Back and Forth Across the Pond

In our England wanderings, Steve and I made it a point to travel the "A" roads as much as possible during this trip, instead of the motorways. A motorway, or "M" road, is the same as a highway in the U.S. It's designed to get you where you're going as quickly as possible. It's not meant to be scenic. An "A" road is a step down from an "M." It's not a tiny road (that's a "B" road), but it's offers a more scenic drive. For this trip, the journey was as much fun as the destination, so we took a lot of "A" and "B" roads. This brought us close to some interesting sites, such as Poole's Cavern in Buxton, Derbyshire. I'm not sure why but I never thought about England being a place with caverns. It's silly, I know. I just never equated the two together for some reason. So it was pretty neat to spend a few hours exploring the cave and comparing it to some of the caverns Steve and I have v...

At long last, I'm back to posting the remaining England photo blogs. My last England blog entries shared my wanderings with Steve around the walled city of York. From York, we traveled south to meet up with some old friends. In Chesterfield, we popped into the Parish Church of St. Mary's and All Saints, also known as the Church of the Crooked Spire. You can see where it got its name in the photo. There are fun fables about why the spire is crooked. My favorite is that a great dragon landed on it and twisted it. The real reason is that the spire is made of wood and it warped. Not nearly as fun. The spire definitely gives the church a distinct character. My camera was giving me fits in the low light and did not take very good pictures. This one, though, is kind of artistic looking. The spire from the distance.

Steve and I once spent a week in New York City back in 2004. He had a training class, so the hotel was covered. It just made sense for me to tag along. During the day, Steve would go to class. I would meet up with him for lunch, but I would have the rest of the day to just wander. We stayed at the Hilton in Times Square. I had to walk through the garment district to meet up with him for lunch. It was early April, so the weather was lovely. It was, simply put, a great week. I explored the city from lower Manhattan to Central Park. We loved New York. The energy was addictive. We've been back for brief visits since: Steve met up with a few friends from England for a few days; I spent a couple of days there with another friend; and we spent an afternoon there when we had a long layover for one of our England flights. But we've not spent any significant time there together until we went on our anniversary trip earlier this month. We arrived around lunchtime on a Wednesday and grabbe...

Steve and I had a stroll around Central Park yesterday and then rode the subway back to our apartment. After the second stop, the conductor announced that a child had been separated from his parents at the previous stop and asked the parents to please come speak to the conductor. The train sat for a minute or two and the conductor repeated the announcement, stating again that the child had been left behind at the previous stop and would the parents please see the conductor. Finally a couple walked by with a small boy aged about three or four. They looked a bit confused, but not freaked out. The man was probably about 50. The woman was in her 30s. They were dressed well, like they were coming from work. These were not the panicked, over-stressed parents I expected to see at the other end of such an announcement. I thought I'd see maybe very young parents. Or a single Mom or Dad. Or parents with several children who somehow, in the chaos of the station, lost a grip on a precious litt...

I have a new iPad and I popped into my Blogger app to get it logged in and I see two drafts I started of Britain pics that still sit unfinished. Yes, life has definitely gotten in the way of my posting. Funny how when I'm actually experiencing my wonderful adventures I have time to blog about them, but when I'm just living my every day life, I don't. Of course, my every day life includes writing a dissertation, so maybe I have a wee bit of an excuse. Not that I've made a whole lot of progress there, either. Currently, Steve and I are in New York City. We've been here for three days to celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary. We head home tomorrow. We traveled by train in a sleeper, so the journey is also a part of the adventure. It's been very enjoyable and I will have those photos to share here, too. I suppose I'm going to have to take a few hours and just write a bunch of blogs and get all of these photos and ideas out there. I will certainly try.

Valencia is our beautiful torbie (tortoise shell with tabby markings) rescue cat. We adopted her when she was about eight weeks old. She'll be 13 near the end of April. Valencia is very much the manipulative diva. For instance, she learned quite some time ago that if she rolled around on the floor, we would stop whatever we were doing and pet her on her tummy because she was so darned cute. Today, she took that manipulation to new levels. Steve has been home since Friday. He had today off for President's Day and he took Friday off to make it a four day weekend. As a result, he and I have been off doing various things and Valencia has not had my undivided attention from 6:30 a.m. until Steve gets home some time after 5:30 p.m. That makes her a bit more needy, so she's a bit more vocal and a bit more demanding. Today, after Steve and I had been out running errands for a few hours this morning, she put a new ploy into action. We walked into the room and she threw herself o...

Our hotel was just about a block outside The Mickelgate, the main gate into the walled portion of York.  York's war memorial near the National Railway Museum. We grabbed lunch at the King's Arms. The pub is infamous for being the pub that floods. The River Ouse, which runs through York, is quite prone to flooding. So the pub's interior is designed in such a way that it can withstand the high waters. I snapped this pic of a photograph from a recent flood. The pub is the white building. It had been raining for a couple of days before we arrived, so the river was looking a bit high. I took the top pic from inside the pub. The other two are taken right outside.   This is Clifford's Tower, all that remains of the original York Castle built by William the Conqueror in 1068. It's a popular tourist attraction, yet it's one of the few places in York I have never visited. I mean, that's a lot of stairs! The York Castle Museum is housed in tw...