremely informative and organized. Every location was impressive on a grand scale and overwhelming with information while processing the timeline of such locations and events.

We had one odd incident where after the tour of the Vatican we decided to go back in to look around again ourselves at some of the things we wanted to explore - and while Jesse was on the floor of the Vatican narthex area with his camera on a very small tripod taking a picture of some sun rays coming through the upper windows he was 'gestured' by what appeared to be a very disgusted guard to get up off the floor. Mind you this was all done without one word being spoken - just the disgusted look on the guards face and hand gesture to 'rise' was enough to make your skin crawl - man, these Italians have this gesture of disgust perfected! Jesse was very proud that he got the picture anyway WITH the blur of the guard coming toward him in the lower right corner of the picture. Victory for Jesse as he now has a story to go with his photo.

At the end of the day after the tour, we were mentally and physically drained we strolled home that evening after the tour toward our apartment through some smaller neighborhoods stopping at an amazing bakery on the way. It was a long day, but it really brought the educational part of our trip together as much of the history of Rome is connected/tied to the locations we toured earlier in Florence, Ephesius and Sicily.

Our last day in Rome felt really long - we are both ready to go home to see our kids and puppy, and relieve Jesse's parents of their two-week prison sentence! We took an open-top city sightseeing bus tour, which was not as nice as the one in Florence. The buildings in Rome are much taller than in Florence, which makes it hard to see much other than the buildings surrounding you - unlike Florence, which is hillier and has lower buildings, giving you many panoramic views over the city. We jumped off the bus to revisit the Fountain of Trevi and the Spanish Steps, but walking through the designer stores district filled with the big brands - Prada, Armani, Gucci, Fendi, and of course McDonalds / Burger King! The main streets in Rome are not much fun - they're so crowded that you have to walk single-file, there is constant noise and traffic, and you're hemmed in by street vendors with their infamous "splat balls" and other rows of identical junk. We were so relieved to return to Trastavere, the neighborhood surrounding our apartment, with its quiet and pedestrian-friendly cobblestone streets. There are very few if any franchise restaurants or stores there, it's almost all family-run. We picked up pizza from one store (measured by weight, just the way Lisa remembers from her trip 23 years ago), gelato from a second store, pasta from a third restaurant, and then gelato from yet another store for good measure (it is our last night, after all). Oh yes, and Lisa had her American Coffee™ (aka 'espresso with a shot of water'). That's almost all there is to tell except for our ride back to the airport - a car service was supposed to pick us up, but they didn't show up so Jesse went to the main road and flagged down a taxi cab. In the mean time, the car service showed up 30 minutes late, and he was so upset when we started loading our bags into the taxi cab that I think he was almost ready to grab it from us and put it in his own car. Sorry buddy, not everybody is on Italian time! The cab ride was great fun - for the first time on our trip, we got to practice our Italian (remember those classes we took on the cruise? They actually helped!) with Paolo, our driver, and we swapped stories in his broken English and our even worse Italian about his trip to the U.S. and our experiences in Italy.

We're already talking about our next trip to Germany? Las Vegas? Maine? (Mom and Ron, hope you guys are still in one piece when we get home), and where we want to take the kids - D.C., Montana, maybe Puerto Rico again? I (Jesse) think that our next trip won't involve a cruise - it's definitely a better experience to live in a place for a few days than to be herded onto buses with thousands of other tourists for the afternoon. We're now about an hour away from landing - we're just about to fly over Charleston. Looking back on the trip, this is a memory that we will both enjoy for the rest of our lives.

Day 11: Cruising

2011-10-24T22:14:00.003-04:00

A day at sea… waking up after a VERY rough night at sea. The boat was a-rockin' after a full night at sea with a storm producing lightning, hail,16 ft. waves and 63 mph winds. WOW! We ordered room service for breakfast (quite impressive to see the waiter balancing our tray of food while staggering side to side in the hallway) and daringly waited out the rough trip in bed until it finally calmed down around Noon. We made it without getting sick - very proud of ourselves. The day was gray and drizzly so we watched a movie in the boat's movie theater and attended a basic Italian class onboard. We quizzed each other - with Jesse picking up on the vocabulary much better than Lisa (hmmm - Lisa's college Italian teacher told her she was 'a disgrace' to her family… things haven't changed).

Day 10: Chanai, Crete

2011-10-24T21:58:00.006-04:00

We got into the harbor at Crete early in the morning, and Jesse walked around the deck taking some pictures of the island at sunrise.

Originally we had planned on another tour at this port, but Maria had found a local, famous chef who has a restaurant on the island preparing local, self-sustaining food. He usually only opens for dinner, but had offered to open for us if all 6 of us at our dining table would attend a luncheon. Since we were a little 'toured-out' anyway (Lisa's ear actually hurts from having had an earbud in her ear hooked to the tour guides microphone system for the past 4 tours) we canceled our tour in Crete. Unfortunately, upon arrival to the port in Crete we realized the chef must have thought our ship was coming into a closer port as his restaurant was over 1 1/2 hours away by taxi - not enough time for our short stop in this city. This actually turned out to be a good thing, because we had our first itinerary-free day in port. We hopped on a city bus with our traveling companions (Luis, Maria, Tony and Tania) and went to the old harbor district. This turned out to be the nicest day we've had on our cruise so far - the old harbor is beautiful, as you can see in the pictures. There was an old mosque that had been converted to an art gallery, glass-bottom boats, snorkeling expeditions, and crystal clear water. There is also an old fort that we did not have a chance to explore.

After going up and down the harbor to see the shops, we found steps leading up to an overlook where we had a great view of the entire harbor, with the mouth of the harbor flanked by the fort on one side and the lighthouse on the other.

Of course, with Crete being part of Greece, we needed to have some gyros, and these ones were maybe even better than the ones we had in Athens. The weather was perfectly sunny and breezy but still cool. The only bad thing about the day was that this was our shortest day in port - we needed to be back at the boat by 1:30. As we were heading back to the city bus stop, we noticed what we think were some protest marches - we saw very young (high school maybe?) people carrying banners and talking on a bullhorn, but as they say, it's all Greek to us!

Once back onboard we took our usual siesta (we think they are putting some kind of sleeping powder in our water - how could we possibly be this relaxed and tired on vacation?) we were able to wake in time to take gorgeous pictures of the sunset. Funny enough - we asked a fellow cruiser to take a picture of us with the camera (with the big, heavy lens)… he couldn't find the button to take the picture and could barely hold the camera with the weight… and YET when we took a look at the picture later, we felt it was the best picture of the two of us yet and the best picture of the day. Good going mystery amateur photographer man.

Day 9: Kusadasai, Turkey

2011-10-24T21:21:00.007-04:00

This day was a big improvement from Athens and probably our favorite port so far on the cruise.

It was also Jesse's BIRTHDAY!

We went on a tour to Epheseus, which is an ancient town about 20 minutes away from the port. It was estimated to be a town of 250,000 people - enormous for the time it existed, about 70 B.C. It has been almost completely buried by dirt and silt over the centuries, and they are gradually excavating it. The portion we saw seemed really big, but that's only 10% of the entire city! We saw one person working on excavating a section of a wall while we were walking.

There was a lot to see and learn, and it was also very humbling to realize how much "modern" technology they had 2,000 years ago - running water and plumbing, central heat, flushing toilets, indoor kitchens. No internet though, although they had a brothel so they really didn't need it. There was also a secret tunnel between the brothel and the library - draw your own conclusions. Our tour group got to go inside a separate excavation section where they have revealed and reconstructed several homes belonging to wealthy citizens. These were really impressive, and didn't feel at all like primitive caves - they had private courtyards, reflecting pools, hot water, and indoor toilets. We also had one of the archaeologists who is working on the site talk to our group about their latest find - skeletal remains from gladiators showing various combat wounds.

The library was a truly impressive building - they've painstakingly reassembled the facade, which was three stories high, from the stones found scattered around the area underground.

Next to the library was the theater, which is immense and holds 25,000 people. They still do modern performances here - Sting played here a few years ago, as did Diana Ross. However, they've discovered that the sound from the shows is actually starting to crack and damage some of the structures, so there is currently a moratorium until they can come up with a solution. After we saw the theater, we saw a fun skit in period costumes with some dancers and a gladiatorial combat - the kids would have loved this!

As we left Ephesus we saw the house of where the Virgin Mary is believed to have lived out her last years in hiding and under protection of locals. Our tour returned to the port area where we visited a Turkish rug company with a great demonstration of rug making which is now subsidized by the Turkish government in order to preserve this fading art. We would have loved to have bought a rug - but two kids and a dog may take the beauty of the all natural color and artwork out faster than than this long-time art is fading.

Before we left we enjoyed some apple tea and cheese bread - local favorites and extremely good!

After the tour we ventured out to the shopping district very close to the port area. Turkish vendors are a little more persistent than Italy and Greece, however they are also entertaining and friendly. Initially we chose to walk through the untraveled areas taking small backstreets and alleys to see children just coming home from school, riding their bicycles and playing. Lisa found a quaint store vendor selling gauze outfits with added crochet accents - so after trying on an outfit in the little back room of the store we bought an outfit for 'all white night' which was the theme of dinner that evening. Jesse followed suit with a very Mediterranean look (WOW - big step for Jesse!) and he was very proud that evening when we finally attended dinner in the dining room in the appropriate theme (note, we skipped 70s night a few evening before).

We ate lunch at an outdoor family run cafe where every Turkish waiter was inviting you in from the street with a huge smile and a persistent welcome. We enjoyed iskanda (beef w/ yogurt and spicy tomato sauce) and heya (garlic & dill yogurt w/ naan bread). Lisa had to have a picture with the cute waiter.

The evening ended with a cake for Jesse's 39th birthday in the dining room - with Happy Birthday sung by our waiters and friends at the table Tony, Tania, Luis and Maria. We were proud of Luis for singing for the first time ever in public - even though he broke out in a sweat after singing (according to his wife Maria who has told us they have a karaoke machine with over 2,000 songs at home that their kids play on - but Luis has never partaken in the activity himself).

Day 8: Athens

2011-10-24T21:09:00.006-04:00

Athens was an early start - we met at 8:30, and were happy to find that Tony and Tania were going on the same tour as us. We were introduced to Costas, our guide, who we liked much better than our guide in Messina. He spoke very clearly, and didn't feel the need to fill every minute of the trip with narration. The area we docked in is called Piraeus, and although the area directly around the port is mostly industrial, there are some nice harbors and marinas for private boats.

For the most part, Athens is not much to speak of - most of the area we passed through consisted of office buildings with lots of graffiti, pollution, and traffic. Costas pointed out many stadiums and structures left over from the 2004 Olympics that have been converted into concert halls, sporting venues, and other purposes.

The night before we arrived in Athens, we received news that there was a strike due to economic conditions in Greece, and that the Acropolis would be closing at noon. We realized what a problem this was when we arrived at the Acropolis, because every bus tour was trying to get access at the same time before it closed. We were lost in a sea of people, and we gradually fell further and further behind Costas in the crowd as we slowly approached the gates. We finally did get through the gates and caught up with Costas.

The Parthenon is really amazing, however under renovation with scaffolding all around the structure. Costas said it's been like that since he was a kid - so it's constantly ongoing. Sadly, most of the frieze and statues on the structure have been taken by the English Ambassador while Greece was still under Turkish rule. Greece is trying to reclaim this property, with no success so far. The columns and roof itself is being slowly preserved using marble from the original mountain about 3.5 miles away from the Acropolis.

Although it was amazingly crowded, we happen to be there on the 100th anniversary celebration of Greece's independence from Turkey which warranted a procession at the top of the Acropolis with the mayor and the Greek military guards.

As we climbed down from the Acropolis at about 11:30am to meet our tour group and bus, we saw the protestors herding toward the entrance with the police already lined up in full conflict attire.

Our tour continued driving past some neoclassical structures in town, but most was closing down or about to receive protestors - so our tour ended with lunch at a local outdoor restaurant (gyros, souvlaki and spinach pie for all - YUM!) and a leisurely walk around the shopping district where we met a very cute little girl playing accordion who provided a sweet smile for our picture.

As we waited for the bus back to the port, we witnessed police confiscating the local street vendors 'splat balls' (this is a piece of junk souvenir sold in every city we've been in so far that resembles goo that you throw down and splats flat before it restructures itself) only to see the vendors all come back to their positions with new bags of splat balls within 5 minutes of the police leaving the area. Only this time the vendors have actual 'watch guards' on cell phones around the perimeter of the area on watch. Hysterical!

Day 7: Cruising the Mediterranean

2011-10-24T21:08:00.002-04:00

It's really sad, but we don't remember much about this day (it's been three days since that we're writing this). I'm sure there was much eating and sleeping involved, but a day at sea is a really nice way to relax. We did lay out in the sun, read, (Jesse worked on Dungeons & Dragons), and wrote in our journal for the previous two days. Relaxing and uneventful - a very nice vacation day!

Italy day 5 and 6: Cruising

2011-10-12T08:07:00.001-04:00

On Sunday, we scrambled out of bed and headed to the Florence train station - late as usual. We were running with our 3 roller bags and 2 shoulder bags, bouncing along the cobblestone streets while desperately looking for a taxi (to no avail). We actually made it to the train station with more time than we thought - and then found out that our train was delayed for 25 minutes. Hurry up and wait! The train ride to Rome was very relaxing - we were on the high speed train (155 mph) in first class, so we had plenty of room to put our luggage in storage, and comfy seats and snacks. Transferring to the Civitiavecchia train in Rome was a different story though. When we arrived in Roma Termini, we had 4 minutes to catch the train to Civitavecchia (where our cruise leaves from). The train was leaving from platform 27 - and the platforms where we were standing were numbered from 1 to 24. It turns out that 25-29 were in a different section of the terminal which is about a 10 minute walk from where we arrived. We rushed there as fast as we could, just in time to see the train slowly pulling away. Bummer, but not catastrophic - there was one more train leaving in time to catch our cruise (normally there would be several other trains, but they run fewer trains on Sunday). We waited at that area and watched the monitors to see which platform the next train would leave from, and about 15 minutes before the scheduled departure, the computer running the display crashed and displayed a test pattern. We went over the station attendant to ask if he knew which platform to go to, and he said, "no, but probably one of these 5 platforms." Not that helpful, but that seems to be the attitude in Italy - wait around and hope that you're fortunate. I noticed that they rebooted the computer running the display (watching the boot up screen showed that it's a 75MHz 386 running Linux - this machine was obsolete when I was in high school!), but it crashed again immediately after restarting. Go figure. We started feeling a little nervous because the train had still not arrived, and the attendant was no help at all, when a tiny Italian woman walked up to us and asked if we were going to Civitavecchia. When we told her si, we were, she told us that it was leaving from platform 21 (10 minutes away). Lisa and I weren't sure whether to head over there or not - the train was scheduled to leave in about 12 minutes, and the attendant had told us it would probably leave from where we were standing. The little woman made the decision for us when she said "Pronto! Pronto!" and grabbed one of our bags and told us to follow her. I was shocked when Lisa (who's always on the lookout for a scam) started following the woman, so I followed too, knowing that at least I couldn't be blamed for being a gullible sucker. Sure enough, we arrived at platform 21 and boarded the train to Civitavecchia about a minute before it left the station (and Lisa gave the woman a very nice tip). Score: Italian train system 0 / Random local woman: 1.

The day was blissfully uneventful after that - we boarded the ship, Royal Caribbean's Navigator of the Seas, without problems. Our room, 9502, is located at the very front of the ship directly under the bridge - so a first hand look at where we're heading at all times. Upon leaving shore we stood out on the helicopter pad at the front and received a welcome from the Captain himself when he pulled up the blinds on the bridge to give us a wave! We realized then how the 'usual' doesn't apply to our vacations - most folks were already hunkered down in the bars having drinks and food while we were only joined by two other people on the helicopter pad enjoying the views. In reflection, we also realized that in Florence we chose not to sit in long lines (probably over 1 1/2 hours long) to see the inside of the Duomo or the cathedral.. but rather head to empty the museum where most of the original artwork was moved before the renovation of the cathedral. Furthermore, while most cruisers seem to have chosen to contuine to sit in the bars and head right for the ship's shops as the duty free opened, we toured the boat and settled in the library to quiz each other on Royal Caribbean's daily quiz about the solar system.

Our room is on the top row, second from the right.

When we pulled away from the port, the wind was so strong it was hard to stand upright!

For dinner that night, we met the other couples at our assigned seating dining table. Tony and Tonya are newlyweds from Orange County, California. She works in HR and he is a postman, and going to school to get his AA degree. They are a fun-loving couple who are very enjoyable to talk to. Then there are Luis and Maria. He's a 15 year navy veteran who works as a medical supply officer aboard the hospital ship "Comfort", and she is the mother of three grown boys and very sociable. They live in D.C., and he just finished two consecutive deployments in the water around South America. They also lived in Naples, Italy for several years in the 1990's, and so they had a lot of interesting stories and advice to tell us about Italy.

We thought of Julia when we saw the naming theme for the dinner areas - the dining rooms are Nutcracker, Coppelia, and Swan Lake. We are in the Swan Lake dining room, which is the top level with nice views at sunset.
We had our first good nights sleep of the trip - no fighting neighbors in the street outside our window, street sweeping, ambulances and mopeds! In the morning we landed in Messina, Sicily and left with our tour group to Taormina. This is an ancient but inhabited city about 45 minutes away from the port. The bus ride there was very informative, as our guide told us all about the island and its history. In Taormina, we followed a very crowded route through the main street of the town, that led us past a few churches and many touristy shops. This part was a little frustrating, because we could not hear the guide at all (we had earpieces and she was speaking through a wireless microphone, but the connection was bad and it was just too noisy), and we were pressed shoulder to shoulder as we shuffled along the street. At one point, a taxi pulled up behind us - this was just hilarious when you realize how crowded the street was. We didn't worry about moving out of the way - we just let the taxi follow us at our walking speed. What did make the trip really great was when we got to the Greek Theater at the end of the street. This is an ancient stone amphitheater with stone seating, and they've build a modern stage where they still hold outdoor performances. The best part of the theater, though, is the elevation above the town, the sea, and the surrounding areas. From here we could see the entire coast of Sicily, and Mount Aetna covered with snow across the valley from us. Mount Aetna is an active volcano, last having erupted in 1991 coming only a few miles from the local town.

After our return to the port city of Messina, we walked around just a bit to see the local port town. Most things were already closed (in typical Italian fashion) however we realized this island of Sicily does not identify themselves with the Italians in any fashion. They call themselves Sicilians and tend to believe they operatate completely separately from the mainland of Italy. In recent years it was proposed to build a bridge connecting the mainland to Sicily cutting a current 30 minute ferry ride into a 10 minute drive, however the government and Sicilian people keep fighting this effort claiming they don't have the money for the bridge and that the threat of earthquake activity would be detrimental to it's structure. Messina is much larger than we anticipated (with over 50,000 at the local university), however it feels like a small town.
Just before we reboarded the ship we enjoyed a canolli from a local bakery (one of the few places open - but WOW what a canolli) and a short visit to a church with a spectacular bell tower run on a mechnanism that made bronze sculptures outside the town move in animation.

After re-boarding the ship, we went to an "international line dancing" class and had a great time - sorry no pictures! After that, Jesse entered the adults ping pong tournament and finished with a disappointing 3rd place finish - but there's another tournament later this week, much to Lisa's dismay.

We ended the day with a formal evening of dinner onboard and a show. After the show we headed to our rooms as it started getting a bit rocky. By midnight the ship was really rocking and by 3am we were sailing under 50mph gusts from the southeast. Jesse slept well while Lisa was awakened by the rocking (and the creaking of the ship under pressure and the loud wind) several times during the night.

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Italy day 4: Florence

2011-10-08T17:01:00.001-04:00

New record today! Up and out by 11am. Lisa had to do battle with the miniature washing machine in our apartment; it spilled water all over the floor and then after we fixed that it ran loudly all night long. In the morning, we decided it was time to be tourists; we got on a double-decker sight seeing bus and toured the city. We really should have done this on the first day, because we got a much better idea of the different areas and neighborhoods. We also got to see the modern, living city of Florence outside the historic city center, with cute apartments, tree-lined boulevards, and kids and dogs playing in the well-kept old parks all around the city.

After the bus tour, we went on our first and only art museum tour in the Museo Opera del Santa Maria Novella, which showcases sculpture that has been moved there from the inside and outside of the Duomo cathedral. Although much of it was dry, with uninspiring commentary ("there is debate whether this carving was originally present on the east or north section of the facade..."), there was an amazing statue done by Michelangelo of Jesus flanked by both Marys and a third, unidentified person with Michelangelo's own face. This was done in his 80's with the intention of being his own tombstone, but he became frustrated with the imperfections of the marble and attacked it with a hammer one night, breaking off pieces of it. It was later repaired and placed in the museum. We also appreciated the gigantic (much larger than life size) depiction of the execution of John the Baptist.

The highlight of our day came just before sunset - we took another sight seeing bus, but this one led up to the village of Fiesole, perched on the hills high above Florence. The view in the setting sun is sublime. We enjoyed it over a cup of pistacchio gelato and, of course, Prosecco.
On the way back from Fiesole, we took another loop around the city of Florence, getting a very nice view of David overlooking the city from Piazzale Michelangelo at sunset, the entrance to the south gate, and Ponte Vecchio bridge.

Dinner tonight was one of our favorites - we found a family-run "hole in the wall" style restaurant, Trattoria di Giorgio, close to our apartment. Paper placemats, cheap prices, great food, and plenty of it (no pictures tonight because I told Lisa I was giving her a break from the camera for an hour). It's the kind of place where if you're a couple at a table for four, they sit another couple with you, and so we wound up having a very interesting talk with a couple who just took the train into Florence from Zurich, and is heading out tomorrow on a cycling tour of Italy by themselves. They have a tent and a few extra clothes, and they're pretty much making up their itinerary as they go. As for us, we leave tomorrow on the train to Civitavecchia near Rome for the cruise portion of our trip, so tomorrow will be a true test - our train leaves at 9:10am. And on that note, I will adjourn!

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Italy day 3: Florence

2011-10-07T17:33:00.001-04:00

We started today with the best of intentions. We woke up at the crack of 10am, and went next door to the cafe for breakfast. After that strenuous activity, we came back to grab a few things from the apartment and fell asleep until 1pm. While Lisa was sleeping, the camera elves came into the apartment and took a few pictures of the bedroom and courtyard. Also after she woke up, she was extremely patient and posed for this picture in our charming little kitchen, even though the obnoxious camera elf took about 50 pictures to get it right, and accidentally deleted the only good one of the batch, and therefore had to take them again.

Our little courtyard!

Entrance to our apartment

Bedroom - surprisingly large

There is a beautiful painted ceiling in the bedroom, which we love to look at.

Cute kitchen containing cute girl

After that, we went out for some sight-seeing in the rain. After successfully buying our train tickets to Rome with no English signs, we bought 24-hour passes for the sight-seeing city bus, only to be stymied by the bus attendant who is convinced that 24 hours means "until we stop at 7pm tonight." So we wandered around on foot, revisiting some of our favorite neighborhoods in Oltrarno on the south side of the river. Oltrarno is a much less touristy neighborhood, where many people live and work, and very little English is spoken. We did manage to find an electrical adaptor that works better than the one we bought in the U.S. for 1/8 the price, and Lisa attempted to have a conversation with a shopkeeper about the price of pine nuts in Italy compared to U.S. Between the fact that he was measuring them in grams compared to Lisa in ounces, and Euros to dollars, and throw on the fact that neither one spoke a word of the other's language, they actually did pretty well, and the shopkeeper was very happy to give us a free pine nut sample.

After that, we toured the entry to Bobolo Gardens, and saw some very impressive statues of Hercules. We joined the tourist throngs again at Ponto Vecchio, and made our way up to the famous Duomo, which Lisa thought was quite gaudy.

A pair of rowers passing underneath the bridges of Florence. This was taken by apprentice photographer Lisa Barnum from Ponto Vecchio. She had to take this photo under extreme pressure from the camera elf standing behind her yelling "take it now, take it now, before they get to the shadow! Check your settings! Check your ISO! Take it now!"

Lisa spotted the shadow of the crucifix through the glass windows of the Duomo, and took this picture. Click the picture to see a larger size.

They are in the midst of a major cleanup operation from acid rain and pollution, and you can see their progress as they move along the wall. It's amazing to see the difference. Lisa had an "american coffee", which is considered the equivalent of decaf coffee around here. As it started getting dark and cold, we decided to have an early night and headed back to our apartment by 8:30, in time to watch a movie and get to bed with the very real possibility of leaving home before 10am tomorrow morning. After the movie, we had a very italian-feeling dinner in our kitchen consisting of leftover steak, fontina cheese with pear and apple slices on crackers, a bottle of Prosecco which Lisa polished off single-handedly, and a nugat chocolate bar (which Jesse took care of single-handedly).

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Italy day 2: Florence

2011-10-07T04:41:00.001-04:00

We're not quite on the European time zone, we were awake till 3 or 4 am and woke up at 1pm! It is very nice to not worry about clocks during vacation. Today we set off with our main goal being to explore Piazzale Michaelangelo. This is a park high atop a hill in the southeast corner of Florence, and it is the perfect place to see the city from above.

We started with a nutritious gelato breakfast, and then walked along both sides of the river, seeing it in daylight for the first time. We crossed Ponte Vecchio, the famous bridge with the gold and jewelry shops built onto it. The sheer volume of jewelry on display was a bit overwhelming, and we didn't stay long. As we worked our way to the southeast part of town, we took our time and allowed ourselves to get lost in all of the meandering tiny alleyways that form the residential neighborhoods of downtown Florence. These curve and twist up and down and side to side, and there's just enough room on the side to step out of the way for the frequent motor scooters and cars that fly through.

One thing we've learned in Florence is that there is not much relationship between the width of a road and the amount of interesting things we'll see - the tiny, narrow roads are homes to antique book stores, art galleries, and gardens. We also saw families with their young children, which makes this seem much more like a real place.

We emerged from the neighborhood alleyways and onto the path that leads up (and up, and up) to Piazzale Michaelangelo. The weather was beautiful and clear, and the view was worth all the steps. Lisa and I started taking pictures, and we weren't the only ones - we spotted several clusters of professional photographers and videographers with weddings, a cello player, and a modeling shoot. Lisa and I have agreed to skip the next wave of fashion if it's based on what these models were wearing.

It was about 4 o'clock when we arrived at the top, and we decided to stay and watch the sun set. There's a cafe overlooking the view, where we sat and enjoyed the cool breeze and Prosecco (Lisa's new favorite wine for a sunny day).

As the sun went down, we headed down the hill and explored the touristy areas around Uffizi museum. This was actually very cool - there was a woman playing some beautiful songs on guitar in the courtyard, and a street artist working on a painting.

We stopped at a little family restaurant on a side street for dinner, where Lisa had the best lasagna I've ever tasted, and I ordered beef stomach. The only good thing I can say about stomach is that it tastes marginally better than it smells. I made it about halfway through my dinner; fortunately, Lisa's lasagna was big enough to feed both of us.

At home in our apartment, we collapsed - the accumulated jet lag and time change just suddenly hit like a load of bricks. However, we're slowly adjusting to the time zones and this morning we are up at 10am!

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Italy day 1: Florence

2011-10-05T18:50:00.001-04:00

We have flown from Atlanta to Paris, after a rescheduled flight that left 2 hours later than we expected. Fortunately, we had enough time in Paris that we made our connection to Florence. We didn't get to see anything in Paris other than the airport, but it really made me appreciate Atlanta's airport! We landed in terminal A, but our connecting flight was in terminal G. We followed the signs to G until they led us out to the road. On the road was a little map that showed a shuttle bus route leading to B, C, D, E, and F... but no G. Eventually we discovered that G is kind of its own little tiny airport about 5 minutes away by bus, and not on any map, but we found the secret G shuttle bus and made our connection with plenty of time to spare.

We passed over the Swiss Alps on our way to Florence. The view of the mountain peaks jutting up over the cloud cover is amazing, so we pulled out the camera from the overhead bin and took a few pictures. Lisa and I have been working on photography concepts in the airport - we took a few dozen test shots of my shoes while learning about aperture, image stabilization, and shutter speed. I now know every smudge of dirt and grass stain on my shoes.

We arrived in Florence and took an exciting taxi ride (bicycles beware!) to our charming little apartment at 22 Corso Italia. We were greeted by Marilena, a tiny wisp of a pregnant woman, who gave us a little tour of the apartment (will post pictures as soon as I can take some in daylight), and we set out to explore Florence. We walked along the river at night, passed by many beautiful buildings that we must return to during the day, and discovered Osteria Santo Spirito, an outdoor cafe in Piazza Santo Spirito on the south side of the river. As you can see, the waiters in Italy are quite cute (as are the waitresses, but I didn't get a picture).

We shared a very satisfying appetizer of bruschetta with chicken liver paté, and for the main course we had ravioli and sliced beef with cheese and salad.

While we were eating dinner, a two-man band came by and serenaded the cafe. It was the perfect first night in Florence.

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Raising the debt ceiling is the right thing to do

2011-07-16T18:12:00.006-04:00

I have become increasingly exasperated as I read about polls like this one where 63% of Americans oppose raising the debt limit. I was even more surprised to find that one of the guys that I work with was among this group. When I started talking to him about what the debt ceiling really means, he changed his mind, so I'm going to re-post a summary of what I told him, in the hope that some of those 63% read this and maybe change their mind too.

I think that when people say, "Don't raise the debt ceiling", what they really mean is, "Learn to live within your means. Don't spend more on services than what you collect in revenue." Fair enough, I agree with that too. But that's not what the debt ceiling means. The debt ceiling doesn't authorize any new spending, it allows us to pay for the spending bills that have already been approved.

In Fiscal Year 2011, Congress has already passed appropriation bills, committing the US to pay $3.834 [1] trillion dollars for things like:

National Defense ($750 billion)
Social Security ($736 billion )
Income assistance ($595 billion) - this covers unemployment payments, housing payments, retirement and disability insurance for federal workers, and food stamps.
Medicare ($497 billion)
Medicaid and other health programs ($401 billion)
Interest ($499 billion payed - $248 billion collected = $251 billion)
Education and training ($126 billion)
Veteran's benefits and hospitalization ($125 billion)
Everything else ($354 billion). This includes energy, natural resources, transportation, justice department & FBI, NASA, commerce and housing credit, community and regional development, disaster relief, international affairs, foreign aid, agriculture, and general government operations. It also includes credits for rentals from offshore drilling and other miscellaneous items.

Whether or not you think these things are important, they've been approved by Congress. Now it is the U.S. Treasury's job to pay the salaries and bills for these agencies, creditors, retirees, soldiers, government employees, etc. The U.S. Treasury is projected to receive $2.567 [2] trillion in revenue for 2011. This is only about two thirds of what is needed to pay for the items that Congress has approved. It is impossible to solve this problem with spending cuts, because the money has already been spent! So one of two things happens: Either we borrow money to pay for these items, or we don't pay the bills. Borrowing money is bad: It gets us deeper into debt, leads to inflation, and might eventually affect our credit rating as a nation. Choosing not to pay the bills is worse: It is morally and ethically wrong to promise payment to somebody and then renege on that promise (whether that person is a war veteran, a sick child, a senior citizen, or a Chinese bank doesn't make it any more or less wrong). In addition, it will certainly and immediately affect our credit rating as a nation, which will get us into debt much deeper than if we borrowed to pay these bills.

There are some who say that the risks of hurting our credit rating are overblown, and that since we have enough revenue to cover the $499 billion of interest we owe annually, we'll take money from other areas and pay that first. I have two problems with that.

One: Which other areas? Remember, we've already received the goods and services based on our commitments to pay this money. Teachers have been hired, students have already been approved for college loans, buildings have been constructed, ammunition has been expended, soldiers have fought and died, or are recovering from wounds in veterans hospitals. Which of them will not receive what Congress has already promised them? Should our country honor its commitments or not?

Two: S&P and Moody's credit rating agencies have already confirmed that they are considering a downgrade on U.S. Treasuries [3]. Even if the U.S. does not default on Treasury bonds, refusing to pay for any goods or service provided to us by anybody damages our credit rating.

If our credit rating is lowered, then the cost of borrowing money rises. To give an example, Greece's ten-year government bonds were paying 5.3% in April of 2009. One year later in April 2010, S&P downgraded the credit rating on Greek debt to 'junk' status, and the interest rate spiked to 9.7%. Today it stands at 16.7%. [4] [5]

The U.S. overall rate for interest paid is currently 3.3% - one of the lowest in the world [6]. While it is highly unlikely that our credit rating would be downgraded to 'junk', S&P has warned that it is considering a cut from AAA to AA, putting us on par with Slovenia, Bermuda, and Chile [4] [7]. If this happens and our interest rates rise on debt we owe, we would have to pay more every year for the same amount of debt. Each 1% rise on our overall debt would equal $151 billion per year wasted [8] - not employing or helping anybody in America, not building roads or schools, just gone, with about 30% of it overseas to foreign creditors [9]. It would take a 13% increase in personal income tax revenues to equal the cost of the lost money for each 1% hike in the interest rate. [2]

Let's summarize. Most of us agree that the U.S. should live within its means - spend no more than revenue. Achieving that is going to require spending cuts, tax increases, or both, and that needs to happen in order to prevent us from being in the same situation next year of choosing between two evils (borrowing vs. defaulting). However, raising the debt ceiling now, to cover the bills we've already incurred, has nothing to do with next year's spending. It is the morally and ethically right thing to do, and it prevents us from getting deeper into debt than we already are.

Constructive criticism and civil debate is welcome in the comments section below.

===References===

Many of these spreadsheets come from the Government Printing Office web site

1 U.S. Government spending by function and subfunction

2 U.S. Income receipts by source
3 S&P warning on U.S. credit downgrade

4 S&P downgrades Greece credit rating

5 Interest rate on 10-year Greek bonds

6 3.3% figure comes from dividing $499 billion in interest by total debt of $15,144 billion, which comes from Federal Debt at End of Year

7 S&P sovereign nation credit ratings

8 $151 billion comes from 1% of our current national debt of $15,144 billion. This interest rate change would not take effect immediately on any existing debt, only as current treasuries mature and we take on new debt. All existing debt matures between 1 month and 30 years, with the average being 80 months

9 $4,489 billion is held by foreign countries, which is 29.6% of the total debut of $15,144 billion.

RAGBRAI wrap-up

2010-08-24T22:23:00.001-04:00

Well, here I am in Atlanta several weeks later. I'll start off with an explanation of why there were only three days: My friend Ralph that I was riding with had to leave after three days because his daughter Anna was in the Iowa state swim championship. I could have stayed and finished the ride on my own, but riding together with Ralph was what made the all of the aches and pains worthwhile, so I headed back to Ames with him on Wednesday morning and caught an early flight home. I still feel like I accomplished something; we covered 220 miles in those three days! The other good news is that Anna is now the Iowa state champion in the 100 meter butterfly!

As I suspected, the only time that I ever had the self-discipline to actually sit down and write about the trip was when I was on the trip itself - that made having the iPad on the trip really nice. That's also why I'm just finishing this three weeks after returning.

As for the ride itself, I learned some things that were not obvious before I did any long rides (remember, I'd never ridden more than 27 miles before this). I will now summarize these points for your reading enjoyment:

When I saw the distances we would be riding every day, I expected to be in a state of constant exhaustion and fatigue. This really didn't happen. The only time I felt so tired that I couldn't continue was at the end of the first day, when we had several big climbs in a row, and I just pulled over to rest for about 30 minutes and was fine. The hills are where you get tired; I never felt much fatigue on flat ground.

What will make you want to quit is the aching pain in the seat. I didn't feel this at all the first day; I think that if I had only done the first day (80 miles, lots of hills) I would have left feeling like quite the macho man. It wasn't until I got onto the seat on the morning of the second day that I realized how sore I was. When you first sit down, you're sore. After a while, this turns into numbness, which seems ok for a little while. But then, the numbness turns into a really deep pain. Stopping to rest helps, but when you get back on the seat, it's worse than ever, as if you were healing up from a broken bone and then you fall on it. Because of this, the second day was pretty miserable. I don't know if I started getting used to it, or changing the way I was sitting, but the third day was not as bad as the second. Not to worry, I ran into a new problem on the third day:

My hands. After three days of supporting my upper body weight on the handlebars, I started losing strength and sensation in my hands and fingers. The nerves were under constant pressure, and it became difficult to change gears, which require you to push a lever with your thumb. I could move my thumb, but I couldn't feel it, so I would have to watch myself change the gear in order to know if I actually did it. And unlike the butt pains, which stop hurting as soon as you get off the seat, the numbness and weakness in my fingers lasted for about three days after the ride was over. At one point, there was a little girl and her mother giving out free water and lemonade near Clear Lake (which was very nice, you get used to paying for water just about everywhere) from an igloo cooler with a spout on the bottom. I couldn't push the button on the spout with my thumb, and had to ask the little girl to push it for me.

Speaking of water, that was the last point I'll make. On a long bike ride, you go through water bottles constantly. I realize now that if I was on a long ride with no place to get water, I would dehydrate long, long before I was tired or hungry. On the first day where we had the most hills, we'd climb the hill and then drink a quarter bottle of water coasting down the other side. With two water bottles, this means you're good for about 8 hills before you need to find a place to stop and fill back up. We drank so much water and gatorade that we rarely felt hungry when we arrived in the towns. So if you're thinking about going out for a long bike ride, be sure to get not one but two water bottle cages and keep them filled!

So that's a lot of whining and complaining. What about the good parts? The best part was the people in the towns. Most of the towns we passed through were 300-500 people. One was 27 people, and the overnight towns were around 8-12,000 people. So we'd have 25,000 bike riders passing through these towns like a horde of drunken locusts, and instead of complaining about how flagrantly drunk we were, or how every public bathroom was occupied all day, the people in the towns would sit in their chairs by the road side, clapping and cheering as we would roll by. That's saying something when you consider that it takes about 6 hours for the whole group to pass through, and with me in the back half of that, I wouldn't expect anybody to be clapping by the time I got there. But they were, and they'd help us park our bikes, and they'd have a dozen kids from the church selling sweet corn all day long and smiling, and they'd help us with directions to the houses we were camping at. That part was really cool.

So will I do it again next year? I think I have a pretty good idea of what it's all about now. I know that I could have made it the last four days if I'd kept at it on my own. I learned a lot, and I had a great time with Ralph, but I think I'm going to look for a new adventure next summer. Any ideas?

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RAGBRAI Day 3

2010-07-29T09:44:00.001-04:00

After seeing the weather forecast (high of 100 degrees), Ralph and I decided to leave from Algone early today to beat the heat. We woke up at 6 am, packed as quietly as possible, and hit the road at 7:15. It was a very different experience than our usual 8:30 starts; the roads were much more crowded but it was also much cooler and nicer weather.

We quickly reached the town of Wesley, where we had our first taste of the legendary home-baked Iowa pies. I had a delicious slice of blackberry pie, with just the right ratio of blackberry filling-to-crust. They had a live band playing, and we saw at least one person up and dancing. Notice the supportive onlooker/spouse on the right side. Don't ever tell me to dance like nobody's watching!

One downside of the big crowds was more accidents. As we left Wesley, we made a right turn and heard calls of "rider down". Somebody had fallen off of his bike, and looked really hurt - he was trying to crawl off to the right side of the road, but was having a hard time moving. There were already a mob of people stopping to help, so we kept riding, but we made sure to leave plenty of distance around us after that.

My butt is doing much better today than yesterday, I'm happy to announce. I've learned to raise up on my feet to take pressure off the seat every few minutes, allowing blood to flow. It's a little bit painful every time I do this - imagine that you screwed your finger inside a vise grip. At first, it's just numbness, but the real pain hits when you unscrew it and the blood flows. However, doing this raise off the seat every few minutes kept the average pain level at a manageable level.

According to my bike computer, the temperature hit 86 degrees after Wesley, which was warm but still comfortable. Our next town was Britt. I really liked Britt, because there was a strong presence of local townspeople (as opposed to the professional RAGBRAI vendors that move from town to town with the bikers). The locals are always friendlier, and their booths are better staffed with hordes of volunteers that make the food lines go much faster. They had 'bike valets' to park your bike for you (which can be quite a trick when you have thousands of bikes going down the only street in town), and little kids walking up and down the sidewalk passing out free disposable ice wraps. They are also the home of the annual Hobo conference, now in its 110th consecutive year. As Ralph pointed out, you probably can't find a less profitable conference demographic, but that is their claim to fame. They set up a hobo museum where you could go in and learn about the historical origin of the hobo, the etymology of the word and the differences between a hobo (travels and works), a tramp (travels but doesn't work), and a bum (no travel, just drinks). It's really worth stopping to take a look when these little towns have something to differentiate themselves from just the standard post office, seed store, and hardware store.

Leaving Britt was 95 degrees. Not too much happened in the 13.5 miles to Garner except for the temperature continuing to climb. We stopped in Garner for water/gatorade, pork sandwiches (very yummy), and a repair shop to fix a reflector that was falling off my bike. Leaving Garner it was 102 degrees. To tell you the truth, it started to blur together after that. The good news is that we had a strong wind blowing, which made the heat less crappy. The bad news is that the wind was in our face, slowing us to a crawl as we inched along in the heat. By this time, all conversation had stopped and we just kept our heads down and slowly ground out the miles.

We found a shady spot where some other bikers were resting, and decided to pull over to stop. Turns out that the shady spot was downwind of a chicken coop. This means a constant noxious stench that the locals affectionately refer to as "the smell of money." We were too exhausted to care, so we plopped down and stared at the sky for a while. As we were just getting up to leave, some guy in a group next to us farted loudly. His wife/girlfriend gave him a look, and then looked over at us and made some sort of apology for him. Keep in mind that every breath from the chicken coop smelled liked being suffocated with a slab of rotting, maggot-infested meat. The absurdity of worrying about his fart in this stench storm knocked me down laughing, and when I managed to pull myself together enough to explain why, we all had a good laugh.

Fortunately, we turned north not too much farther after that, which put the wind diagonally at our back. Also, it was late enough in the day that the temperatures were back down to 96 degrees. Apparently, this upset the delicate karmic balance of the biker gods, so we were punished with the worst stretch of road that we've seen so far on the trip. The already bumpy road had shallow potholes, loose bits of gravel, and deep, un-patched cracks that crossed the road every 20 feet. There was no way that my butt was going to stand up to the pounding, so I wound up standing in the pedals and not even touching the seat for this 10 mile stretch.

Lest you think that the day was entirely miserable, we now come to the climax of the story where our heroes triumph and balance is restored to The Force. As we made the turn east toward our final destination, Clear Lake, the wind shifted to come from the south (no headwind, yay!), the road suddenly switched to become smooth as glass, and we rode about 6 miles on a long, shallow descent into town. By now the temperature was a relatively cool 88 degrees. As we started getting near the town, we were greeted by a group of townspeople and their spokesperson, a little blonde-headed 4 year old girl screaming helpfully at the top of her lungs: "Free delicious lemonade!" Ralph and I pulled over for some lemonade and help with directions to our camp site. I wish I had taken a picture of them, they were certainly a sight for sore eyes.

Our route took us directly along the lake shore. The town had a hand-painted arch over Main street as you ride in, with people waving, clapping, and cheering as we rode underneath. The enthusiasm of the welcoming committee was especially impressive when you realize that at our slow pace, there had been people passing under that arch for the last 5 hours. I felt like a hero returning from an adventure instead of an idiot riding my bike in the blazing heat for no particular reason.

After Ralph and I got to the campsite and set up our tent, we headed straight to the beach at the lake. The feeling of jumping into the water was indescribable.

The entertainment was pretty impressive - while we swam in the lake, they had a team of acrobatic jet skiers doing tricks and jumps. They also had a ski boat with a hydrofoil skier - this is where you sit in a chair on a 5 foot post with a blade on the bottom. The skiers did crazy tricks with mid-air barrel rolls, back flips (sometimes two back flips in a row), and a barrel roll-forward flip combination. After that, they had the Spin Doctors playing. The town has a beautiful park set up along the lake shore with an acoustic band shell.

Ralph and I got barbecue ribs and sweet corn, laid on the grass, and enjoyed the show. After that they had a fireworks show, and we hit the sack.

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RAGBRAI Day 2

2010-07-28T11:15:00.001-04:00

Ralph and I rode together all day on day 2. We knew it was going to be a tough day as soon as we got on our bikes - our butts were pretty sore from the day before. We had no idea in the morning what sore was, though.

Because we were peddling gingerly, we lost the main group almost immediately. This was fine, because it gave me and Ralph a chance to ride slow and talk. We wound up talking politics, which was fun because we're on opposite sides of most issues, but we enjoy discussing each other's viewpoints. Even though we were sore and riding slowly, we were keeping about the same pace as the rest of our group factoring in their beer breaks.

The first town we came to was Varina (population 27). Not too much to do there and we weren't hungry, but I had my handlebars adjusted to transfer some weight from my poor butt onto my hands.

Most of the towns we came to were fairly nondescript. Also, I've gotten to know what is available in most of the towns: beer, pork chops on sticks, smoothies, pizza, etc. The same vendors travel from town to town, so you pretty much know what your options are before you get there.

The town of Pocahontas (aka 'The Princess Town') was a nice surprise, and quite a bit bigger than Varina. There was an indian princess greeter there that attracted a lot of attention:

They also had a statuesque courthouse surrounded by a beautiful shaded own, and a neat idea of pre-stamped post cards that they will mail for you. Everybody we've met has been very nice, but in Pocahontas they were especially friendly. I got a picture of Ralph in action from the roadside on our way out of town.

When we left Pocahontas, we had ideal riding conditions. The road was unusually smooth (most roads here are very rough with tarred-over cracks throughout), it was very flat, and we had the wind at out back (this makes a HUGE difference). As Ralph and I cruised along effortlessly at 20mph, I remarked that it felt like we were being shot out of a cannon.

Despite the great riding conditions, we were really starting to feel the burn in our butts, so we decided to stop at the next place no matter what it was. This turned out to be Mr. Porkchop, a regular vendor who travels with the tour and sets up a roadside carnival each day. It's strange, but we have not been very hungry on this trip at all (probably because we're so full of fluids), so we split a pork chop, which was great. They had a water slide set up, and the Miller Lite girls selling beer. This was a bit of overkill, as no extra incentive is needed to sell beer here, but I don't think anybody minded.

After we left Mr. Porkchop is when the trip started getting really rough. We turned from north to east, which put us against diagonal cross winds, and our asses were searing. At this point it felt nothing like getting shot from a cannon and more like being shot by one in the butt every time we hit a bump (did I mention how rough the roads are here?). We were doing about 12-14 mph and being passed by kids on mountain bikes hauling tents and sleeping bags in trailers.

At some point in this misery we came to the town of West Bend (I think?). By this time in the trip, we were stopping for any excuse we could think of. We got out there and had smoothies that were fantastic. As we were getting ready to leave town, we saw the most interesting thing I've seen so far in a town in Iowa: The Grotto of the Redemption. This is a stunning structure, built apparently out of sea shells (how they got any quantity of these in Iowa I have no idea), quartz, and various other bits of rock and glass. It's much bigger than these pictures show; there are multiple levels and numerous caves and sections. We would have loved to stay longer and explore the structure and associated museum, but we were already poky enough without extended sight seeing, so we moved on.

At long last, we came to our overnight destination, Algone. This is a big town by Iowa standards (maybe 10,000 people I'd guess) with many shops and a beautiful church. There was an outdoor concert set up with a really good cover band playing lots of my favorite 80s songs, like Journey and Brian Adams. We had steak sandwiches and blizzards from Dairy Queen, and that wrapped up day 2. Tomorrow is 'only' 56 miles and is supposed to be fairly flat, but it's also expected to be in the high 90s with thunderstorms. Hopefully our butts are ready for it - the team name (Butt Ice) seems quite apropos right about now.

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RAGBRAI Day 1

2010-07-26T01:26:00.000-04:00

We woke up and hit the road at about 8 am, which is much later than most people start. I quickly realized why other people start early; the temperature is absolutely perfect for riding at that time. On the other hand, starting later gives you more time to sleep off last night's hangover, and that's good too. Plus, I also learned that our team stops for an hour or two in every town to hit the beer gardens, so it's going to take us all day no matter what time we start.

The road is fairly crowded, although there is usually plenty of room to pass. This is a picture near the beginning of the day when I stopped at a water stand. I actually fell off my bike when I stopped because I'm not used to having my feet cleated into the pedals, so I just gradually fell over sideways without being able to unhook my foot to stop my fall. No damage done though, so I got my water and kept on riding.

The first 30 miles were pretty nice. We stopped at Kingsley and had some gyros. I gotta say it, the vendors need to get their act together. There's a line of people 50 deep, and they've got a big griddle to cook on, but when I got close enough to see what they were doing, they were cooking the gyro meat ONE SANDWICH AT A TIME. They only make one items - gyros. It's no mystery that they're going to need to make a lot of them.

Somewhere up at the front of this line is a grinning idiot cooking gyros one at a time, as they are ordered.

After Kingsley, we rode 14 miles to Washta. This was also a fairly nice ride, although the non-stop hills were starting to get a little old. Washta was a fun town with a much better selection of vendors and shorter lines.

This is what 12,000 bikers passing through a small Iowa town look like. There was a steady stream like this all day long.

The team bus met us in Washta with snacks and drinks, so Team Butt Ice pauses for a much needed beer break. This is after their previous beer break, which was five minutes ago in the Washta fire station, which had been converted to a beer garden. After finishing, we got on our bikes and rode 5.5 miles (about 20 minutes) to Quimby, where we stopped for a desperately needed beer break. I have to grudgingly respect the fact that these people can ride 74 miles up and down hills while completely intoxicated.

After Quimby, we had a 23 mile ride up hill to our overnight destination, Storm Lake. This is when the ride started to suck. My butt was hurting, it was hot, and the hills seemed never ending. After one particularly tough hill (thereafter universally referred to as 'that one hill' by all riders), I was completely spent and pulled over to Tender Tom's Turkey stand, where I had some very good turkey sandwiches and enjoyed a nice conversation with a woman from Seattle who was waiting for her friend to catch up. The good news is that I had actually passed most of the Butt Ice team, and when they passed by the turkey stand, I hopped back on the bike and caught up with them for the last 9 miles into Storm Lake (total miles today:74).

That night, we set up our tent at our host house (thanks Stephanie!) and headed into downtown Storm Lake for some dinner.

We opted to skip the ass-fed beef. After everything I've read about factory farming, I could almost believe that there is such a thing. The town was actually really fun, and they put on a great festival that was big enough that it didn't feel totally mobbed by ragbrai riders. I saw a girl doing a show dancing with flaming hula hoops, which was pretty cool, and then we got on the shuttle bus and walked back to our tents.

On the way back we saw another beautiful moonrise. The moon was completely full tonight, and rising over Storm Lake wreathed in clouds it was quite a sight.

Tomorrow is longer than today (80 miles I think), but it's supposed to be fairly flat. If I learned anything today, it's that hills count for much more than distance, so 80 flat miles sounds just fine to me.

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RAGBRAI day 0

2010-07-25T00:07:00.000-04:00

I've titled this day zero because we have not actually started biking yet. Today we met at LT Dan's house to get on the bus to head from Ames to Sioux City where the actual ride starts. We are on team 'Butt Ice', which has an ominous ring to it...

The bus itself never goes much faster than 50 mph, and more like 20 up hills (yes, there are lots of hills in Iowa. It is not flat). There was plenty of beer in the bus, which meant pee stops every 30 minutes or so, and these stops usually lasted about 20 minutes. I quickly started understanding that time is definitely NOT of the essence on this trip.

The bus itself quickly gets you in the mood. Here is a plane made from Budweiser beer cans, complete with a working propeller that spins in the wind:

The bus ride was loud, fun, and... let's just say rowdy.

This eloquently summarizes the bus ride philosophy. This is the one rule that was carefully obeyed at all times.

Jody displaying proper team spirit

Yours truly with Dave. Notice my streamlined 'no showering required' hairstyle.

Jody dancing with Tyler.

My one picture of Ralph was censored for public consumption.

When we arrived in Sioux City, we were welcomed by Dave's parents. They live in a beautiful house on the top of a hill overlooking the surrounding area. It's really spectacular. The moon is full and was just rising over the horizon as we arrived. I helped unload the luggage and bikes from the roof of the bus. Then we pitched our tents in the yard, chit chatted for a while, and hit the sack. I'm told that day 1 is going to be the toughest part of the trip, so I want to get to bed early and be ready.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Day 7-8, October 20 and 21, 2008: Gloucester, VA - Hampton, VA

2008-10-22T00:08:00.000-04:00

Day 7-8, October 20 and 21, 2008: Gloucester, VA - Hampton, VA

This was our last day sailing. We left Gloucester with beautiful weather and light winds behind us. We saw a pair of F-22's wheeling around in the sky and practicing aerobatics. We put up both sails to head out of the harbor and sailed for about an hour, at which point the winds became too light and we motored the remainder of the way to Hampton.

As we motored along on the calm water, there wasn't much that needed to be done, so I laid on the bow, closed my eyes, and soaked up some sun. I put on headphones and listened to Loreena McKennitt. That was probably my favorite time of the whole trip. The music is so beautiful and mixed with the sound of the boat surging through the waves; the sun was brilliant and warm behind my closed eyes; the smell of the salt water. There was something ironic about that - in the midst of that almost spiritual experience, I knew then that I had done what I wanted to do, and it was time for me to go home, and I missed my family.

We arrived without event in Hampton and tied up at the slip. We decided to explore the town, and went for a walk around the downtown area. It is a really cool place! It is one of the first place that the English settled down in the New World (we're very close to the original Jamestown settlement). There is a church there that was built in the early 1700's, and there are murals painted on many of the downtown buildings. We had dinner at The Tap House, which would absolutely be one of my regular hangouts if it was in Atlanta. It's a pub with fantastic food. I had linguini with marinara clam sauce that was exactly what I was hoping for, but I was kind of envious of Jack - he had a sort of shepherd's pie in a skillet that looked like it could feed a family of 4.

The next day, we got up early and scrubbed down the boat. This turned out to be easier than I thought, and Razzmatazz looked great after we finished. Then Jack and I went next door to the Air and Space museum. As we learned at the museum, we're right next to Langley field and Norfolk, and Newport News is where they build all the US aircraft carries. The museum was really cool - they had a real F-4 and F-106 suspended in an exhibit area, and they had cockpits and various sections of A-6's, F-16s, a WWII bomber (can't remember which one). There was a flight simulator (after several crashes, I successfully took and landed twice!), an extremely cool 3D IMAX movie about undersea life, scale models of aircraft carriers, and my favorite exhibit, a mini mars rover setup where you could program a route into the computer and then the rover would follow the instructions you sent it.

After that, we had a quick lunch, and then Jack and Joan dropped me off at the airport. We're getting ready to land in Atlanta as I write this. With the trip behind me, I can say that it was everything I had hoped: I am a much better sailor that I was before (charting, lat/lon, anchoring, spinnaker, knots, handling a larger boat, living aboard, much bigger wind and waves, VHF radio, and much more); I had a wonderful time with Jack and Joan; the business ran fine without me for a week; and I am so excited to see Lisa and the kids!

Knot class

2008-10-20T08:39:00.001-04:00

Jack taught me a few new knots on the trip, here are two pictures. They're taken on my phone camera, so the focus is not great.

Here is a monkey fist knot. It creates a heavy end on the end of a line that can be used for heaving a line to somebody. It's a pain in the butt to tie!

Here is a splice and whipping. You take the end of a rope and attach it back into the strands of itself to create a permanent loop on the end of the rope:

-- Post From My iPhone

Day 6, October 19, 2008: Deltaville, VA - Gloucester, VA

2008-10-19T19:32:00.000-04:00

Day 6, October 19, 2008: Deltaville, VA - Gloucester, VA

The morning light showed us a sad sight on the dock next to us - a huge beautiful wooden sailboat had apparently sunk at the docks next to us. It actually happened the night before we arrived. Jack explained the rescue process to me - first they pump out the water from the boat with a giant pump. Assuming that they can pump it out faster than it's leaking in, they then send in a diver to find where the leak is happening, and then they will patch the leak. This is a picture of the rescue crew pumping the water out.

Today I learned a new appreciation for heavy winds and waves. The winds averaged about 25 knots today, frequently going to 30 and sometimes gusting as high as 37 knots. Joan was steering as we left Deltaville, and we were going straight against the waves. Razzmatazz was slamming down into the troughs of 5 foot waves - this picture shows one of the hits she took, by no means the worst.

After we got out past the harbor bouys, I took over on the helm and we turned right to go perpendicular to the waves. This reduced the beating we were taking from the 4-5 foot waves, but it was also much scarier when the occasional 6 foot wave rolled us sideways. I learned to look out for the big waves coming in and turn into them so that we hit them headfirst, which was pounding but not nearly as scary.

After an hour or so of that, we made another right turn to head towards Gloucester. At that point, we were running straight down from the wind and waves, and although the wind and waves were just as strong, it was a completely different experience - instead of getting rolled or pounded, we were essentially surfing on the huge waves. In fact, Jack dug up some Beach Boys music on his iPod and put that on the boat's speakers. It was a wonderful, amazing experience to guide the boat down the wave and feel the power surging behind us. I handed the helm over to Jack and went up on the bow to take some pictures, as you can see here.

We arrived in Gloucester without any problems, and the weather is gorgeous here. The wind is still blowing hard, but it's been sunny and clear, and the waves are minimal in the sheltered creek where we're docked. Joan has dinner ready, so I'm signing off for now!

Day 5, October 18, 2008: Reedville, VA - Deltaville, VA

2008-10-19T19:28:00.000-04:00

Day 5, October 18, 2008: Reedville, VA - Deltaville, VA

Today was my first experience with really big wind and waves. We left Reedville with light winds, but once we got into open water, winds went up to about 20 knots with gusts of 25 knots.

After initially motoring, we decided to switch to just the reefed-in jib. This actually smoothed out the ride somewhat, but it was still very rough going. The winds and waves were behind us, so it could have been much worse, but I was starting to feel a little bit queasy by the time we arrived at Deltaville. The weather was overcast but not rainy.

At some point I smashed my hand against the winch, because as we tacked and I unwrapped the starboard jib sheet from the winch, the force on the line took off and took my hand with it. I thought I was OK at the time, but now my index finger knuckle is really tender.

The trip to Deltaville seemed very long; I think all of us were very ready to get into port and settle down. Unfortunately, when we arrived, they did not have any slips available, so we anchored just off the docks and had a late lunch. Although the wind was still blowing hard, the waves were not bad at all in the dock area. Jack and I sat around for a while and swapped stories about Xerox and 360Works while we munched on cheese, crackers, and M&M's. The good news is, the dock called us and told us that they were closing and that we could dock overnight at their fuel dock, as long as we were out by 8:00 am. We tied up to the fuel dock and hooked up for water and power.

The grocery store was about 2 miles away, but they have bikes that they lend out at the marina, so I rode to the store and picked up groceries that we need. When I got back, we skipped a 'real' dinner and just had some cherry pie from the grocery store, because we were still stuffed from M&M's!

That night, I brainstormed with Jack on ideas for an iPhone boating application. We worked together on creating a crude mockup in FileMaker to let you view weather, tides, marine charts, NOAA bouys, and marinas all from the iPhone. Another new thing to learn! It was eerie to hear the wind literally howling all around us, which lulled me to sleep that night.

Day 4, October 17, 2008: Solomons, MD to Reedville, VA

2008-10-19T19:25:00.001-04:00

Day 4, October 17, 2008: Solomons, MD to Reedville, VA

This morning, we met Fred and Ethyl. There are two geese that guard the entrance to the docks in Solomns. They are a bit ornery, and Joan has dubbed them Fred and Ethyl. They take their responsibility as dock guards very seriously, and judging from Fred's crooked wing, he's not afraid of getting up close and personal. Last night, it was a bit tricky getting around them on the docks to get to and from Razz. This morning, we encountered them again, and this time I had my camera ready. I took a video of Jack and Fred facing off - I'll post it here as soon as I get home.

There is a naval air base next to Solomons, so we got to see fighter jets and helicopters doing maneuvers the whole time we were there. I took one picture of a jet taking off over our heads - the sound of the jets streaking overhead was awesome.

Solomons to Reedville was all downwind, so we popped up the spinnaker sail. I got to work 'the sock'. You attach the spinnaker sheets in the back corners of the boat, attach the tack around the forestay where the jib is, and then you attach the top corner (the 'head') to a separate spinnaker halyard. Jack raised the spinnaker halyard, but the spinnaker is initially all bagged up inside a long sock that runs the entire height of the sail. My job was to haul a line that retracts the sock from bottom to top, releasing the spinnaker as it rises. This is an amazing sight - the spinnaker is huge, and it expands from bottom to top as the sock is lifted off of it.

We sailed with the spinnaker most of the day, and even got into a little race with 3 other boats going the same direction. We beat two of them handily, but got left behind by 'Jubilee'. As we pulled in towards Reedville, we pulled down the spinnaker sail and switched to motor. This was just in time, because it started to rain hard. Razzmatazz has an enclosure which can be tacked up around the cockpit to completely protect that area from wind and water, so we stayed dry.

What I think all of us will remember most about Reedville is the smell, or to put it more accurately, the stench. The second I stepped out of the enclosure, I was hit by the reek of dead crabs, which is kind of like turds mixed with mud and then fermented. Because it was raining heavily, we put on our foul weather gear to dock the boat. We got to Reedville and pulled up at the dock, which is also a restaurant. After getting the waitress to take our picture in our foul weather gear, we went into the restaurant, the Crazy Crab, where the smell was much less noticeable. I had a crab bisque bread bowl that was really satisfying, and a weird combination of crab meat with melted cheddar cheese on an english muffin. It turned out to be much better than it sounds!

2008-10-16T22:14:00.000-04:00

Day 3 aboard, and our first day under sail. Weather was gorgeous today, as you can see in these pictures of sunrise.

Today we went from Saint Michaels to Solomons, Maryland. We motored out the channel from Saint Michaels into the main Chesapeake Bay and then switched to sail. Wind was great, about 10-12 knots, and we were hitting about 5 knots boat speed. We were heading into the wind, and tacked our way south across the bay. I LOVE AUTOPILOT!!! You can set your course, trim the sails just right, and then engage the autopilot. It will keep you on the exact same heading, and it actually takes over the wheel and uses hydraulics to turn it to keep the boat on the same course. Then you can sit back, have a sandwich, and enjoy the peace and the wind.

Unfortunately, after several hours of good sailing, we ran into two problems: Lack of wind, and battery problems. There seems to be some sort of problem with the electrical systems on the boat. Jack, Joan, and I opened up the battery compartment last night (well, Joan and I observed!) and scraped corrosion off the contacts to see if that would help. It did not. So, the short story is that we decided to motor the rest of the way because the wind was dying and that would charge up the batteries. On the way, we passed this navy ship, which Jack explained is a 'destroyer escort', or essentially a smaller version of a Navy destroyer.

I'm getting better with the bouys and charts - it's starting to feel somewhat natural to be able to pick up a chart and get an idea of what to look around for. We docked in Solomons, MD, where we can shower off, recharge batteries, and have a nice dinner. We found a very nice italian restaurant, Vincennzos, where they had live music and good atmosphere. For dessert, I had mango sherbet, which was served in a scraped out mango - nice touch!

2008-10-15T23:03:00.001-04:00

Today was our first day on the water. We started off in Baltimore Harbor, which is really an exciting place. There's an aquarium, Maritime Museum, tons of restaurants, giant ships, interesting office buildings, indoor/outdoor malls, etc. There's even a trapeze training site right next to the docks. Our boat, Razzmatazz, is docked here, and we are in the front row seat to this beautiful scenery. When we woke up this morning, Jack and I walked to a 7-11 for bread, chips, and snacks. We the fueled up Razz and headed out for Saint Michaels, a small port town about 40 miles south.

It turned out to be a good thing that we topped up the fuel, because there was no wind and the Chesapeake Bay was glassy smooth. I steered the boat and learned how to navigate by bouys, operate the GPS, hail somebody on the radio, program a route and waypoints into the electronic map, read a chart, and much more. Towards the end of the trip, I took a break at the helm and practiced a monkey fist knot, which Jack taught me. I almost got it right (had one section overlapping wrong), but untying took about 10 times longer than tying it.

Saint Michaels does not have slips for boats our size, so we anchored just off shore and motored in on the inflatable dinghy. Saint Michaels is a very cute touristy port town with a row of antique shops, old churches, and restaurants. We ate dinner at the Crab Claw restaurant and then headed back to Razzmatazz, after Jack slalomed the dinghy through the pilings at the dock.

When we returned to the boat in our dinghy from Saint Michaels, we saw an amazing moonrise. The moon was completely full, low on the horizon, and shrouded in cloud cover that turned it pinkish orange. It cast a reflection on the water unlike anything I've ever seen.

Once aboard, Jack and Joan taught me how to play Mexican Train, a dominos game. I lost badly, but in the words of Liam, "I will be avenged!"

First night aboard

2008-10-15T00:04:00.002-04:00

I'm on Razzmatazz for my first night aboard. We're docked in a slip, which is kind of the boater's version of an RV campground. We hook up to power (so I can write this blog while plugged into a regular 120V outlet), water, septic, and even cable TV. There is a shared area with clothes washers / dryers, bathrooms, showers, and a little library area where anybody can pick up or leave a book for the next person.

My phone is mostly working for an internet connection (it is either blazing fast or it drops the connection completely). That came in handy tonight when we realized that we don't know any marina in Newport News (which is where I'm supposed to be flying home from) to drop me off at. Although the idea of me wading through the surf onto the beach a la Daniel Craig in Casino Royale certainly holds some appeal, we decided that finding a marina to drop me off would be a better idea. Enter iPhone and NetShare - a quick Google search for marinas in the Newport News area found the Leeward Marina , as well as GPS coordinates.

I'll try and take some pictures of the boat tomorrow when the light is better. It's much roomier than I expected - although I have to crawl into my sleeping area (there's about 2.5 feet of headroom over the bed), there's actually plenty of space to sprawl out on, and I even have a separate bathroom. Jack literally 'showed me the ropes' on the boat, and now I'm itching to get out into the water tomorrow and get to work!

Shipping Out

2008-10-14T08:08:00.000-04:00

For those that I haven't talked to (I think I've told just about every person that I know...), I'm going to be spending the next week with Jack and Joan Morris aboard Razzmatazz, a 50 foot sailboat that they're taking from Rochester, NY to the Florida Keys. I'll join then in Baltimore and sail with them for a week, getting off at Newport News, VA.

My sailing experience is limited to 25' boats on Lake Lanier, for about 6 hours at a time - so a week about a 50' boat in the Atlanta Ocean should be quite a learning experience. I hope that I can keep this up to date with my experiences aboard.

Bag is packed, kids are off to school, e-mail is forwarded... the idea of being unreachable for a week is hard to imagine, but here goes!

I linked my iPhone GPS to instamapper, and if I have any cell reception, I'll update my position on the map below.