Even more Italy

1. Raphael's tomb in the Pantheon

2. Us in front of the Roman forum

3. Mt. Vesuvius in the background of the Pompeiian ruins.

4. Jenny serving up some lunch at one of the restaurants in Pompeii

5. The courtyard of our hotel in Naples

More Italy

1. The beach in Sorrento. It's a really cute village about an hour train ride from Sorrento. We didn't realize there'd be a good beach there, so we showed up in 90 degree weather fully clothed and missed what could have been great fun. But it was still amazing to see.

2. More Sorrento

3. Victor Emmanuele Monument. Victor Emmanuele was the first king of the consolidated Italian city states. He built this huge monument to himself. It's a giant building with huge horse sculptures on the roof. This sculpture is so huge, a person can fit in the horse's hoof.

4. The Pantheon

5. A tombstone in St. Peter's in Chains Church. It's the angel of death.

Italy

So, it turns out being a tourist in a foreign country is a little more fun than doing it alone. We saw a lot of cool sites and ate some good food. I'll try to just give some quick explanations of a few of our photos. The first picture is from Pompeii. Pompeii was lived in from about 500 BC to 79AD. Then Mt. Vesuvius exploded and the town was buried in lava and ash. When excavaters were digging it out, they found hollow spaces, and realized these were where people had been buried and then decomposed as the rock hardened. They poured plaster into the holes, and these are the casts that were made. These particular ones were up against a garden gate, on the farthest end of town from the volcano. The second picture is an ancient welcome mat, built right into the front porch. I can't remember exactly what it means, but the letters "HAVE" mean something like "Hail Friends". The third picture is Jenny in front of one of the casts of a victim. Next is where we tried to go to church in Naples. Before I went to Italy, I looked up the address for the meeting house in Naples, and figured out how to get there from the hotel. It was in a skeevy neighborhood, and we were clearly the only church-goers around. We got there early and waited around to see if anybody would show up, but nobody did. Next is Jenny sitting on a bench in Naples after a few too many gelatos. Okay, more photos in the next post.

Hoffmaster

Now that I'm facing less than one month left in Michigan, I'm trying to enjoy it as much as possible. Not that I haven't been trying to enjoy it- I'm just making a point of visiting all my favorite places again before I go. And, as you may know, I think Lake Michigan is one of the happiest places on earth. It's like the ocean, only not salty and cleaner. So last Saturday my friend Jennifer and I got together a small group and we went to the Lake! We went to Hoffmaster State Park, which is about three hours straight west of Rochester Hills (where I live). It was really pretty. When you pull into the parking lot, you're surrounded by forest. It looks like the redwood forests in California except that the trees are shorter. You can hear water, but you can't see it. We followed a little paved pathway through the forest to the lake. The lake is seriously huge. The coast goes as far as you can see, and you can't even begin to see the other side. It's miles and miles. The beach we were on was really sandy, and the water was warm and clear. We watched the weather all week and it was supposed to be about 85 degrees and sunny, but the weather never goes according to plan. It was super windy and pretty cold. But that just made it more fun! The waves were huge! I'd be standing in water up to my knees, and then a big wave would come- big enough that I couldn't see over it- and after it passed I'd be in water up to my neck. And there was a really strong undercurrent, too. You could tell when a really big wave was gathering, because the water under you would start moving away from the shore and dragging you with it. It was a real workout to not get dragged all the way out into the lake. After a little while, we realized it was raining pretty hard (we couldn't feel it in the water), so we had to run and gather our things and put them in the car (which is why I have no pictures to post), but then we went right back to play in the waves. It was great fun! I think we should get a Lake Michigan in Utah.

Cedar Point

Warning: This is a long and possibly boring post. Go get yourself a cup of milk, maybe some cookies, and a blanket. Ready? Okay, let's go.
Cedar Point is THE amusement park of the midwest. It has over 100 rides, and most of them are roller coasters. Most midwesterners will tell you that after Cedar Point, no other amusement park will ever be good enough. So last week I tagged along with my friend Jennifer and a bunch of her sisters to see if it's really all that. It's about 2 1/2 hours away, in Sandusky , Ohio. We left early on Thursday morning.
As we drove, the weather got worse and worse. It rained and fogged all the way. We were hoping that the rain would pass but it would still look rainy so that nobody else would be at the park and the lines would be short. We were sitting at a red light right in front of the park, just a few minutes before it opened, and were all just abuzz with excitement. Suddenly, there was a loud crashing noise and one of the girls screamed. Jennifer and I were in the back row of the minivan. I turned around, and the back windshield was sitting in pieces on the hood of a Jeep Cherokee a couple feet behind me. The Jeep's brakes had locked up on the wet road and the back of the van was all smashed in. So we pulled off into a parking lot, and a cop came within a couple minutes and took care of everything. The one heartwarming thing about it all is that the Jeep got no damage at all! Jeep knows how to build them! Anyway, then we had to figure out how to cover the back window so the van wouldn't be sitting open with all our stuff in the rain all day. We found a CVS and got a flowery tablecloth and duct tape and did our best. Then we hit the park!
The first few hours poured! We were drenched. Only a few of the rides were running, and we were miserable trying to pretend to have fun. Plus, I don't do well on rides unless my stomach is full. I'd eaten breakfast hours earlier, so I was in a bad place. I'll just leave it there. One of the rides we went on was a super tall free fall tower, where you sit with your legs dangling and they raise you way up and then just let you drop. I was airborne for most of the fall, held in only by the harness. But we were falling faster than the rain, so it looked like flower petals or something floating around us. It took me a minute (actually a split second, since that's all I had) to figure out what I was looking at. It was really cool.
After that ride, I let everybody know I needed food immediately. But then the rain stopped and one of the roller coasters opened. We wanted to get to the rides before the rain started again, so they shoved some granola bars down my throat and we went for it. It was fun. Don't worry- we eventually did stop for lunch and I ate enough to keep me going the rest of the day. The rides were all pretty good, but I didn't understand why Cedar Point got so much hype. Until...The Dragster! They belt you into a little car (in a train of cars, like a regular roller coaster) and then you sit for what feels like ever. Then they blast you off. You go straight for a bit, then straight up about 400 feet, then over a curve, and straight down, all at 120 mph. It was amazing. When we were waiting in line, it started raining again and they shut the ride down. About 3/4 of the people in front of us got out of line. We figured we could stand in the rain in line or stand in the rain somewhere else in the park. Eventually the ride opened again and we were almost first in line. Luckily not on the first ride, though. The first car to go after the rain almost didn't make it over the curve at the top. Everybody in line watched with baited breath as the car got to the top, then paused. We were sure they were going to end up coming back backwards to the beginning. So when they crept over the curve and swooshed down the hill, we all cheered and whistled and clapped. It was fun.
The next ride we went on was the Maverick. It's the newest ride. It twists and turns and has drops of more than 90 degrees so that you really can't see anything but land below you. Oh, also, the park is set ride on the shore of Lake Erie. So at the tops of the roller coasters you just see miles and miles of water. It was really pretty. Anyway, the Maverick was my favorite. It was fast and smooth and exciting. Not at all jerky or painful like most roller coasters. Jennifer and I liked it so much that we got right back in line. By the time we got to the front of the line, it was dusk and getting dark. We wanted to ride in the front car for a little extra excitement. As we got in, the guys getting out told us to watch out for bugs. We thought they were kidding, but they weren't. It turns out, the front car is like the windshield for the rest of the cars, and there are a lot of bugs after dusk in Ohio. The whole ride (about 2 1/2 minutes) we were pelted with bugs. When we got off, we had dead bugs smeared all over our faces, hands, arms, shirts, and hair. It was disgusting. But still fun.
We did the Dragster once more and then the park closed. About 20 seconds after we got back to the van, the heavens let loose and it rained like nothing you've ever seen in Utah. The parking lot looked like a shallow lake. Luckily, the flower table cloth held pretty well all the way home so we stayed dry. It was a very fun day. I think Cedar Point is about as good as Magic Mountain. I can't let any of my midwestern friends hear my say that, but there it is.

Quick Update

I don't have too much to say. Just a couple of quick updates. First, I went golfing again last week. This time, on the same course, I shot a 58. That's down from 93 last time I played! Talk about improvement! My other update is that yesterday I hula hooped 1359 revolutions nonstop! That's one thousand three hundred fifty nine! About 17 minutes worth!

Balloons!

Last weekend for a ward activity we went to a hot air balloon festival. I didn't really know what to expect, but it was amazing! When we got there, a whole bunch of balloons were laid out on a big field- not blown up yet, just lying on the grass. When it was time, the balloon that somehow won the honor of going first, filled up and took off. Once it was in the air, all the other balloons started filling up all at once. Within a couple minutes, the field was full of balloons squishing against each other as they filled up. For about half an hour, balloons were taking off one after another and the sky was filled with them. It was really neat. My friends and I were standing right on the edge of the field watching them get blown up. The plain orange balloon in the picture is totally homemade. The basket is one of those blue recycling bins. Pretty cool!