ENGLAND ADVENTURE

Well, it's a rainy Labor Day and I find myself in a rare state of having nothing pressing to do so I though I'd post just a few pictures of our England trip. For the full slide show you'll just have to come see us! You will note from the pictures that we had magnificent weather. Despite the common perception that it always rains in England, we had nothing but beautiful sunny weather our entire trip!

This is the apartment "flat" that we stayed in. Marylin's sister Felicity works as an live in care taker for a wealthy woman with advanced MS. She and her husband have this beautiful place in Poole (an English resort city) which they use as a retreat from the hectic pace of London. They graciously offered it for our use while we were there. What a blessing!


Marylin's sister Lyndsey who we had come to England to visit lived in Poole about 10 minutes from this place where we were staying which was very convenient.Marylin has previously posted pictures of her sisters and other family so I'll stick to the "vacation" aspect of our trip. Even given the somber circumstances of our trip we had a wonderful time touring England. We drove about 700 miles in two days and saw much of the English countryside. The purpose of our road trip was to visit Scothern Village.




It was a beautiful little village on the outskirts of Lincoln, a large city in Northern England. The picture below is the Main Street of Scothern Village. It is now little more than a bedroom community for Lincoln. As far as I could see there were not stores or businesses in the village.

We encountered the postman who said there were no longer any Scotherns living in Scothern Village. The photo below is of the Church of England chapel in the village.



We walked the graveyard surrounding the church and although there were graves going as far back as the mid 1700's we didn't find any Scotherns. Hard to say if any of our progenitors were actually from Scothern Village.

England is dotted with beautiful cathedrals and castles. One of the most magnificent is in Lincoln. We were privileged to be there early in the morning before the crowds and were among only about half a dozen people in the entire cathedral. Although photography is not allowed in most of the cathedrals we were able to take some pictures of the inside. The following pictures are of Lincoln Cathedral.

All of the incredible stone work in the castles and cathedrals is hand carved, not cast. The craftsmanship is astonishing.

You can't begin to experience the grandeur of these buildings in pictures.

On the way to Northern England, we stopped a Kings College at Cambridge. Those who have seen the movie "Dead Poets Society" will recognize this square as the one they raced around.

The following pictures are of Kings Cathedral at Cambridge. We would marvel at the craftsmanship in this building if it were built today but when you consider that it was built nearly 400 years ago it is mind boggling!

The English country side looks much the same everywhere you go. Quaint little villages, thatched roofs, etc. Really beautiful.

Typical English country road. They have hedge rows that go for miles and miles unbroken except for an occasional cross road or driveway.

And yes... this road is only one car wide with occasional wide spots for passing. If you encounter an oncoming vehicle between wide spots, one must back up to allow the other to pass. The blind corners can be VERY exciting too!! There are places where the tree canopy over the road is so thick and so long that you have to turn your lights on mid-day to see where you're going.

When you get outside the major metropolitan areas, the villages all have a similar look. Here are a couple ... The following pictures are a few shots of Castles and Cathedrals.

Anadale Castle

Canterbury Cathedral

Windsor Castle

You'll notice that the Queen Guard have replaced their muskets with Automatic rifles.

We wanted to spend a couple of days in London and were very discouraged by the train fare from Poole to London ($90.00 each round trip) and staying anywhere in London was out of the question. Then I had what turned out to be, I think a moment of inspiration.

We wanted to go to the London temple as part of our trip and as we were lamenting the high cost of transportation to and from London, it occurred to me that the Temple had guest accommodations. We called and were able to get the last available room at a cost of $18 per person per night! So, we drove to the Temple, (about 35 miles south of London) stayed there and took the train from there to London. We were also able to do two sessions at the temple which was wonderful and the temple grounds were magnificent!

London is breathtaking! The architecture over the centuries is nothing short of unbelievable. The following few pics are just a sampling.

I'm sure everyone recognizes Big Ben

Houses of Parliament and Big Ben from the Thames River Another view of the Houses of Parliament

Buckingham Palace The Tower of London

Westminster Abbey St. Paul's Cathedral ... There are 515 steps to the top of the

dome and 515 back down. We walked every one of them!!!!!!

Tower Bridge

On the Sunday prior to our departure from England we were sitting around the "flat" wondering what we might do on our last day. We pulled out the map and discovered that Stonehenge was only about 40 miles north of Poole. En route we passed through Salisbury and discovered another magnificent cathedral.

Salisbury CathedralI put this picture here to give you some scale of the size of this building.

The entire face of the cathedral is statues such as those shown below.

We arrived at Stonehenge just at sunset and got some incredible pictures!

If you'd like to see more of our nearly 600 pictures, lets make a date for Sunday dinner and a slide show. Love ya all!

Family

My sisters - standing Jean (living in South Africa) - Lyndsey (in her pyjama's & robe - I mean what else do you wear to your birthday party?) and Felicity (living in England).

All the family that we able to gather for Lyndsey -

Front row: George - Lyndseys' husband : Gavin in the blue baseball cap with his wife Claire in front of him : sister Lyndsey : sister Felicity in front of Lyndsey : Me & Gary.

Back row : Paul & Sharon (Sharon in Lyndsey's daughter) : My sister Jean & her husband Valley

And this one is just to prove that I am not the "crazy" sister!
And just because I love this one of Lyndsey & her daughter Sharon





I will leave the travelogue for Gary - he is much better at that than me!

A Trip Worth Taking

What a great weekend!

We took off Friday morning with Mindy, Steve and kids along with Ben and his boys and headed for Wheeler Peak, Nevada. It's a 5 hour drive (with kid stops) through some of Utah's most baren landscapes. Then, about the time everyone is thinking Grandpa must be either lost or crazy, a majestic snow capped moutain range appears on the horizon, looking very out of place in the middle of such a desolate desert. (The end is in sight!)

After climbing about 5,000 feet from the valley floor on a steep winding (well paved) mountain road as you round a corner this view unfolds and takes your breath away.

This photo actually taken last August, more snow now

The campgrounds are at about 10,000 feet. The summit is over 13,000 feet. It was cool and breezy when we arrived, but it turned out to be a beautiful evening.

Saturday morning we woke up to this ........

The kids were delighted!

We older folk just took it in stride.

I threw this photo in just because I really like it.

After breakfast we decided we'd better break camp and head for more hospitable accomodations. Upper Lehman Creek campgrounds, at about 7,500 ft. seemed a better bet. We set up camp there (another beautiful campground) then, after lunch, took a tour of Lehman Cave, just a short drive from the campgrounds. Truely one of the most spectacular caves I've ever seen! It is third in the world in the number and type of cave formations. I didn't take any pics inside the cave but here are some stock photos I found on the web. They really don't do justice. The cave is over a mile long and filled with this kind of stuff....

Saturday evening we just kicked back and visited. Sunday was another relaxing day. In the afternoon we took hikes. Steve, Ben, Rachel, Julia and Seth, hiked the 3.4 mile and 3,000 foot climb from the Upper Lehman Creek campground where we were staying, back up to the Wheeler Peak campground. (No easy hike for little legs but the kids did great)

The rest of us waited at the top for them. These are just a couple of the many photos we took while waiting.

The little boys had great fun walking logs and little Emily got in on the action as well...

While Grandpa couldn't even sit on one without falling off!

Just another picture I really like .....

Mindy, Marylin, Rachel and I then hiked down the trail back to camp. Yes, Rachel hiked both up and down!! About 7 miles altogether. Way to go Rachie!!!!!

It was a beautiful hike through a variety of terrain.

Thick pines, sage brush (not a lot), and beautiful mountain meadows.

Monday morning the sane amoung us had breakfast while Steve rode his bike about 12 miles up the steep canyon road to the upper campground and back about 25 miles round trip. We then packed up and took a few parting photos...

then braced ourselves for 5 hours of boring, baren, and bleak surroundings as we headed home.

What a terrific weekend!

PS - Mindy also has some very nice pictures.

A road less travelled

We decided today (Sunday) to take off on another day trip, and chose "9 Mile Canyon". OK - so the canyon is in fact 40 miles long, but we knew that before we took off. We also read online about the "well maintened gravel road" which obviously has not seen any maintenace since the winter snow melt. It was bone jaring and fat jiggling for all of the 40 miles. Oh, and that was just "9 mile canyon, it doesn't include the 35 mile dirt road back to civilization after leaving the canyon! But that said - it was well worth the ride.

The road starts in Wellington (just past Price) and comes out just east of Duchesne. There is a download available that gives the mile markers where you can stop and see the petroglyphs and points of interest which was invalueable as without it you wouldn't see anything more than a beautiful, rugged canyon.

The picture below is the place where Butch Cassidy tipped off the Army that his gang was planning to rob the army payroll - he apparently realized that the Army would hunt the killers down and didn't want to participate in the scheme - but knew if his "gang" went ahead he would be blamed even if he wasn't there - so with the warning, the Army doubled the size of the guard and the gang, seeing such a large escort hasitly called off the ambush.

Aside from the historical interest - this really was a place where you would almost expect cowboys & indians to step into the scene at any time.

We then decided to take Highway 35 home - a spectacular canyon drive at any time of the year, but after spending the day in the dry, dusty 9 Mile Canyon it was quite a contrast to find so much snow still on the ground.

We ended our day by stopping by the Caldwell's just in time to taste Mindy's "to die for" peanut butter cookies - a perfect end thanks Mindy!

Happy Mother's Day.......

With the "Ben" spin..........

I absolultely love this card, but for some reason just can't bring myself to look at it for very long!

Love you too Benjamin!

Spring has arrived!

It still amazes me that we can go from this:

To this:

Yup - spring is definately a "New Adventure" each year! I love it!!

Picture Pefect Day

Last Saturday, after Zeus's farewell party, Gary and I decided to go on another New Adventure (for me anyway) to take a drive up Little Cottonwood Canyon as it was just an incredibly beautiful day. We were hoping to ride up the gondola at Snowbird to take some photo's from the top, but unfortunately arrived just 15 minutes after they closed ticket sales, so we stayed a while watching the skiers and then continued up to Alta. It was still really worth the drive - so beautiful, and it inspired Gary to be determined to get in shape and ski again next season ~ can't wait!

Unfortunately the coming down the mountain was a headache with , I am sure, 90% of Utah also trying to leave Alta & Snowbird - the traffic didn't move for close to 45 minutes...... not even an inch. Luckily they were still serving food at Alta so we stayed for dinner and left after the rush.

Hope you enjoy these photos! Amazing high winds at the tops of the mountains!