Displaced Beachbums

Several people have expressed concern that I may not fair well in Upstate New York due to the harsh winters. They obviously aren’t aware of my two winters spent in the Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming. I worked at a lodge which only opens during the summer months and has a skeleton staff during the winter; much like “The Shining”, but thankfully minus the Jack Nicholson character. Lots of snow and cold. One winter we had two days of -42 degrees. Really, NEGATIVE forty two degrees.

In the photo below, I’m standing in front of my house and any white you see in the photo is snow!

We always used to say Jackson Hole had two seasons: Winter and August. One summer, it snowed on the 4th of July! The photo below was taken in May and we were thrilled to see the blacktop of the road. We drove on snowpacked roads the entire winter. It was an interesting place to live and I have great memories of fun people, lots of outdoor activities and, yes, enjoying the snow. 

Can you tell by the puffy jacket and tight jeans that it was the mid-eighties?! I hear those jackets are coming back ~ can it be?

Our last ‘big’ trip we took before moving from Germany was a trip to Rome at the end of March 2006. We had 5 days to see thousands of years of history. It’s not called the “Eternal City” for nothing.

Our first stop after getting to the hotel and meeting up with our good friend, Heidi, was to go to Trevi Fountain.  It was so good to see Heidi and I was thrilled she’d be spending a few days touring around with us. I still think we would make a good “Amazing Race” team.

Heidi was the one who found the Bed and Breakfast we stayed at and the Daphne Inn was a great choice. The staff was excellent and it was in a fabulous location. I highly recommend it should you find yourself in Rome.  

During our stay, we did our best to see as much of the city as we could. The best thing we did was opt for a ‘private’ tour of the Vatican. Basically, it got us into the Sistine Chapel prior to the hoards of tour buses arrived. It was pure joy to be in the Sistine Chapel with all but 10 people. I was so in awe that I have NO photos of our tour of the Vatican. Our tour guide, Luana, was such a wealth of information and it was all we could do to keep up with her. After the Sistine Chapel, we toured the Vatican Museum. I was completely overwhelmed. 

After the morning tour of the Vatican, we toured Rome with a guide/driver named Ugo. I was very impressed with his ability to park in the tiniest of parking spots 😉 He took us to the Pantheon, the Colosseum, Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and the St. Peter in Chains church.

On our last day in Rome, FM ran the marathon. Since the roads around Rome were closed for the marathon, FG and I wandered the streets with very little traffic. This particular marathon allowed us to track FM’s run byt using runners at certain intervals. They had runners with balloons who were running a 3 hour marathon, 3 hours 15 minutes and so on. Since we knew FM runs about a 4 hour marathon, we waited for the person with the 4 hour balloons and, low and behold, FM was not far behind.  

It was a wonderful way to end our travels around Europe. Now we know where we want to return to and Rome is definitely on the return list.