Stonehenge & Bath

For the 4^th of July weekend, we decided to take a day trip to Stonehenge and Bath.  We woke early on the 4^th and said goodbye to Cooper, who was going to have a visitor come and walk him later in the day, and starting driving south, then west, towards Stonehenge.  We forgot that the Gas Station on base was closed for the holiday, so we had to gas up in the economy, and boy was that expensive.  They pay approximately $8.50 per gallon.  Sheesh!

The drive wasn’t too bad.  The Milton Keynes round-a-bouts got a little annoying, but they ended eventually.  The road into Stonehenge was a small one, and they had a little parking lot for the tourists.  You could see the stone circle from the road, and another human circle around it.  We got there an hour after is opened and were surprised to see so many early visitors.  After paying the entrance fee, we proceeded on our walking tour around the Circle.  We’ve heard that people weren’t allowed to get that close, but we felt this was close enough. 

I think we’re past the stage where we need to touch everything we see, photos are enough for us.  We rounded the circle taking photos in the different light and with different people in the background.  It was nice of someone to ask us to take a picture of them, so it was easy to ask them to return the favor.

I kept my eye out for any shape-shifting druids, but I couldn’t find any.  Only American and Asian tourists with an odd taste in fashion could be seen.  Overall, we enjoyed the experience; another check in the box for Wonders of the World.

Bath was a lovely sight to see.  The road into town was lined with quaint homes that wound down a steep hill towards the river.  Downtown was a little busy, and we, rather I, made a few wrong turns, but we eventually found our parking garage.  There, at the shopping center, we stopped by the MBT store to test some of their fancy walking shoes for the day.  After a small deposit, we received these, and started our walking tour around Bath. 

We stopped for lunch before the tour, because we knew it was a rather long tour around town.  Around 1:00PM, we gathered near the Bath Abbey, and met up with our tour guides.  The group was split into smaller groups, each with one tour guide.  We got a small, soft-spoken man, with wispy gray hair that reminded me a bit of Mark Twain.  He took us around showing us all the historical places around the community; the Pump Room, King’s and Queen’s Bath, the warmest bath, along with the coolest.  He talked about each founding of Bath and who did what and where.  We walked all over and saw many different aspects of the architecture that we probably wouldn’t have noticed otherwise.  For instance, there was a window tax back in the day, and people decided to put up fake windows and even block windows with brick to avoid the tax, yet keeping the façade of their property symmetrical.  We also saw the original town wall, a Georgian garden, the Royal Crescent, and The Circus (curved streets lined with houses and columns).

After the tour, we returned our MBT’s, grabbed our other shoes, and went to the King’s and Queen’s bath for the grand tour of the original Roman Baths.  It was amazing!

After a long day of touring, we decided to stop for some Japanese food for dinner, before heading back to the car for the trip home.  We did make one interesting stop on our way home.  We didn’t realize on the way out how close we were to the Silverstone Circuit, so we wanted to stop and take pictures to post on Facebook a week later, when the Formula 1 Grand Prix was going to be there.  The guards at the gate had no objection to our endeavor, and let us snap a few shots at the entrance to the raceway.  It was a little hoax to give us something to smile about on the next Sunday.  Fun times!

~Blake

Peterborough & Garden Growth

The summer months are bringing us extremely long days here at our northern latitude.  Every weekday, I watch the sun break the horizon at 4:30am as I arrive at work.  The sunshine gives my extremely early mornings a sense of normalcy, even if I'm still the only car on the road :)  We're also enjoying the 10:00pm sunsets, though the sunlight and bird chirps coming through the windows make going to bed early almost impossible!

The weather has also become partly cloudy and 70 most days, and rainy and 60 on the remaining days.  We certainly didn't foresee how pleasant the summer weather would be... turns out England isn't dreary after all!  We've had at least another half-dozen flower varieties pop up since my May flower photos, but my favorites are the Fuchsias we planted in the spring.  Our least favorite garden development is all the fresh growth on our pesky British ivy.  I think it might devour the house soon!

Summer has also spurred my return to the pool.  This called for a new swimsuit and goggles, so I dragged Blake to the big mall at our city to the north, Peterborough.  We were surprised to discover that the mall was built right next door to the Peterborough Cathedral.  This is the first cathedral we have visited, so I of course had to take a picture!

Lots of trips coming up this summer... stay tuned!

~Lindsay

Dog 'N' Jog

This last weekend, Lindsay organized a “Dog ‘N’ Jog” at the Fitness Center on base where she works, where pets and owners could get a little exercise together.  She and her coworkers set up a course that went, starting at the Fitness Center, to the back of base housing, by the school, past the post office, all the way around the playing fields, and back to the Fitness Center.  Cooper and I arrived early to utilize the agility course and we found out that Cooper is very happy to complete all the obstacles.  His favorite was the hurdles.  After a few more dogs showed up, we hit the starting line, and began the run.  Two and a half miles was no problem for Cooper.  He spent most of the time pulling me forward.  We ran next to a friend of his, Barkmann, who also pulled his owner, Natalie, through most of the course.  After the run, we all relaxed and got a few treats and did a little more agility exercises.  For the rest of the day, Cooper moved very little and stayed in his window bed for the majority of the day.  I think I’m going to take Cooper on a lot more runs around base.  He seems to really enjoy them.

Lindsay was the official event photographer and took plenty of shots.  Here are a few:

~Blake