Long Time, No See

So, after my last post-way back in December-full of intentions to post regularly, that terrible tragedy at Newtown's Sandy Hook Elementary took place. Frankly, my heart just wasn't into posting about travel and fun. A few more months went by, we got busy with the usual stuff of life, and once again started thinking about posting again. And then the Boston Marathon bombing happened. Only this time I decided the Ba$ta&@# aren't gonna win. We are continuing to travel, and I am going to be posting. So there. Take that you terrorists.

I'll give you all a moment or two to recover from the shock of seeing this blog re-appearing, and let you know that tomorrow I will start to catch you up on the latest two Retirement Adventure trips to the Caribbean and Yosemite National Park. But I will leave you with a photo or two.

Whatcha been doing lately?

I want to thank all of you who paid attention to our trip blog and especially those of you who let us know how much you enjoyed it; we enjoyed it too. So much so that we thought we would post back here every now and then and let you know what else has been going on around our household.

Well, the first thing that happened is that we both came down with colds. But in the last few days we have both been feeling better and we have a couple projects we have been working on. You may all not know it, but one of Cheryl's secret loves and guilty pleasures is working custom-made wooden jigsaw puzzles.  Not the nice puzzles you get for $20 down at the Hallmark store.  These are handcut, wooden puzzles with custom pieces and special tricks.

She first started collecting these about 20 years ago when she discovered Stave Puzzles (www.stavepuzzles.com) and while she does not get a new puzzle every year she would like to!  Her most recent puzzle required a 2 1/2 year waiting list before she came to the front of the line. It 'only' took a week to cut and she just received it last week. This puzzle was made by Custom Puzzle Craft, aka Mr. John Stokes III.  If you want to see more on how John creates these, check out his website, www.custompuzzlecraft.com and scroll down and click on his Journal.

Here are some photos of his amazing work, cut with a jigsaw blade about the size of a human hair:

The Puzzle in the box as I received it, all 650 teensy weensy pieces.

The puzzle on my working table, with the first section put together.  I asked John to cut this puzzle into six sections following a set of cutting 'rules' he developed called a Golden Ratio Compulsory.  Then he cut each section using a unique cutting style.  This section was the Angular style section.  The cutting lines don't show up very well here, but I have a better photo to add later.

This section (below) is cut in the Long Round style.  It is the largest section in the puzzle.  The edges of this section show you what the Compulsory cutting looked like when John did the initial six-pieces of the puzzle. If you look at the swirls in the reddish section on the bottom left below, (they sort of resemble the tail of a cat, or the hind leg of an animal) can you see where those pieces fit into the reddish section the green bush on the right in the section above?

You can see two sections here, the Knob style pieces on the left and a bit of the Earlet section on the right.  See how the round circle end of the Earlet section will fit into the round hole of the Knob section?

This is a shot of the full Earlet style section

I will have to add some shots of individual pieces and something for scale in my next post.  The Creative Style pieces are just amazing swirls and wiggles and angles.  Each piece is a work of art in itself.  And yes, I will show you the completed puzzle shortly.  And then, do stay tuned for Tom's Big Project, which is nearing completion.

HAPPY 12/12/12 Everyone!

Post Script

Just to let you all know that yes, we are back home safely in Corrales.  The first 2 (of 6) loads of laundry have been completed, we managed about 7 hours of sleep last night, despite our body clock thinking we were going to bed at 8 am and waking up at 2 in the afternoon.  All is well at home, Hercules remembered us and moved right back into his routine.  (We are fortunate to have had a terrific house/dog sitter!)

Thanks for following along....
      Cheryl and Tom

Re-Entry

Well folks, after 32 days, 7 airports, 1 ship, 14 cities, 9 churches, 20 museums and monuments, and a lifetime of experiences big and small, we have arrived back in the USA.  We are currently in Chicago, having spent the last 23 hours on the road, with 4 more hours to go.  The slightly crazed looks in this last photo are no doubt due in large part to travel weariness. 

Thanks for traveling along with us...and to answer that first question posed at the beginning of this adventure, our Thanksgiving meal in Rome was...Pizza!

Coming home

Hi all, wow what a trip we have had! We are thankful we were able to do it and hope for many more. We have an 0805 flight which translates to a 0430 wake up in order to make it to the airport and have our three hours prior to takeoff.....
Today we took it very easy, late lunch from the local supermarket of bread and cheese, some will also be for breakfast. We went to the Borghese gallery, remarkable place with some super art. No matter what it will be a long day flying home tomorrow. While we hate ending our trip it will spark new places we can visit and we always feel we can return. It is always good to come home. Will post when we are back Corrales. The first is one of the museum with us again. The second is Cheryl from our hotel window and then one of a fountain close to us, one of many throughout Rome.

La Dolce Vita and the Caesar Shuffle

This morning we slept in, ate a leisurely breakfast at the hotel, and then walked over to the Colosseum for a pre-booked tour including the newly restored Underground area. Yeah, where they kept the gladiators and lions and props before the actual spectacle. A few interesting facts:
-Colosseum held 50,000 spectators and could empty all of them in less than 15 minutes. (are you listening Mesa Del Sol amphitheater?) A feat like that meant the area outside the arena was called the vomitorium, meaning the stadium could disgorge quickly. Yeah, that's where we get the modern word vomit from.
-The cheap wood seats at the top (women and plebiscites) had the best view of the action and the most shade from the tent cover, but the greatest prestige was down at the marble seats in the front. With your name inscribed on the marble.
-The Roman Forum is, well, underwhelming after seeing the Acropolis and Ephesus. Sorry, but the best Roman ruins are in Greece and Turkey. And the best Greek ruins are in the British Museum. (And the best Turkey ruins are going to be on your dinner tables tomorrow afternoon. It's hard for us to believe tomorrow is Thanksgiving! )

In the afternoon we started at Piazza Navonna and meandered our way back across central Rome visiting the Four Rivers Fountain, Pantheon, Giolitti's, Trevi Fountain, and then returned for a late afternoon nap before dinner.

Off to Rome and the Vatican

Yesterday, (11/20) after 24 days of being pampered on the ship we had to schlep our selves and our bags to Rome. Here we are waiting with our friends for the train in Civitavecchia, feeling sorry to be off the ship and a little jealous of the folks on the inbound train going TO the ship.

But we managed to re-enter normal tourist life, find our hotel, and take the metro to the Vatican Museum, where we promptly ran into half a dozen of our ship friends doing the same thing. We had forgotten how MUCH is contained within the Vatican Museum, and after two hours we had seen so much and hiked so far that we really did not have the energy to appreciate the art by the time we came to the modern section, which by any other standards would be a do-not-miss collection. Our camera reflects this, we have a shot-a-minute of the first rooms at the Pinicoteca, two or three shots in each of the Etruscan and Egyptian rooms, one shot of each of the Raphael rooms, and maybe one shot of the quarter mile long hallway leading to the Sistine. Which is included below, along with a couple at St. Peter's. Sorry, Matisse.

After an early dinner, we packed ourselves off to bed for a good night's rest. It seems Tom is coming down with a cold and while we have the NyQuil and DayQuil, rest and fluids still are needed.