Holy Lands Cruise - Why we are on it.

Today was a sea day which is our recovery day from our travels. We both slept great last night - a solid 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep! 

Our lectures started today. The first was by Rev Phillip Ruge-Jones and his wife, Laurie.  They specialize in dramatically telling Bible stories.  Laurie told the story of the conversion of Paul from Acts 9, then Phillip lead a discussion about it and asked for our reactions.   Later in the cruise he plans to tell stories from the Gospel of Mark. 

At 2 pm, Dr Paul L. Maier gave his first lecture.  Dr Maier is a professor emeritus, having taught 50 years at Western Michigan University, and is the real reason we are on this cruise.  His expertise in Biblical archeology and recommendations from friends who had toured Israel with him convinced us to sign up.  He lectured for 55 minutes (without any notes) about how visiting Biblical sites gives a different perspective on Bible stories and how current archeological findings are supporting more and more of the Bible. When he started to wrap up I checked the time and could not believe nearly an hour had passed.

Travel wise, it was vey windy and stormy today.  The highlight was when we passed through the Straits of Messina, a narrow waterway that separates mainland Italy from the island of Sicily.  Having never seen this island, we enjoyed being so close. 

This evening after dinner with other travelers in our group, we met two of the ships' officers.  The staff captain and maitre'd were glad to pose with our travel animal, who came to us for great-nephew Jacob Boyer's 2nd grade class' geography project.  The little duck is on his way to becoming well-traveled indeed!

Travel day for Holy Lands Cruise

I started writing this post early and will finish later.  It's currently Tuesday morning at 8:00 am.  Mary and I are waiting in the Rome airport for our bus to head to the Celebrity Constellation.


 Our fights were OK, with a late departure from Detroit due to a traffic hold, and an early arrival in Rome due to good tail winds.  Mary got some nice pictures of Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty as we landed at Newark.
Upon arriving in Rome I got an email from Celebrity that as of 10:30 pm yesterday our ship was at a port about 200 miles away and unable to leave due to high winds, so it’s arrival is delayed as is our boarding time.  (We found out this evening that it actually hit a Costa ship after breaking its moorings!)  On the plus side, this means our bus trip to the port will include a longer sightseeing tour!  Mary and I both feel bad about the people disembarking today as this may upset their travel plans.  We have another hour to wait since our tour person will be here at 9:00 am to get us on our busses.  More to come from our tour and eventual arrival at our cruise ship!

Update at 8 pm:

Well our day got even more interesting. Due to the late arrival of our ship, our EO tour guide gave us 3 hours of free time to wander around the Vatican.  Since we had to buy lunch and the line to get into get in St. Peter's Basilica was 2 hours long so that was not an option, that left us with little to do except visit the souvenir shops and walk around St Peter's Square (click picture to enlarge it). We met our tour guide at 2:30 pm, walked to our bus, and headed for the ship at Civitavecchia.  I was able to sleep for over an hour on the bus ride, which helped a lot.  When we arrived at the port at 4:30, we were issued a boarding number, ushered into an unheated building, and each given a bottle of water and a package of plain saltine crackers.  Reportedly our ship did not arrive until 3pm so they were taking passengers off while embarking new ones!  After a short wait our number was called and we were able to board the ship. At least our room was ready when we got on board.

After unpacking our carry-ons we headed for the buffet for dinner.  Next up is a muster drill at 8:15, followed by a meeting of our tour group at 9:00 and sail away at 10:00. Since we've had very little sleep since 7:30AM Detroit time yesterday I think we might miss the sail away party.
More to come about the ship tomorrow as we have a sea day and being a cruise line that's new to us, are just starting to learn where things are. 

Heading Home

The forecast was sunny but c-c-cold for Independence Pass today (it was 13 in Aspen at 8 am!) so we started our journey home after the Goodbye Again (the last JD event each year) when the temperature in Aspen had reached a balmy 25.
As a side note, we have seen quite a few deer this trip.  We saw 4 coming back from Snowmass Chapel Sunday morning, a doe and two fawns on the road to the Maroon Bells, and Mary spotted another deer while coming back from The Grottos on Saturday.  No bear sightings this year, but we saw a news article saying that a mom and 3 cubs entered a shopping mall in Snowmass via an automatic door.  I bet that made a few people freak out!

The road to Independence Pass was a bit icy, but very passable with very little traffic.  The car only slipped a few times which got a noticeable reaction from my passenger.  The rest of the time she was busy taking dozens of photos as it was absolutely beautiful with the snow.  Since it was a chilly 13 degrees, we only got out for a few minutes at the Pass to take pictures there.  Once across the pass, the road was dry and it was easy to drive down the other side to Leadville for our traditional lunch at the Golden Burro.

We stopped at the Red Rocks trading post to visit the John Denver Spirit statue.   It was nice to see it again.

This is probably my last post for this trip since tomorrow is just our flight home.  Thank you for your comments and replies.  I'm glad you enjoyed these posts. 

Aspen Day 6

After a concert filled yesterday, only one concert was scheduled for today - the Cookhouse event.  Mary and I went to church at Snowmass Chapel, then headed for the Cookhouse.  It was snowing lightly and a bit below freezing but in general the roads were OK.  Mary was able to take this picture of the snow by shooting between the wipers' movement.

We were able to get a good table at the Cookhouse and enjoyed the music and great food.  Chris Collins brought the keyboard and strings player from his band and played several numbers while people arrived and settled in.  When Ellen Stapenhorst arrived, she joined us at our table.  It kept snowing the whole time we were there, and while that was pretty, we could not see the mountains, which was a disappointment. 

After a delicious trout and chicken lunch, Ellen sang a few songs (including Heart to Heart, for Mary!) before singing accompaniment to Chris on a few more.  It made for a very enjoyable and entertaining afternoon. The trip back down the mountain was uneventful in the snow and freezing temperatures. 

We went to the sing-along tonight.  It was one of the better ones with lots of singing, and few breaks.  The lead musicians in Aspen Meadow band showed up and Jake Love sang Yellowstone. Reportedly the hotel asked that the sing-along end by 10:00, but it's after that and still going strong.   It's hard to get a group like that to stop!
Due to the cold temperatures, Goodbye Again on Monday morning has been moved inside.  We plan to head across Independence Pass and on to Golden tomorrow after attending that event.

Aspen Day 5 Evening

The Aspen Meadows concert today was quite a surprise!  It was unlike any of their prior concerts which had featured Jake Love as the lead singer.  For this concert, Jake only sang a couple of songs, and the other band members each sang one or more.  Most of the songs were classic rock, but there was also Motown, Frank Sinatra, and even show tunes!  Overall it was very upbeat with lots of dancing in the aisles.

The evening tribute concert was Chris Collins and the Boulder Canyon Band.  The band had a couple of new members, on piano and fiddle/strings.  It was unusual to see Mark Nelson (aka Button Boy) playing on a regular drum set rather than his percussion machine.  His Eagle and Hawk was spectacular as usual.  The concert was was very well attended - it looked like a sell-out. Boulder Canyon played many of the classics and wrapped up with Calypso as an encore.

All in all it was a very good day.  1-3" of snow is forecast for tomorrow, with our only scheduled activities being attending church at Snowmass Chapel and then driving into the mountains for the Cookhouse luncheon and concert. 

Aspen Day 5 afternoon

This an early post focusing on the Singer-Song writer event held that noon today.

Mary and I had a nice morning, driving toward Independence Pass, but stopping at The Grotto.  We visited this last year, but this year we remembered to take the “easy path”.  There was not much water running over the falls, but they were still nice to see.  We were able to view them from several angles. On our return down the path we paused to enjoy the quiet and calm of the stream.  That made for a very relaxing experience.

The singer-song writer concert was fabulous!  There were four participants, Billy Jacobs,  Ron Matthews, Ellen Staplehorst, and Mark Cormican (pictured starting top left).  They took turns singing, and the songs were all ones they had written; most were introduced with a background of how the song came about. Mary and I have attended this event the last two years and do not plan to miss it in the future.  Overall we found it very inspiring and enlightening.

We have two more concerts today, Aspen Meadow at 4 pm and  Chris Collin’s Boulder Canyon tribute event at the Wheeler tonight.  More to come about those events. 

Aspen Day 4

Today was a full and busy day.  After breakfast Mary and I headed to the Maroon Bells.  By the time we arrived, the clouds had cleared and we had a beautiful, sunny day.  The drive to the Bells was beautiful with the snow hanging on the trees.  Many aspens were still green while others had golden leaves.  Evidently a few hundred other people also thought today would be a great day to drive out there since we had to park on the road leading to the parking lot.  I estimate that a foot of snow had fallen which made for great pictures.  As we have in the past, we walked to the far end of the lake then headed back toward our car.

Next we headed to Woody Creek Tavern for lunch.  It was a favorite of John Denver's, and they have great burgers there.  After lunch we took the long way back to Aspen, past the road to Starwood where John lived, and Annie's former house.  It was nice seeing that scenery again.

The late afternoon concert was given by Dave Stratford.  It was his first solo concert at Aspen, and he put on an excellent two hour show consisting of mostly John Denver music with a few of his own mixed in.  He even gave out a complementary sampler CD.  Dave lives in southeast Michigan so we hope to hear him sing again during the coming year.

The highlight of the day was seeing the movie Oh God on the big screen at the Wheeler Opera house. I had not seen it for quite a while, and both Mary and I found it very enjoyable.  After the movie we headed to Jim Salestrom's Memories of John presentation.  (Jim was a former band member of John's.)  He told some great stories about his time with John, and sang songs as well.  It was great to hear some new stories and hear his insight into how John Denver treated his band members and supporting crew.
Each day has been better than the one before and tomorrow should continue that trend.

Aspen, Day 2

Our day started by driving from Glenwood Springs to Aspen. Weather was good until we got past Basalt where the snow started - and kept snowing the rest of the way to Aspen. We did arrive by 9:45, in time for the Meet and Greet which was held in the Mountain Chalet lobby due to the bad weather. It was nice to see snow on Aspen Mountain.

We are staying at the Mountain Chalet this year - first time for us. We have a very nice room with a balcony that overlooks the pool. The only possible downside is that is it is directly over the lobby where the nightly sing-alongs are held. Then again, if we go to bed before they finish, what better way to go to sleep than to some JD songs?

By late morning the sun came out and it turned into a beautiful day! After getting checked into the Mountain Chalet, we had lunch, and then Mary and I headed to the JD Sanctuary. It was a nice walk and while there we met a couple who were first timers, and enjoyed talking to them. We were surprised to find several rocks at the Sanctuary with apparently new inscriptions on them - at least we did not recall seeing them before. One was a new John Denver quote in the extended Sanctuary.

The only concert today was an Aspen Meadow concert.  Jake Love, their lead singer, and band played a series of popular John Denver songs in chronological order, from 1969 to 1993. It was great way to kick off the week.
After that we headed to supper at Zane’s with Don Larson. Now we are headed to the sing-along in the Mountain Chalet Lobby.

Heading to Aspen

Today was our travel day to Aspen for the annual John Denver week.  It’s been a long day, but in the end all worked out.
Our flight from Detroit to Chicago was delayed due to a minor mechanical issue, and then we were 50 minutes late leaving Chicago due to bad weather near Denver that forced our flight to wait for clearance on a new route.  But we got to Denver by 4pm and picked up our car.

In order to drive as far as we could in daylight we deferred supper until Silverthorne.  The drive was a bit treacherous near Denver as we were in a heavy fog, but once we got further west it cleared up.  There was snow on the evergreens but not much on the ground  which made for an interesting effect as you can see in this picture.  We were planning to stay in Leadville tonight and go over Independence Pass in the morning, but the snowstorm forecast for tonight changed our plans so we are staying the night in Glenwood Springs.
On to Aspen tomorrow for Meet and Greet!