Stonehenge and Bath

In the effort to stay current--and just simply because our trip yesterday was awesome--I'm posting pictures immediately of our adventure to Bath and Stonehenge with Callie B. To celebrate Callie's visit, we opted for a very special "Inner Circle" tour, where we actually got to go in among the stones at sunset. As you can imagine, it was a dramatic evening.

The Roman Baths--at Bath, go figure--are pretty spectacular as well. Bath is a beautiful little village that actually reminds me quite a bit of towns in Italy. In fact, the Pultney Bridge is a copy of the Ponte Vecchio in Florence, and it is the only remaining bridge in England that has buildings on it. The baths themselves are the only natural hot spring in all England, and were long believed to hold magical and healing powers. The Baths were dedicated to Sulis Minerva. Aquae Sulis was the Roman name for the town that would be rebuilt as Bath centuries later. Sul was a pre-Roman Celtic god worshiped at the spring. The current baths were built in the 18th century, and excavations of the Roman ruins didn't begin until much later in the 19th century. They didn't even know the Romans had been there for a long, long time.

Here we see a view of the Abbey from the top of the Great Bath. This Abbey, incidentally, is where Edgar, first king of all England was crowned by Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury in 973 AD.

This is the view of the Pultney Bridge mentioned above.

The Romans were really smart, and made their own saunas by drawing air across a fire under a hollow floor, and up through hollow flue bricks in the walls. This is the floor structure in one such room.

Callie and Anna relaxing (since they didn't get their traditional spa experience) by the Great Bath.

Stonehenge. Stonehenge is a really stunning piece of human heritage. Built between 3,000-5,000 years ago, and in the three separate stages over several centuries by separate peoples or tribes, we still don't know exactly what it's for, but it bears a special relationship in its construction to the solar and lunar cycles. It probably allowed ancient Britons to predict eclipses as well. The larger stones can weigh around 45 tons, and some of the smaller, "blue" stones are a rare type of stone that occurs in only one mountain in south Wales--some 250 miles away from where Stonehenge sits in the county Wiltshire.

Our tour got a special view of a dramatic sunset, coupled with some rain, but as a consequence also a stunning rainbow over the English countryside. Also, we got to go inside the ring, and people don't normally get to do that! Enjoy:

This was a really, really special adventure. Not one easily forgotten.

The Return of Strong Internet Connections!

That's right folks, we've finally got our internet hookups squared away, after much consternation and many long phone calls to multiple concerned parties. The "Death Star" is fully armed and operational, as they say. "They" referring to evil galactic emperors, of course.

Let's see, the last post I was able to complete was about Sweden a few weeks ago, and even then I was catching up. This summer has been flying by, Anna and I have both been hard at work--for the most part. My time has been divided between the several libraries at which I do my research. I wish I could take pictures of the reading rooms at the British Library, because they are fantastic. Where else would I get to handle and read original copies of books printed in the 1880's? I'll see if I can come up with some contraband evidence without getting kicked out. Anna has been taking several courses in design, sewing pattern adaptation, color, and styling. She is developing her plans for an image consulting business, and working hard at it!

Here are some pictures!

Tim turned 60 this year, and the big surprise for his birthday was getting the whole family together. As you can tell, he wasn't exactly expecting us all from the four corners of the world. New York, San Francisco, London and La Crosse, all getting slightly closer together these days!


So we says to ourselves, "since we're about the business of surprisin' anyway, let's see how many we can fit into one trip." Mom's near-heart-attack-of-joy was certainly a good one!


Of course, the planets aligned and brought many friends home during the exact time period in which we were so secretly back in La Crosse...so naturally we went bowling! This is, after all, what We do.


In case you needed more proof that we are really awesome...we're totally famous...

So there's just a taste of our little jaunt back across the pond. It was far too short, and full of good times and great memories. There's just a taste for now, but, as I've been promising for some time, now that the internet Force is with us once more, there will be updates aplenty--especially considering our visits and upcoming events! More on that later, and cheers for now!