Kim participated in a volleyball tournament yesterday, along with the rest of her team and hundreds of others. I went along to watch the action and cheer on her team. It all started at eight in the morning and the park was literally filled with nets, over fifty nets I’m sure. And though I don’t think it was the most organized event ever, they did provide free beer for everyone. And not just any beer, they had keg after keg of Breckenridge brews. One of the highlights was trying their new SummerBright Ale, which has elements of both a wheat style beer and a pale ale. It was a great treat on a hot summer day.

All of the previous cruise stops have been relatively easy to plan, but that all ends with the fourth stop, Naples. I felt like all of the previous stops had one (maybe two) places that you were supposed to travel to, but Naples has multiple destinations outside of Naples itself, and I’m not sure that we can do them all in the twelve hours we have there. Here are some of the top destinations:

• Ruins of Pompeii
• Hiking Mount Vesuvius
• Coastal town of Sorrento
• Island of Capri

I’m hoping that someone has been to some/all of these places and can offer some advice. I think we can stop in multiple destinations during the day, but I think it would be impossible to see them all. I’m continuing to read more and more about each, and every time I do I find more reasons for going to each place. This could be the hardest decision of the trip. Please help!

I’ve ordered a few things online recently. The first I ordered on the 10th, and it finally showed up just a few days ago. This isn’t the fault of the retailer, as they shipped just a day or two after I ordered. This is the fault of the shipping company (or companies), just look at the route my package took:

You’ll notice that my package was actually in Denver on the 15th, but what happens next? It goes all the way out to Los Angeles! And then finally gets back into Denver on the 20th, five days after it was already here. You would think that the shipping software would have features build in to prevent this very thing from happening. Not to mention the added weight that was unnecessarily transported all over the place, costing extra money for fuel. And what really stinks is I just placed another order from the same company and it is taking a very similar route as the last one. According to the tracking page, the package is in Denver today, but who knows when it will actually be in my hands.

Today is Denver’s official Bike to Work Day and both Kim and I decided to participate this year. Last night we mapped out a route and amazingly we stuck to it and had zero problems. We left the house around six this morning and anticipated it taking about an hour and a half to get to Kim’s office, a twelve mile ride. Along the route we stopped at a Panera Bread shop, one of the many locations around town that were providing food and drink for participants. Even with the stop for a bagel and coffee we still made it pretty close to our time goal.

Once I successfully accompanied Kim to her office, I decided to keep riding on toward my office. I originally thought about hopping on the light rail near her office, but the great weather and good ride convinced me to keep going. I battled even more hills than we encountered on the earlier section but still managed a pretty good pace all the way to work. In total my ride was about eighteen and a half miles and I walked in the door just shortly before nine.

Here’s my route:

After our exciting rafting trip, we decided to explore the area a bit on Sunday. We were camping very close to the Royal Gorge, so after some breakfast we decided to go see the Royal Gorge Bridge and Park. Built in 1929, the bridge is highest suspension bridge in the world, standing 1053 feet above the Arkansas River. The first thing we did upon entering the park was to walk across the bridge, which is made of wooden planks stretched across the steel supports. Because of this, there are many small cracks along the way where you can actually see all the way down to the canyon floor below. It’s a bit scary, to say the least.

Besides the bridge there are a number of other attractions in the park, including the worlds steepest incline train to the canyon floor, the worlds longest single span aerial tram, displays of elk, bison, and bighorn sheep, among other presentations, thrill rides, and shops. We did nearly everything available, though I was even more afraid of the aerial tram than the bridge, so we skipped that one. We were able to see most of it in a few hours, though I’m sure it’s possible to spend even more time inside the park. Though pictures likely don’t do it justice, I really wish I had my camera with me, but as I mentioned earlier I forgot to bring it along.

Canon City on Dwellable

We had quite an adventure over the weekend. After work on Friday we drove down toward Colorado Springs and then over toward Cañon City and just a bit past that to our campsite for the weekend. We were joining a group of close to 150 others with the primary goal of whitewater rafting Saturday morning and afternoon. Nothing terribly exciting happened the rest of Friday, but that was definitely made up for on Saturday.

I will admit that I was a bit nervous of the actual rafting for a few reasons. First, my ankle was injured a couple weeks ago and is not back to 100%, or even close really. Second, the Arkansas River is the highest it’s been in over ten years due to a huge snow pack that is now melting. Third, I had never rafted before and wasn’t really sure what I was getting into. Add this all on top of the fact that the original section we were supposed to raft, Royal Gorge, was closed due to the extreme conditions.

So instead of doing the Royal Gorge section, we did a section called Bighorn Sheep Canyon, which is typically rated at class II/III (out of six classes) but due to the conditions was more like III/IV. Our group of six was fortunate to be led by one of the owners of the company, who has been rafting the Arkansas for years. That’s not to say that all of their guides aren’t great, but I felt added comfort in knowing that we were in especially good hands.

The trip started off easy enough, as we learned the commands the guide would call out the rest of the day when going through more advanced rapids with names like Shark’s Tooth, Double Dip, and Kamikaze. The first big rapid we ran into was called Three Rock Falls, and our plan was to stay on the left side of the river to avoid the namesake three large rocks. But as I soon learned, not everything goes as planned and we actually ended on the far right side. Our guide said that we probably came the closest to flipping possible without actually going overboard.

From that point on the guide felt we were capable enough of having some fun and hitting some of the bigger stuff along the way. He said that sometimes he gets very timid groups who want to avoid everything possible, but our group was all for going after the big stuff. So the rest of the day was spent steering into the heart of the rapids and having a blast! We never lost anyone out of our boat, despite it slowly leaking air and taking on water at times. However, we did get to see three other boats flip and participated in the rescue of those sent swimming.

I really enjoyed rafting even more than I thought I would, had no problems with my ankle, and cannot wait until we can do it again. Since this year is such a good year to do so, perhaps we will take another trip later in the summer back to the Arkansas for round two. If we do, I will be sure to bring my camera even if I can’t take it on the boat. I regret not having any photos from our weekend this time, but will be on the lookout for other group members sharing theirs.

Last night we went down to Castle Rock to meet up with Amy Collins and her husband Corey. Amy is a longtime family friend who recently moved to Colorado Springs. She is also a graphic designer and is going to make our wedding invitations for us. So it was very convenient that we could get together to check out some samples and to have dinner along with a couple beers at Rockyard, one of the few restaurants in the town. Things are looking good for the invitations, so expect to see them in next few weeks, well if you are one of the chosen ones. :)

Where have all of the good TV shows gone? I know that things typically slow down during the summer with the nice weather outside, but having been on crutches recently there isn’t much I can do. Though I must note that my ankle is getting better by the day. I am back on my own feet, though things are still a bit tender, so no activities yet. Back to TV though, we’ve been forced to watch crappy shows like Farmer Wants a Wife and re-runs of shows from our DVR backlog. I’m not sure how much longer I can take it before I swear off TV completely.

Our honeymoon cruise itinerary so far:

• Day One: Cannes / Monte Carlo / Nice
• Day Two: Livorno / Florence / Pisa

And now onto day three, we’ll be making a stop in Civitavecchia, Italy, which I’ve since learned is really just the port town for Rome. Obviously, we won’t be wasting any time and will be making the trip to Rome as quickly as possible. I’ve found online that it is pretty simple to take the train between the two, all you have to do is grab a shuttle to the port entrance and then it’s a quick ten minute walk to the train station.

We’ve also been emailing with a tour guide in Rome that was recommended to Kim. This isn’t something through the cruise company, rather a single guy that gives tours on his own to people when he has the time. I think whether we use him or not will really boil down to the price. There is so much to see in Rome that it would be cool to have a guide. Otherwise I’ll be spending lots of time mapping out a path. Feel free to leave recommendations for your favorite spots though, as I will definitely want to see all that I can. Kim has already been to Rome in the past, so hopefully that will help with the planning. I’m sure this will be one of the busier stops on our wonderful trip.

You may recall a flip cup tournament that we participated in last year. Well we attended again this year with a new team but had the same results as last year, pretty much nothing but loses. Our theme for this time was baseball, calling ourselves the “Grand Slammers.” Despite not winning a single match, we still had a blast.