Travel

Ancient Ruins and Cats

wildboom

Emily and I have returned from our 12 day honeymoon to Italy and Greece. We got to see so much history—maybe even more than Emily wanted! I spent a lot of time admiring the ancient ruins while Emily was busy admiring the stray cats. It was an awesome time overall filled with lots of food (including desserts), lots of walking, lots of old stuff, and avoiding earthquakes (I’ll explain). God is good!

Rome

We just so happened to land in Rome on Emily’s 30th birthday! At midnight (ish—depending on what timezone you use) on the airplane I gave Emily her birthday card. Other than that it wasn’t the most comfortable birthday. I logged two hours of sleep on the redeye flight over the Atlantic and according to Emily she logged zero hours. She’s a trooper though and we still got after it on our first day. We landed and checked into our hotel and walked to the Pantheon and the Trevi Fountain. We had lunch while out and about and had a fancier birthday dinner followed by dessert pastries and gelato. Emily was loving the desserts! We made it back to the hotel and were in bed by 7pm ready to recover as much as we could for the adventures tomorrow.

The next day, after 12 hours of sleep, we headed to the Vatican City first. We wandered through the Vatican and through the overwhelming amount of art and sculptures before heading into the Sistine Chapel. Then we entered St. Peter’s Basilica and wandered there before heading over to the Colosseum. We ate lunch near the Colosseum and then entered as one of the last groups of the day. It is pretty incredible standing where so many ancient Romans had gathered for massive events centuries before. After that we went out for another nice dinner and we both came to the agreement that Italian food isn’t really anything all that special. The portion sizes are smaller than American portions and it seems all the meals lack enough protein. At one point in Italy I ordered a burger only to get a sad little beef patty hiding between this massive bun. The cannolis and gelato were top notch though so at least they have that going for them. Emily and I both really enjoyed pistachio gelato and pistachio cream filled cannolis.

The next day Emily and I headed back to the Colosseum area and then walked through the Forum. Personally, I really love the Forum because it was essentially the center for Roman daily life. As we wandered through the ancient ruins my mind was painting pictures of all the ancient philosophers debating, the business transactions happening, and all the other daily events that could have taken place there. The three pillars in the picture are from 6 AD! After exploring the Forum we ate lunch and headed to the train station to get to Naples!

Naples

We took a high speed train from Rome to Naples and traveled at speeds of up to 186mph making the trip in a little over an hour! We had a nice hotel right in a downtown area of Naples and we spent the rest of the day without any real plans. We wandered around and Emily took us down to the water where we could see Mt. Vesuvius across the bay. We walked along the water at sunset and heard some beautiful street performers playing romantic music. It was a true honeymoon moment! For dinner we had the Naples specialty of pizza and it was still underwhelming (its no Detroit, Chicago, or New York style) and then we had some good desserts as well. We headed to bed early for our Amalfi Coast tour the next day.

Amalfi Coast

The next morning we hopped in a van and met our tour guide with a big personality, Gabriel. Emily and I, along with maybe 10 other people, rode in a van along the beautiful coastal roads. Our first stop was in Sorrento and we got some decent lunch there and enjoyed the start of our day of beautiful views. We continued to Positano and Amalfi and had stops at both places. In Positano, Emily and I enjoyed climbing up and down the stairs of their terraced village built into the cliff side. Emily also had a fun encounter with an eccentric street cat that might have been her highlight of that village.

The entire day we were blessed with really great weather despite it being the down season and usually more dreary winter months. In Amalfi, because of the good weather we were able to take a boat tour along the coast which was really beautiful. The tour guide pointed out fancy hotels where famous couples honeymooned. After that we took the less scenic road back after a long day of sightseeing. Emily and I got back to our hotel in Naples and had one more disappointing Italian meal to get us excited for Greek food tomorrow!

Athens

From Naples we had a 6am flight to Athens and got there later in the morning and were able to check into our hotel early. We were already impressed by the Greek airline food so that’s a promising start. After checking into the hotel we walked toward the acropolis area and then went into the Parthenon area. For context, I have been to Italy before and had walked through the Roman Forum before, but this was my first trip to Greece. The fact that the Parthenon was built around 400 BC flabbergasted me. It’s really hard to describe the feeling of standing somewhere so ancient with such massive historical significance. Athens has been continually inhabited for at least 5,000 years by conservative estimates. In the 5th century BC, Athens laid the foundations of Western civilization. Even in Biblical times it’s likely the Apostle Paul was preaching in the Acropolis spreading Christianity. Truly incredible!

While we were up on the Parthenon it was really cold and windy, but Emily graciously let me bask in it much longer than she would have on her own. Afterwards she was rewarded with Greek Gyros! Immediately we were both in total agreement that Greek food was significantly better than Italian food after only one meal. Emily really enjoyed her Greek salad as well. Greece, including their food, was also cheaper in general than Italy so we were off to a good start! Later that night the feelings were only reinforced by delicious Greek donuts covered in honey.

The next morning we to the Panathenaic Stadium where they hosted the first modern Olympics in 1896. This spot was probably my favorite hidden gem of the whole trip. We just added it to the itinerary because we had time. Emily and I both really appreciate physical fitness and sports and while the stadium itself was cool the little museum was inspiring to me. The museum talked about the importance of physical readiness closely relating it to military readiness as the museum plaques talked about the Battle of Marathon and other famous battles. There was a heavy emphasis on citizenship which was inspiring. The classical Greek education and the philosophies and values it taught formed the basis of Western civilization including the founding of democracy. I didn’t expect to be so motivated by visiting the relatively small stadium. In another part of the museum they had olympic torches from all the previous olympics which was cool to see.

Greece is where we really started seeing cats everywhere!

After that we had lunch and again ate some delicious Gyros. We walked around the acropolis area some more and checked out some areas we didn’t see the day before. We watched through some flea market areas too and I started searching for an ancient coin because I thought it’d be cool to own as a reminder of all the values I mentioned above. Later I would find out my search was in vain since owning and exporting ancient artifacts is illegal in Greece! I still enjoyed the hunt. We had another great meal and I got a spicy beef gyro which I enjoyed. Then we grabbed our bags from the hotel and headed to the airport so we could make our way to Crete!

Crete

We got to Crete that night and I noticed a lot of American Navy military personnel. I talked to some of them and found out there is a small US Naval base in Crete. Tomorrow we would find out there was actually a whole carrier group on leave in Crete after serving for some extended time in the Red Sea. We got to our hotel no problem and it even had a laundry machine so I did a load and put it out to dry on our balcony before we headed to bed.

Well, it rained all night and the laundry we put out to dry was completely soaked… Luckily, Emily had the bright idea to use the oven to dry out some clothes. So between a low broil and the air conditioner fan turned up we were able to make enough progress on the wet clothes to pack them up and continue our journey. We had an interesting taxi ride with a guy who tried to scam us as I suspect he had been doing to the rest of the US military members. I was, fortunately, able to haggle him back down and save us from his 20 euro tourist up-charge. We checked into our new hotel in Chania and then got some crepes for lunch. At the crepe spot I was chatting with a bunch of the sailors and found out they just finished 50 days in the Red Sea with the primary duty of fighting the Iranian backed Houthi rebels to keep the shipping routes open.

It was a rainy, cold, and windy day, but Chania was really charming. We wandered along a break wall to a neat lighthouse and then we sat down at a nice seaside restaurant and got a pretty tasty seafood platter. We had plenty of sardine leftovers so we took those to-go with the idea that Emily could enhance her cat watching experience with them later. We walked through the old town area and Emily decided to break out her sardine leftovers and cats started coming out of the wood works! It was pretty hilarious to watch. At one point she had over 10 cats surrounding her!! At the end of the day we had some tough decisions to make since our next planned stop, Santorini, was in a state of emergency with 100s of earthquakes a day. A couple were over 5.0 on the Richter scale. We decided to cancel and Thessaloniki was the best fit with the rest of our itinerary. The rest of the night was a last minute planning frenzy as well as the beginning of some arduous cancellation processes.

The next morning we took a bus from Chania to Heraklion, which is the largest city on the island of Crete. On the way we saw the USS Truman in the bay. In Heraklion we checked into our hotel and then got back on the road, taking a bus, to Knossos the ancient Palace of the Minoans. The Minoans were an advanced Bronze Age civilization that lived on the island of Crete from around 3000–1100 BC. The palace ruins were mostly rock rubble excavated to show the walls and different rooms of the palace. To make things more interesting, historians reconstructed portions of the palace to give a better visual representation. The rest of the day in Heraklion was pretty chill. We got some dinner and walked around a bit and of course also had dessert.

Thessaloniki

The next morning we were up early and got to the Heraklion airport to take our flight to Thessaloniki. Everything went smoothly and our hotel in Thessaloniki was even located only three minutes from a direct bus from the airport. Thessaloniki in general was a lot less touristy than other places we had been so far and the prices reflected that. We had probably some of the best food of the trip here and our hotel was only 33 euros a night. Since we were further north Thessaloniki had a pretty significant Byzantine influence. Since the city has been continuously inhabited since its founding there was the historic layers of Ancient Greek, Roman, and Byzantine influence. We went to a famous attraction there called the White Tower which was a Byzantine structure right near the water. Unfortunately for us, everything in the tower and museum portion of it was only in Greek with no English to provide us context. It was a neat spot nonetheless. We also walked along the water and found a massive statue of Alexander the Great who was born in northern Greece. Relatedly, we saw a statue of Aristotle who was Alexander the Great’s boyhood tutor.

One of my favorite experiences in the city was our visit to a local coin shop. As I continued my quest for an Ancient Greek coin and met a numismatic dealer named Ioannis and we had some really great conversations. He was the one who explained to me that buying an Ancient Greek coin in Greece would actually be illegal. He was a Greek soldier for a time and we bonded over that. He gave us a lot of history of the Greeks and the Macedonians of which he was obviously very passionate. I also ended up buying a replica Athenian tetradrachm from him. It was 20€ and the coin is actually 925 silver which is cool! Super awesome dude.

For the very last day of our honeymoon, since there wasn’t much to do in Thessaloniki itself and we were a bit worn out of so much self-directed exploring, we went to Meteora. Meteora is famous for its secluded monasteries up on cliffs in some really beautiful and interesting mountain terrain. The bus ride to Meteora from Thessaloniki was about 4 hours and half way we stopped within view of Mt. Olympus which is famous for its roots to Greek Mythology. It’s the allegedly home of the Geek gods.

Mt. Olympus

We eventually got to Meteora and the terrain and location of the monasteries was really neat! However, the monasteries themselves, which each cost five euros a person to enter, were underwhelming. It was definitely more interesting to look at the terrain and think about how they built the monasteries than to actually go in. Inside the monasteries Emily and I were both a little bummed by the interesting Orthodox theology and the highlights of the monks which included transcribing numerous copies of important liturgies. There was no mention of how many copies of the actual Biblical books they made. After the monastery stops we took the bus to a nice restaurant and then headed back.

Heading Home Conclusions

On Valentine’s Day we woke up at 6am in Thessaloniki and took a bus to the airport. We then flew 2 hours from Thessaloniki to Rome where we had to exit the airport and switch terminals ourself for our next flight. From Rome we flew 10.5 hours to Atlanta. We had a small layover there and then flew another 3.5 hours to Phoenix. By the time we got our baggage and vehicle and drove home it was a little past 11pm. Needless to say, that will likely be the longest Valentine’s day of our lives!

Overall, it was an incredible trip. I really enjoyed the history of Greece and took away a renewed passion for civic responsibility by seeing their historic examples. I developed an admiration for classical Greek education and their values which led to western civilization as we know it. I also learned a lot about traveling with a spouse. Emily was an absolute trooper the whole time, but I think in the future she would prefer less moving parts and more consistent stays at the same hotel. The packing and unpacking of our bags was definitely a lot. Though the trip was only about 12 days I feel like we packed a couple years worth of communication and conflict resolution experience coming out with an even stronger marriage on the other side. I am sure we will be joking for years to come about the “missed opportunity” of having the island of Santorini to ourselves because of the earthquakes. Then again I guess we’ll just have to go back. Overall, it was a once in a lifetime experience to be able to do that with my wonderful wife and I’m excited to see what God has in store for our lifetime of adventures together. God is good!

Ancient Ruins and Cats

Grand Canyon: Rim to Rim

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Over Memorial Day weekend, six buddies and I embarked on a 24-mile trek from the Grand Canyon’s North Rim to the South Rim via North Kaibab Trail to Bright Angel Trail. The trek took us deep down into the Canyon to the famous Phantom Ranch before we hit the lowest point and crossed over the Colorado River at the bottom of the Canyon. The photo above is of the group at the start of the journey. We started our journey from the North Rim at roughly 5:15am with the sun already up. Luckily the canyon walls kept us in the shade for the first couple hours of the journey.

The trek had its literal ups and downs, but unlike most hikes, the Rim to Rim journey starts with the easy downhill portion. That leaves the toughest most grueling stretch of the journey, the uphill, for the end of the day when you are at your most tired. I’m happy to say all seven of us made it, but it wasn’t always pretty. Blisters, sore muscles, and sunburns were plentiful and a couple out of the group suffered even worse with some cramps and dizziness towards the end. At a snail’s pace compared with our downhill rate of speed, we crawled up the steep canyon walls of the South Rim, mostly in direct sunlight, to finish the journey just an hour or so before sunset.

All in all, it was a heck of an adventure and no matter how terrible some of us felt at the bottom of the canyon we were all happy and proud to have conquered the task we had set before ourselves! I am thankful for the good weather on the journey, the good friends, and even for the good and bad times. Memories were made! God is good!
Grand Canyon: Rim to Rim

Home for the Holidays!

wildboom
B Co 1-125IN BN

Within 3 days of returning to the United States from my motorcycle trip, I was fortunate enough to attend a Detroit Lions game with some soldiers from my unit for their military appreciation game! It was my first NFL game and it was a stressful one! Fortunately, in classic Lions fashion, they scored 17 points in the last 2:59 to win the game against the Bears.

Shortly after that, I met up with my family in Kentucky at an Airbnb in Kentucky for a Thanksgiving get-together. This was the first time I got to see my different nieces and my nephew interact together. It was so fun to watch the older girls playing with their younger cousins! We ate a lot of good food and watched a lot of football and had a good time solving puzzles and playing games. Our Airbnb was also close to the Ark Encounter museum which features a full-size re-creation of Noah’s ark. It was very interesting to walk inside the ark looking at the sheer space of the structure and learning about how they may have fed all the animals.

I got to spend some time in Saginaw organizing all of my things and searching hard for an apartment before my move back down to Arizona. I got to go to the jiu-jitsu gym for a couple of weeks which was fun. I also had an army meeting during this time so my road trip beard and unkempt hair had to come to an end.

Peak beard
For future reference…

I joined a group of friends last minute heading to Chicago for the weekend to watch the Lions vs the Bears. I didn’t have a ticket, but I decided to join the trip. I figured I had already seen the Lions vs Bears so if things didn’t work out for a ticket I wouldn’t be too upset. I planned to go hang out and watch the game with a college buddy if there wasn’t an easy/cheap way to go to the game. Before the game we all met up at a hotel in downtown Chicago on Saturday and got some Indian food and grabbed some cases of beer. We played some card games and it quickly turned into old times with a hint of group therapy as we processed things that had happened in high school with our now more developed maturity. Needless to say, it was a fun night! The next morning we grabbed some food at a local breakfast spot. Then we started walking to the game and I still didn’t have a ticket or much of a plan. I was going to see what the ticket scalpers had to offer. As we got closer to the stadium I saw my first scalper and I stopped to engage him. He said I could get one ticket for $100. For reference, all my friends paid $150 for their tickets. As I tried to do some bartering the scalper noticed my group of friends had stopped to wait for me to see if I could secure a ticket. When the scalper noticed this he said, “Wait, are you with this group?” I told him I was and he said if you were with a big group just have one guy scan all the tickets and follow behind them. The ticket taker won’t count. I asked if he was serious and his buddy chimed in, “1000% nobody will check! You will definitely get in.” So with his 1000% guarantee, all my buddies and I agreed it was worth a shot. Sure enough, I walked right in behind them as the last guy. We got into the stadium and found their seats along with an empty one right next to them, a seat that wasn’t offered on Ticketmaster! It honestly wasn’t that surprising that our scheme worked based on previous sporting event ticket-taker encounters, but it did seem too easy.

Unfortunately, the Lions lost, but it was a fun atmosphere at Soldier Field and at the very least I didn’t pay to watch them lose. Feeling slightly guilty that I scammed my way into the stadium I used my saved cash to pay for the whole group to get some famous Chicago-style pizza at Lou Malnati’s. The pizza was great and it was a good time. After that, the group split and we went our separate ways. Two of my friends and I headed back to Detroit in a rented Tesla causing us to stop for a couple of charges. On one of our stops, we walked to a nearby Five Guys and I ordered a shake. The girl at the register put in the order and then went to make it. As I tried to pay with my card the card machine appeared to have processed the payment immediately. Almost too quick… Next up both of my buddies ordered shakes and they both received receipts after they paid. At this point, I realize I certainly didn’t pay. My buddy Chad is all mad that things keep going my way and I keep getting free stuff. To appease Chad and my conscious I go back up to the register and say that I don’t think my card worked and I didn’t pay. The guy behind the counter immediately responded, “Don’t worry about it.” Chad was even more mad after that haha! Should I have snuck into a Bears game? Probably not, but I can’t deny my good fortune, and it makes me laugh to see my friend’s jealousy of it as it unfolds in front of them!

Empire State Building
Brooklyn Bridge
Me and my buddy Joe posing with Welch’s grape juice in honor of our buddy Welch who couldn’t make the trip.
Lady LIBERTY!!!

The weekend following my Chicago excursion I flew to NYC to hang out with my buddy Joe, an army buddy. He had a nice studio apartment in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. He also had an expert read on all of the top local restaurants. The highlight of the trip was the variety and quality of food we ate. I may have had some of the best Indian food of my life, delicious NY-style pizza, sushi, shwarma, bulgogi in Korean town, pork dumplings in Chinatown, and meat on a stick from the street vendors. I was in heaven!

We did a lot of walking around the city. We visited the 9/11 memorial, the MET museum, the National Museum of the American Indian, the Empire State Building, the Rockefeller Center, the Brooklyn Bridge, and a bunch of other neat places. To me, NYC is a great place to visit, but I would find it a little hectic to live in. The thing that I liked about it was the diversity. There were so many different types of people from all over the world living together. On my last day there we went to the Brooklyn Bridge and I got to see the Statue of Liberty and it was really cool to think about how my great-grandparents came to America from Europe and as they entered the “land of opportunity” one of the first things they probably saw was that statue. What a blessed country we live in!

Immediately following my trip to NYC, I flew to Phoenix and headed down to Casa Grande, AZ to move into my apartment. I only spent two full days moving in and scrounging Facebook Marketplace for furniture to get it ready before I returned after Christmas and immediately headed back to work. I think I made some good progress for the short amount of time I had. I’m excited to get back to Arizona and start living in a somewhat normal routine for the first time in a long while.

After the quick trip to Arizona, I returned to Michigan and gathered up the rest of my possessions and loaded them into my truck, and headed to my parents. I watched the children’s Christmas program that I grew up doing on Christmas Eve. Following church on Christmas day, I headed to the west side of the state for family Christmas. I got to spend two full days eating good food, opening presents, and most of spending time with family. Then I hit the road early in the morning for my 30-hour drive back to Arizona. I made it all the way to Pratt, Kansas the first night. The second day I made it back running on fumes and happy to finally be stable in one spot for a while.

New Year’s Eve and Resolutions

After spending a couple of days of full effort unpacking and getting my apartment situated I headed to church on the morning of Christmas Eve. It was super nice to see everyone that I had met 16 months previously before I left for my army deployment. The church looked like it had grown too! The sermon message talked about how we never really know what will happen. Life is crazy and things can blindside you. You might make plans and instead, your entire world could get upended by world pandemics, war, natural disasters, and other terrible things. One thing that is certain is God will remain by our side through it all and he has a better hope for our future than anything this world could offer.

After church, I continued my organizing and unpacking. Toward the evening I decided I would go for a run up a mountain to watch the sunset. I knew of one mountain park in town where I could do this, but it was further away so I decided to check out a new one closer to where my apartment is. I got there and realized there wasn’t any actual path up to the top of the mountain. With sunset approaching I didn’t have time to change my plans so I decided to hop some fences and scramble up the rocky mountainside to do what I set out to do in the first place. It was the last day of an incredible year for me after all. I had to end it in appropriate fashion.

I climbed slowly up the mountain side and as I did I thought about what I wanted my resolutions for the new year to be. I tried to keep up my pace because otherwise I wouldn’t make it to the top by sunset. At a certain point, I decided I wasn’t going to make it and even if I did it would be much too dark to climb down safely without a headlamp or flashlight. As I decided to cut my loses and stop I turned around and saw that I already had an amazing view of the desert and surrounding mountains! I had been so focused on climbing to the peak that I hadn’t even noticed. Immediately I stopped and prayed to God and thanked him for an incredible year filled with experiences beyond my wildest imagination. I started the year as an infantry platoon leader leading patrols in Syria and meeting with tribal militia leaders on the banks of the Euphrates River. After that, I rode my motorcycle through 13 countries on two continents. Through it all I was able to come back safe and to see my family for the holidays. Words can’t describe how blessed I felt in that moment. With that filling my heart, as cliche as it sounds, I decided my resolutions would be to enjoy the journey. Life moves fast and if you spend all your time starting up at whatever peak you’re chasing you’ll miss out on the view. As I start a new chapter and a new year in Arizona I am looking forward to routine and more importantly enjoying where I’m at. After all, only God knows what lies ahead in 2024.

Home for the Holidays!