Aspen 2012 - The Rest of the Story

We had a great weekend, with 4 planned concerts and a bonus one as well (more about that later).

The Friday and Saturday night Tribute concerts were both fabulous. Friday I was not sure how they could top the prior one where the band members spoke about John, but it did, in a different way. Great songs, super musicians, and a great time.

Aspen had their first winter storm watch out from Friday evening until Saturday noon and our Saturday morning concert was 12 miles up a mountain road so we got up early. The storm turned out to be a dud, leaving a little snow at the higher altitudes. We had dry roads that morning and arrived quite early. We sat at a table with Mary’s JD friends (three of which were with us on our British Isles cruise) and enjoyed an excellent trout dinner and good entertainment.

That evening we had the last Tribute concert. Last in more ways than one since the Wheeler Opera House is being renovated next fall and the guy who did such a great job of producing it the last 3 years has said “never again”. So the future of this very special week is in doubt and emotions ran very high during the concert for both the performers and attendees. But that also served to make it a very energetic and memorable show. Several performers used their final song to pay tribute to John and to the fans who have come to these shows and singer Mollie Weaver got so choked up during her very emotional song that she could not continue. The consummate gentleman, singer Denny Brooks, stepped out, hugged her and they danced for the rest of the song. I don’t think there was a dry eye in the audience. Later on Pete Huttlinger gave her a retry and she sang it beautifully.

Sunday morning brought a church service/concert, followed by a trip to Windstar, a conservation foundation which John started that is closing down and merging with a similar organization, then back to the Aspen Chapel for the Chris, Pete, and Mack show. What a concert that was!!!!!!!!!! The guys sang their own songs, both familiar and new, and had great on stage chemistry. Their musical styles blend so well together that it was a treat to watch them interact and perform.

Since it was now supper time, we headed to Woody Creek for our traditional visit. This is a small, out of the way bar that John frequented. While we were there, the owner called out "is there a Mary Schuut here? Some guy with a foreign accent want to talk to her." Mary stood up and they brought the phone over. It was a singer named John Adams! He had a concert that evening and heard that Mary, who had gone in the past, had not bought tickets so he called to tell her two were being held for us! If you get a call from the performer and 2 free tickets, how could we turn that down? So after finishing our burgers and beer, we head back to Aspen and then to the John Adams concert. This was just one of the very special moments Mary had this time (she always has at least one) but this time she had several.

Today we went to "Goodbye Again", a closing ceremony for the week's festivities at the JD Sanctuary, then headed back to Denver via Independence Pass on a most clear, crisp, and beautiful day under a cloudless, azure blue sky.

We are now back in Denver waiting for our early morning flight tomorrow. It’s been a great trip, but time to get back to the real world (with the Tigers leading the Yankees 2-0 and looking to wrap up the ALCS in Detroit this week).

Aspen 2012 Part I

Mary and I are enjoying our time in Aspen. Great concerts, good weather, and great companionship! Our trip out here on Tuesday was uneventful. Our plane trip was on schedule and we had a beautiful drive to Glenwood Springs. We checked in and headed to the Hot Springs for a relaxing dip. The pool was great and very relaxing. Wednesday morning we headed to Aspen for Meet and Great. When we arrived we also saw the expanded JD Sanctuary which was under construction last fall. It is amazing and very large, much larger than the original JD sanctuary. This picture only shows a small part of the new section. At Meet and Greet we met up with many friends as the traditional 3 openings songs were performed by a team of 8 guitars. We went to a noon concert, checked into the Limelight Hotel, bought groceries and went to an evening concert.

Thursday was a beautiful day with 2 more concerts and a trip to the Maroon Bells where I got this fabulous reflection shot! The lake level was very low, over a foot down from last year. I guess this is a symptom of the drought they experienced this past summer. There is a beaver lodge at the far end of the lake and this year, it was totally out of the water! I could even walk right up to it this year (which was kinda cool). As we walked back, the light breeze stopped again and I was able to get a few more cool reflection shots. Friday was our busy concert day, with 4 concerts plus a special treat - riding a chair lift part way up Aspen Mountain! We went to the chair lift first thing in the morning, then headed to our first concert. While the first three concerts were very good, the evening concert was absolutely fabulous! The JD band members told a short story about John then sang one of their favorite songs. Mary and I came back to our room on a spectacular high.

Corinth

Today we visited the ancient city of Corinth where St Paul founded a church, wrote two letters to the Thessalonians and later wrote to letters to the church at Corinth to address various issues that were causing trouble in this congregation.

Our first stop was at the Corinth Canal. This 225' deep cut was complete in 1893, even though it was first proposed in the 4th century BC and several Roman emperors also drew up plans to build it. While an impressive feat of engineering, it is mostly useless today due to it's small size.

Next we visited the ruins of the ancient seaport on the Aegean Sea which Paul used during his journeys. Not much is left, but I found it quite interesting. Corinth is located on an isthmus and was a large trading city. Goods would arrive at either the Aegean Sea or Corinthian Sea port, be traded, and shipped out the other port. A stone causeway was also in use for a while to portage entire ships across the isthmus, but I'm guessing it was not used very much.

This fully excavated street dates back to the time of St Paul so he most likely walked this very street as it led to a stage where many speeches were given.

We were both amazed at the large size of the ruins of the ancient city of Corinth. They are only partially excavated and much work remains. Work on some sections is much father along than others as you can see. Also a few buildings are being rebuilt from fallen pieces.

With so much of the ancient ruins reasonably intact, both Mary and I had a strong sense of history during our visit.

Tomorrow we fly back to Detroit and resume normal life. I'm sure it will take a few dys to get acclimated, but that is how it goes. Even our visit to Venice seems like it was so very long ago and that was just 2 weeks ago. This has been a wonderful trip and I hope you have enjoyed these posts as much as I have enjoyed writing them.

Departing is such sweet sorrow...

Today we had to leave the Pacific Princess. We had a very nice cruise but, unfortunately, all good things do come to a close. It was a "trip of a lifetime" for both of us, seeing things that, a few years ago, we never thought we would see. We appreciated the Princess' Elite level departure lounge since we delayed our departure until 9:00. Our driver was waiting for us as we left the terminal. It was neat seeing our names on one of those placards the drivers hold up.

Last Friday we celebrated our anniversary on board. Princess even scheduled a formal night for us to help celebrate the occasion! They served lobster and king prawns for the main course and Mary's favorite "Floating Islands" for dessert. While we're speaking about food, the Sail Away dinner last night featured Baked Alaska for dessert with the traditional waiter parade around the dining room. It was a fitting way to end our cruise dinners.

Today we are relaxing at our Athens hotel. We can see the Parthenon from our room and our hotel has a rooftop viewing area where you can take great pictures. We talked about taking the Hop on/Hop off around the city just to tour it, but it's election day in Greece and everything is closed except for hotels and restaurants. And being quite hot and sunny it would be quite uncomfortable on the open top of one of those busses so we decide to skip it.

Ephesus

We arrived in Turkey this morning, docking in Kusadasi, which is a short bus ride away from Ephesus. Ephesus used to be on the seacoast, but over time, the sea was pushed back by silt from a river. We had a very knowledgeable tour guide who normally leads 12-14 days tours focused on the journeys of St Paul since he spent several years in this area, known as Asia Minor in the New Testament.

Our first of three stops was the house where Mary, mother of Jesus, lived in Ephesus. John brought her here when he moved to this area between 37 and 48 A.D. to avoid persecution in Israel. It is a small house, but what puzzled us is that it is very high on a hill so it was a very long walk to the city and back. Maybe Mary was able to ride an animal to and from the city.

We walked the length of the recovered portion of the ancient city of Ephesus, about 1 mile, but fortunately it was all downhill. The restoration efforts continue, but most of the cost is not in excavating, but in preserving what has been excavated. You can see how steep the marble street is in this picture. (The two story building at the end is the restored facade of the LIbrary.) This is the original street so we can be pretty certain that St Paul walked this street.

One amazing thing is that this city had running water in all the buildings as well as a sewer system. They build a 25 mile aqueduct to bring water to a large cistern building, then ran pipes from there to the buildings. One large street has a 6x8' sewer underneath it that remains operational today.

Also pictured is the great amphitheater that could seat over 50,000 people. There were also several smaller amphitheaters in town, one of which could "only" seat 2500 people. It's also pretty certain that St Paul preached here during the three years he lived here. Our guide mentioned how they recently used it for a concert and verified the near perfect acoustics. Both Mary and I had a much greater sense of history in visiting Ephesus than in Jerusalem and Bethlehem.

Our last stop was St John's Basilica. This is a 6th century church built over the tomb of St John the Apostle. It was destroyed in a severe earthquake around 1365 and never rebuilt. Restoration efforts started in the 1920's. They have a scale model on display (see picture) so you can appreciate how large it was when originally constructed.

Relaxing on the Ship

Today you are getting several random photos of interest. The first shows how pilots and other inspectors get on board the ship as we approach a port. The ship is met by a small craft (small being a relative term!) that pulls alongside. The ship drops a wooden ladder down from deck 3 and the people climb on board. It's a very interesting process to watch.

Yesterday we had an Arabian dance team on board for a show while we were in Alexandria. A guy was singing in Arabic (Egyptian?) so we had no idea what words he was singing, but the dancers were pretty good and we got to see our first "belly dance". It must take a lot of practice for the belly dancers to get their hips moving like that.

Today was the cooking demonstration with the head chef and Maitre D. They did a nice job, preparing an appetizer, pasta dish and Black Forest for dessert. They were selling a recipe book, but we did not buy one. After the demonstration we had a galley tour that was interesting as well. It's on two levels and has an escalator for bringing the food to the dining room.

We had a Chef's Special Buffet for lunch today. The food was excellent and the desserts even better! Delicious!

Egypt

We had a very long excursion in Egypt, mostly due to the 3-4 hour bus ride each way. {Nile} We docked in Port Said and had a police escort for our convoy of busses both ways. That delayed our return by a good half hour since we had to wait for the busses that visited the Egyptian Museum.

On the way we crossed the Nile river in downtown Cairo. It was split into two branches where we crossed it. It was beautiful and clean as it has been since the Aswan Dam cut off the periodic floods and most of the silt.

Our first stop was the Pyramids. It was hot, dry, and covered with very aggressive vendors. We had a few minutes to walk around and get pictures. It was somewhat amazing to see how close the city comes to the Pyramids. On our way there, we got several pictures of the Pyramids, shot between apartment buildings.

We paid for our pictures to be taken on a camel which was quite a trip. You really have to leave back when that camel stands up or you'll go over its neck! They are are quite tall so you are sitting quite a ways off the ground when you are on one.

Next we drove a short distance to the Sphinx. Our guide said the Sphinx was probably an afterthought that they carved our of an area of stone they could not use for the pyramid blocks. It was quite a bit smaller than I imagined.

We had one more stop to see the Step Pyramid. This is the oldest of the Pyramids and he first to have ore than one level of stonework. The area buildings contained the first known stone archway. It dates back 4750 years to before the time of Abraham.

After the mandatory shopping stop, we headed back for our ship, arriving more than a half hour *past* the all-aboard time. Fortunately we were near the front of the bus convoy so we were able to get to the buffet ahead of most of the people since over 80% of the passengers returned in our convoy.

We are skipping an Alexandria excursion as nothing caught our interest and, after three full days of on-land tours, we are ready for a quiet, relaxing day before another day at sea as we head to Ephesus.

Preliminary Egypt Post

Preliminary Egypt No long entry tonight. We had a very long day today since we had to be ready for our excursion by 6:15 am and did not get back on the ship until 8:15 pm.

Teaser Photo:

Jerusalem and Bethlehem

We had our second day in Israel today, this time in the central part of the country as we visited Jerusalem and Bethlehem.

Our first stop of the day was the Mount of Olives where we had a beautiful view of the Temple Mount area, dominated by the Dome of the Rock from across the brook of Kidron. As you can see we had a beautiful clear day. You could see the entire Old City from here. It was hard to stop taking pictures as the view was so spectacular.

Next we drove down into the Kidron Valley to visit the Garden of Gethsemane. While very impressive to be in this garden, the formal nature of it, with stone paths and evenly spaced, ancient olive trees did not leave me with a strong feeling of this being a place where Jesus visited.

Next door is the Church of the Agony which contains the place where Jesus prayed the night before He was crucified. The front of this church was very impressive, with the four pillars topped by statues of the four Gospel writers, each holding an open book to their passage of this event' and topped by a beautiful mural.

After this we headed into the Old City of Jerusalem. to see the Temple Mount close up as well as visit the Wailing Wall. I prayed Psalms 46 and 95 at the wall. The women's side is much smaller than the mens' side, yet had about as many people. Mary said it was 3-4 people deep so she, unfortunately, could not get very close to the wall.

Next up, we continued our walk across the Old City by walking up the Via Dolorosa, the path where Jesus walked to his crucifixion. As with the Garden of Gethsemane, the tightly packed vendors calling out for your business made it hard to visualize the significance of walking this path.

We took the Via Dolorosa to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher which contains the site of Jesus' crucifixion as well as His tomb. It's a little hard to believe that they have the exact spot of His crucifixion, down to preserving the hole the cross made in the ground, but that's the claim. People were also venerating a rock slab where His body was supposedly laid to be prepared for burial. After this we headed out the Joppa gate for a bus ride to a buffet lunch in a kibbutz and on to Bethlehem.

Bethlehem is in Palestinian controlled territory so we had to pass through a double checkpoint and through "the wall" (which is a result of the 1994 peace accord) to see it. That was kinda eerie - like passing into another country. The "wall" came about to stop suicide bombers who were targeting civilians in supermarkets and pubic areas. It's a 12-15 foot high cement wall that marks the border of Palestinian controlled territory. According to our guide, once it was finished in 2003, all suicide bombings have stopped so it has been effective.

We only had one stop in Bethlehem, at the Church of the Nativity. I found it quite humorous that there are actually three churches on this site. A Greek Orthodox that sits on top of the famous grotto is in the middle, with a Roman Catholic church on one side and an Anglican church on the other. Due to a pending worship service, we were not able to visit the actual grotto, but we were able to visit the another part of the same cave under the Roman Catholic church. That area had several smaller rooms carved out, one of which commemorated the Blood of the Innocents. The Greek Orthodox church is also the oldest church in the Middle East since it was not destroyed in the 6th century along with the other churches since it contained an image of the three wise men.

That brought today to a close. On to Egypt and the Pyramids tomorrow!

First Day in Israel

Wow, what a day!! We saw so much that it's hard to describe it here. But before i go on let me freely admit that none of the sites we visited can be conclusively proven to be accurate, but having said that there is considerable historical evidence that most are realistic.

Pictures listed from top to bottom: Church of the Annunciation, Doors of Church showing life of Jesus, Sea of Galilee, Altar where Feeding of 5000 occurred, and Church of Beatitudes.

After landing at Haifa, we boarded our bus (with a very verbose tour guide!) and headed out. After passing Mount Carmel (Remember Ezekiel and the prophets of Baal?) and another mount which was possibly the site of the Transfiguration, we headed out to: - Church of the Annunciation in Nazareth

- Sea of Galilee

- Church of the Multiplication (Loaves and Fishes)

- Peter's House in Capernum (first Christian house church)

- Site of the Capernum Synagogue where Jesus preached

- Church of the Beatitudes

- Baptism of Christ in Jordan

All in all a very busy day with temperatures in the high 90's and hitting 100 for most of the afternoon. Jesus spent much of his ministry in this area and we visited many relevant sites. The church of the Annunciation had large bronze doors the depicted the life of Jesus. Look at the picture and start in the top left, go down the left side and up the right side to view this depiction. Inside was a cave where Gabriel appear to Mary had been excavated. The church itself was quite new and the walls contained images of Madonna given by many countries.

Seeing the Sea of Galilee was quite amazing. Both Mary and I took way to many pictures of this body of water, but none could really capture the sight very well.

The Church of the Multiplication was quite interesting. It honors the miracle of Feeding of the 5000 using 5 loaves and 3 fishes. I did not know the site of this miracle was known, but there was an altar over the rock where it reportedly happened. It was a very beautiful church and quite elegant in its simplicity.

Our next stop was Capernum and the site of Peter's House which was an early house church back before Christianity was legal. It was quite near Capernum's synagogue where Jesus often preached during his ministry.

Outside of this beautiful octagonal church (one side for each Beatitude) the guide asked for a volunteer to read Matthew 5 and I spoke up! It was quite moving to read that passage on that site.

Our last stop of the day was the Jordan River. This is the reported site where John the Baptist baptized Jesus. There were several baptisms going on while we were there, but we walked down another staircase to the river. I took my shoes off and stood in the river on a lower step while Mary just reached down and scooped up some water. It was amazing to see the Jordan River after reading about it so much in the Bible.

So that was our day. Tomorrow is Jerusalem and Bethlehem which should be equally moving.

Second Day at Sea

Today we are traveling several hundred miles from Patmos to Haifa, Israel. The long distance makes you appreciate how long it took Paul, Barnabas and others to travel around this area.

Today they had a Mexican theme for the buffet lunch. We had our main course at the Grill (cheeseburgers and bratwurst) then headed into the buffet for deep fried vegetables and tacos before hitting up the dessert bar. Yes, the desserts were as delicious as they look!

We are appreciating being on a small ship for this cruise. Our cabin is mid-ship on Deck 7 so we only have to go 2 decks down for the shops, dining room, shows, and ship services and up two decks up for the Pool, buffet, track and fitness zone. Also the distance to either the front or back elevators is fairly short (as opposed to the large ships which are much longer and have 4 banks of elevators. Even the elevator service seems very swift with hardly any wait time. Another benefit is the Passenger Services and Cruise Excursion desks have virtually no lines. I think I had 1 person in front of me once, but most times I walk up and talk to a person right away.

We took our third set of sunset pictures tonight. Tonight's were directly behind the ship almost right over the wake. We have been blessed with beautiful sunsets nearly every evening.

Patmos

After a leisurely morning we had a quick lunch and caught our 12:15 excursion to visit Patmos. Here is an early view of the island with the monastery on top of the highest point. The Apostle John was exiled here from 95 to 97 A.D. and during that time wrote the last book of the Bible - The Revelation of St John.

The Patmos harbor is very beautiful as you can see from this picture, featuring that classic Mediterranean Blue and white buildings

Our first stop after tendering to the town was the monastery. No pictures were allowed inside this beautiful, traditional Greek Orthodox church. The active monastery has a very nice museum as well as one of the largest libraries of ancient documents in the area. A 5th century copy of the Gospel of Mark was on display in the museum along with a large number of religious artifacts.

Next we visited the main attraction - the grotto of St John. Again, no pictures were allowed. 8-( This is a mosaic over the entrance depicting John with his young scribe. Seeing it was very moving - as long as you tuned out most of the talk from the tour guide which was heavily loaded with Greek Orthodox theology. John used the cave as a place to pray, which he was doing when the Revelation was given. The cave has a beautiful view of the sea that is now enclosed in a building. They had roped off the place where the Apostle John sat, as well as the places where he rested his head and saw the visions. The guide said that an earthquake struck after the initial vision and generated three cracks in the shape of an equilateral triangle - the symbol of the Trinity.

So now we are back on board ship and about to get ready for dinner. The weather has been beautiful - sunny with temperatures in the upper 70's to low 80's. Another day at sea tomorrow as we head to Israel!

First Day at Sea

I must start with commenting on how smooth the water is so far. We have had glass-smooth seas every day so far. At first I thought this was because we were in the Adriatic Sea which is somewhat protected. But now we are past the boot of Italy and the seas remain dead calm.

This is a typical day at sea for us. Mary went to a jewelry show this morning while I played shuffleboard. Pub Lunch is up next, followed by water volleyball and carpet bowling for me. I am very disappointed that there is no bridge play on this cruise - I always look forward to playing bridge in person as opposed on online. I voiced my disappointment to the Cruise Director. So now they have scheduled "Open Bridge Play" for tomorrow morning since we don't arrive at Patmos until noon.

Tonight the show is "MoTown" so we are looking forward to that.

Dubrovnik, Croatia

We had a nice relaxing day today with a fairly low key excursion down the coast and saw a very nice folk dance show.

The day started at sea, scheduled to arrive at noon. One thing we've learned about our captain, after just a few days, is that he likes to be early. We were scheduled to depart Venice at 11:00 pm, but when we went on deck for the 10:45 Cast Away party, we saw the ship was already underway! Yesterday we left Ravenna about 20 minutes early so today we arrived about 30 minutes early. The seamanship today was quite amazing and I now understand why larger ships have to tender into this port. The pilot had to bring the ship to a halt, then do a complete 180 degree rotation before backing about 200 yards into our dock location. It was a beautiful thing to watch. True to form, while all passengers were scheduled to be back on board by 6:30 for a 7:00 pm departure, but since they were all back early, we actually left at 6:28!

We did not know what to expect today and were pleasantly surprised by the area, being very much a resort town. Here is a nice overview of the Old Town of Dubrovnik, showing the old harbor and fortress walls. This is very old city and competed with Venice as a major maritime capital, but was able to remain an independent city-state until finally conquered by Napoleon. Of course our guide gave a full history of the split up of Yugoslavia and subsequent 1991 - 1995 civil war. Later we were driven to the picturesque resort town of Cavtat for an hour of sightseeing and shopping. Along the main street virtually every other business was a cafe. After walking around and seeing two churches, Mary and I did stop for some gelatto before catching the bus back to Dubrovnik where we watched a folkloric dance show. Lastly, tonight we had a beautiful sunset. Even the ship videographer / photographer was out taking pictures of it!

Tomorrow is a day at sea so there may not be a blog post.