Over the weekend, Kim and I took a quick trip to New York City.   One of my good friends and college roommate, Fighty, is in a cover band and this weekend was time for their annual booze cruise concert.   We flew in late on Friday night, and after meeting up with Fighty for a couple of late night drinks, we were back to the hotel to rest up for the following day.   Before the big cruise on Saturday, Kim and I took a walk throughout Manhattan and finally ended up at the World Trade Center site.   It has been years since my last trip to NYC and it was nice to see some progress being made, as well as some of the tributes around the site.   It wasn’t the best day for a walk, but it never really rained hard enough to completely soak us.

The cruise was later Saturday night, and it was awesome! 150+ party-goers paid $50 for an all you can drink cruise around NYC.   After the band started playing the hits, we first made our way out to the Statue of Liberty.   We were able to get pretty close to it, definitely the closest I have ever been.   After ten minutes or so there, we headed back toward where we came, and ended up sailing all the way up toward the Empire State Building.   But the best part of it all was the three entertaining hours   of great music.   The crowd was fully into it and the boat was successfully trashed when it was all over.

Two nights ago, I headed down to Coors Field to watch the third game of the Rockies and Reds series. At that time, the Rockies had won both of the previous games, though at slim margins. Well, the Rockies did it again on Wednesday night, taking the lead back from the Reds in the bottom of the ninth to end the game. It was an another unfortunate the loss, but the good thing for us in Denver is that the Rockies continue to climb the ranks in their own division and should likely make the playoffs again. And, you could have probably guessed that the Rockies won yet again last night, sweeping the four game series.

With baseball season winding down, I’m glad to see football season coming into full swing. In another Denver/Cincinnati showdown, the Broncos will travel to Cincinnati to take on the Bengals on Sunday. I think the Bengals are slightly favored, but with our team that doesn’t ever mean much. Fortunately the other football team in Cincinnati, the UC Bearcats crushed Rutgers in their season opener Monday afternoon. The Bearcats have often been more fun to watch than the Bengals, so I’m hoping that their winning streak continues. It’s also nice to see them back in the AP Rankings. Go CATS!

Here is the first in a series of photos from our Alaska trip. These were all taken on our first full day in Alaska. We arrived late on Sunday evening, and after spending the night inside our RV sitting in the company’s lot, we were on our way north the following morning. We first stopped for groceries for the week, and then drove up to Wasilla. Wasilla is famous for two things, Sarah Palin and the Iditarod Headquarters. Having always been a huge fan of sled dogs and the Iditarod race, we stopped by the headquarters for a quick visit. It wasn’t terribly exciting, but I just love those dogs.

From there we continued north on the George Parks Highway, eventually taking a small detour to the town of Talkeetna. This tiny place is famous for their flightseeing plane trips up to Denali and also for dropping off many of the climbers up Mt. McKinely. We didn’t take one of these trips, as neither one of us are too found of those small planes. However we did stop for some lunch at a great little restaurant called Mountain High Pizza Pie.

From there we continued up the highway toward Denali National Park. Once we arrived, and after our first shockingly high gas fill-up, we quickly checked in and picked up all of our tickets from the headquarters. From there we were allowed to drive about thirty miles into the park in our RV to the Teklanika campground. Normally you can only drive private vehicles the first fifteen miles, but we had a special pass to get into the campground we reserved. Once at the campsite, we would have to rely on the parks shuttle system to get around, just as every other visitor has to.

Before we could even make it the first fifteen miles, we spotted a group of moose just off the side of the road. The group consisted of one male bull moose and five females. We stopped the RV and walked down the road toward them to get many great shots of these surprisingly large animals. We’ve seen a couple of moose in Rocky Mountain National Park before, but never this close. It was a great start to wildlife sightseeing that would occur over the next couple of days.

The rest of the drive was uneventful. We eventually made it to the campground an hour after entering the park, as the speed limit is 35 mph. Once we setup our camp, we quickly got some rest as we had reservations on the first shuttle bus further into the park for the next morning.

Talkeetna on Dwellable

I had over four hours of meetings today at the office. I’m hoping that tomorrow I can settle back into my normal routine and hopefully get some real photos of our trip posted. Below are a few photos I took on the iPhone throughout the trip.

Cool mountains as seen from the plane.

Kim on the cold but awesome tour of Kenai Fjords National Park.

Tasting all of the brews at St. Elias Brewing Company.

Kim chilling at our campsite on the Homer Spit.

As I’ve mentioned multiple times before, Kim and I traveled to Alaska over the past week or so. This marks the 41st state I’ve visited. Originally I planned to visit all 50 stats before turning 30, but I don’t think that will happen as I’m running out of time. I may have to borrow another year to hit the remaining nine states, though some will be visited in already planned trips next year. Since returning to Denver early yesterday I’ve been playing catchup with work, emails, blogs, etc. Many of you may have expected pictures to be posted today, but that will have to wait as I’ve only started to look through the 1,000+ photos from our trip. I will likely post them in a series of posts, making it more manageable, just as I did with all of our honeymoon pictures. I will say that I’ve seen some great pictures in what I’ve flipped through so far, so please stay tuned. I’ll also recap all of our adventures from the trip with the pictures.

Our Alaskan vacation is so close I can taste it! Kim and I will celebrate our one year wedding anniversary on Sunday with a trip way up north starting in Anchorage. We won’t arrive until fairly late on Sunday night, but we have arranged for an RV for the remainder of the week plus vacation. Our first destination will be up to Denali National Park where we will stay three nights in the Teklanika campground. From there, we will be driving back through Anchorage on our way down to the Kenai Peninsula, where we will likely spend the remainder of our trip. The rest of our itinerary is fairly open, so we can do as we please with the remaining time that we have. We won’t be back in Denver until next Monday morning. Don’t expect any updates, as I’m not sure what service will be like, but I will do my best to try.

Today I official launched a website for my father-in-law’s business, Queen City Financial Advisors. I’ve been working hard on the site for the past few months and I think the results turned out great! Kim’s uncle, Mike, also helped with some of the logo design and site layout. It was fun to work with such a creative mind. We still have a few more pages to add, but the bulk of the content is all there. I’ve been busy getting the domain names pointing over to my server, and also getting the website submitted to Google for indexing. Let me know what you think…

Over the weekend Kim drug me out of the house to play a round of golf. We decided to play nine holes on the West Course at the Kennedy Golf Course. Upon arrival we were paired up with two others and headed off to the first hole. My first drive was perfectly down the middle, though not extremely far. I remembered to try not to kill the ball and that it might actually go straight. Kim also hit the ball well. I guess all of those golf outings she attends each summer really do help.

Though our drives continued to be mostly good, our second shots really suffered. I discovered that I still can’t hit the three wood straight. Kim also struggled with her fairway and rough shots. Fortunately the other two we were playing with also had their own problems from this range. Once we all finally made it onto the green, we then remembered how frustrating putting can be. I don’t think I had more than a triple putt, but I recall some others having four or more putts.

Despite all of the aggravation, I tried to keep the profanity and club throwing to a minimum. I tried to remember that it was just a game, and actually came away from it all having a fairly decent time. I would like to try playing at City Park sometime soon, though it may have to wait until next summer.

For years after high school, my friends and I would head out to Riverbend Music Center in Cincinnati to see Poison every summer. That trend ended in 2002 after we saw the band perform at the same spot for three straight years. That was until last night when Kim and I headed down to Fiddler’s Green to see them open up for another old favorite band of mine, Def Leppard. Cheap Trick was also playing the show, but we didn’t arrive early enough to see them play. In fact we walked in after Poison had already taken the stage.

I must say that even after seven years have passed, Poison can still put on a heck of a show. Bret Michaels can still command a crowd, even if his voice is fading slightly. And the rest of the band still seems to be on top of their game. Their show isn’t overly flashy, but there is still a nice light show and even some blasts of fire from time to time.

After Poison wrapped up their set, Def Leppard took the stage after a rather lengthy set change. During the break I was amazed to see the size of the set that was being constructed on stage. When complete, there were three levels to the setup, complete with video screens along the front of each level and back behind the entire set. It was quite a difference from what Poison just had up on stage.

Def Leppard came out rocking, but I quickly noticed that singer Joe Elliott is losing his voice even more than Poison’s frontman. He blasts his way through the start of most songs, but when the high notes come, he just can’t sing like he used to. However, the rest of the band sounded just as good as I remembered. This was my first time seeing the band perform live, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. After a quick Google search it seems like my opinion is shared by many others. They are probably worth seeing once, but I doubt I’d put effort into seeing them again.

I finally took a trip to the movie theaters to see The Hangover on Saturday evening. The way that everyone around me was constantly talking about it weeks ago, I figured I was the last one in the world to see it. However, the theater had a decent sized crowd. So unless these folks were watching it for the second or third time, I wasn’t alone in my lateness.

Kim and I took our bikes over towards Cherry Creek, and after a nice patio lunch at the Cherry Cricket, we decided to catch the last matinee showing for the day. Fortunately our lunch came with a few beers as well, so I felt we were in the right state of mind for a good funny movie. And The Hangover did not disappoint either of us. I won’t go into any detail of the movie, since most have already seen it, but I would recommend it just as many others before me have. I actually hope to see it again sometime in the future, which I don’t say too often.

After the movie was over, we had plenty of time left in the evening so we stopped by a redbox on the way home to rent another. With a line forming behind us, we quickly decided on I Love You, Man, hoping to continue the laughs from before. Though not as funny as our first choice in the day, there were plenty of laughs watching the main character in his search for a best man for his upcoming wedding. If you haven’t seen this one, it’s worth the dollar rental from redbox, or free rental.