Sirmione in Lake Garda - This is the medieval fortification, the Scaliger Castle (from the Lords of Verona) that once fell under the Austrians. The castle dates back to the 13th century.Sirmione is an elongated peninsula jutting out of the mainland to the lake. Located in Brescia province, already part of Veneto’s bordering region, Lombardy, this little town, like its neighbouring sisters Desenzano and Peschiera, are very popular thus unbearably touristy. We didn’t expect the horrible chain of traffic we’ve come upon after exiting the highway. Cars were manic on the road, as well as this was my first introduction to the Italian contemptuous way of driving.
Now, I’ll expound a little bit on this Italian way of driving because this experience has totally made me furious my blood pressure levels rose to boiling point I was about to explode the Eyjafjallajokull way (okay, who can actually pronounce this? lol ).
OK I’ll be forthright—I am gob smacked to witness the large number of Italians short in driving etiquette. If they were to take a driving exam in the Netherlands, many would have flunked. I would have thought the Filipino drivers back in Manila were worse but many Italian drivers are not only ignoring you, like most bus and jeepney drivers do in the Philippines when they cut you head on, they are casually aggressive and extremely zealous! You can see them raising their hands frantically up in the air and should the car windows are down, you could probably hear them scream, ‘Merda!’ or ‘Cazzo!!!’ while sneering at you. What about the honking, the tailgating, driving above the required speed limit and harassing a pedestrian on a zebra path? HELLO!? I am having a heart attack now.
When someone gets aggressive with me on the road, what do I do? Answer: An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Pronto! LOL
Anyhow before I get further deep into this traffic duel, let me tell you that Sirmione is a very, very lovely town! Even when all of Italy went there! It looks like everyone had the same plan in mind that day haha, which was an Easter Monday a national holiday, and with the beautiful weather, the herd of locals flocked to their beloved lake. It took us almost an hour from the highway exit to get to Sirmione town proper when that would have taken us under 10 minutes.
Next: LUNCH in Sirmione!
Mama bear and cub crossing river.
Other cub crossing river. 
This is a green seed pod from the devils caw flower. You can see the 'claw' as it clings to part of the stem and the other end has the dried flower on it. Later it will turn a dryed brown color and have little seed in it. These big seed pods work great in dryed flower arrangements.
Climbing rangers have been fairly busy over the past weeks with a number of tasks including climbing the mountain, training with the military, doing a couple of searches and rescues, and in our spare time trying to keep the toilets clean. One of the most special things that has happened in our world lately is that we have been able to host Ang Tshering Lama, a Nepalese climber, who was here as a guest ranger for three weeks in June. Ang spent time at both Camp Muir and Camp Schurman, patrolling climbing routes with rangers, taking part in our various trainings, and assisting in multiple rescues. If you were at Camp Muir or Schurman in the past few weeks you might have even caught a smell of the delicious food he cooked up for us during his 
stay. This is the third year in a row we have hosted Nepalese climbers in our program and we are very proud of our close relationship with their climbing community. Later this summer we will be hosting the Korean Alpine Rescue Team, so stay tuned...
This wasn't a random thing, but we also saw this beautiful creature here:
After we left this bridge, we saw something else that caught our eye. This was the funniest thing we've seen in quite awhile. We had some interesting conversations about who could own this fine piece of machinery. Someone full of life I bet.
Yes, that is Super Scott's car. Isn't that the coolest car? I can see Austin wanting something like this for his first car!