Visiting the UK

Alert: This is long! And I'll add pictures later!

Riley and I returned last night from another trip of a lifetime - this time to England and Wales. I love to travel and see new things - I can now look at a map of England and Wales and know that it is about two hours to get from Wales to London, that the Thames River in London has lots of cool sites along it, that there are wonderful sites filled with history and I know where Stonehenge is, what it looks like and that thousands of people pour into that area every day. It's not a solitary experience.

We started in London on August 13th, arriving in the morning. It took three hours to get to the London Centre where John and Karla Bennion are conducting the BYU fall study abroad group starting next week. John suggested we rest for an hour, then stay awake until evening. We did this and headed out walking through Kensington Gardens, eating sandwiches for lunch, finding Magnum Bars (ice cream - way yummy) and ending up at Big Ben near the Thames. We spent several hours wandering, seeing the theater district, 10 Downing Street, Parliament and other London sites. We had a nice dinner made at home that night and hit the sack.

Our friends Tamela and Tiffany Blake arrived from Provo in the middle of the night with no luggage. Tamela spent the morning on the phone with the airlines while Tiffany went with us to the Victoria and Albert museum. We spent time there then met up with Tamela at church. She had received their luggage and had a skirt for Tiffany to change into. Church was interesting. They talked a lot about the riots which had recently occurred. They were puzzled and astounded such things could happen in their neighborhoods, with crimes committed by youth, mothers and businessmen, so they say. It disturbed their normal lives. After church we met up with John, Karla and son Chris Bennion and more friends from our ward Annie and Alex Grow. We all went to a pub for some good English food. The food wasn't so great but it was really fun to be with such a great group of people! We had fun visiting, then found Magnum bars again, then went to the Centre to talk for several more hours. The Grows live in Cambridge for now, both at school.

They left us and we all headed back to the Centre. We all slept easily and were ready the next morning, Monday, for many adventures. Tamela, Tiffany, Riley and I met up with Susan, Sophie and Cameron Christensen, friends of the Blakes who live in a Sherwood Hills ward near us. Their son Ross is one of Riley's TAs. We all bought London Passes which gave us entrance into many sites we saw over the next few days. With this group we visited The Tower of London, St. Paul's Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, Kew Gardens (with John too), took a Thames River cruise and saw many other places Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. We went to a play at the Globe on Monday night with the Blakes and Bennions - the Mysteries which detailed Bible stories. It was well-done and interesting. We all ate dinner at Wagamama's before the play. Tuesday night Riley and I ventured out alone to eat dinner and see Les Mis at the Queen's Theatre. I thought it was fabulous. Riley liked the Globe play better. One day Riley went to the Natural History Museum while the rest went to Kensington Palace for a tour.

Wednesday night we took the Bennions to dinner at an Indian restaurant to say thank you for hosting us. John and Karla are so knowledgeable about London - I had lost my Rick Steves tour book on the plane coming in but they were even better with all their ideas of what to see and do. In fact, because Tamela organized each day's activities, I was less stressed and enjoyed things more. I'll have to take her along on future trips!

Thursday Riley and I played adventurers. We took the tube (subway) to a car rental and picked up our car - they upgraded us to a Volvo with a GPS and a sunroof. It was a bigger car than Riley wanted, especially for parking, but we got along OK after our initial nervousness (and me nearly having a heart attack) about driving on the other side of the road! He was in the right side of the car, shifting with his left hand, driving on the left side. The driving part of the trip was not relaxing - I was navigating with a map book, the GPS and road signs. Riley was trying not to get us killed and make the right exit out of roundabouts. The first day was a little hairy, we yelled at each other a few times, laughed about it later, and made it over very narrow roads to Charles Darwin's house where we spent five hours touring the house and grounds. Riley loved this place especially as he holds Darwin in great esteem. We continued on, going the wrong way for a while then turning around, to the London Temple. We got checked in and left to find food which ended up being our favorite meal of the trip. We ate at the Red Barn - Riley had a lamb steak and I had mushroom stuffed chicken - it was a delicious, relaxing meal after harried driving.

Friday morning we did the 9 a.m. temple session - they only have one every hour. Since we were only one of two couples in the session we were asked to be the witness couple which we have not been since Taiwan. It was wonderful to be in the temple - very comforting and quiet. And it was fun to hear British English - I love the accent. After the session we spent time in the celestial room, pondering and giving thanks for so many things. I feel very blessed to have the life I have and Riley as my eternal companion. I'm not sure I deserve all I have but I am grateful.

We walked the temple grounds for an hour taking pictures, Riley catching robber flies, enjoying the calm. We decided to eat lunch in the temple cafeteria then left for our next adventure. Getting in the car each time I had to take a minute to get the maps and book ready, think about where we were heading, then give Riley directions. We headed south to Portsmouth, not stopping anywhere because you never really know how long it would take to get from one place to another. So we made it into Portsmouth about 3:30 p.m. I tried to follow the map instructions but couldn't tell where our hotel was so we just drove along the edge of the ocean. The road ended in a roadblock near a burned down building and the last building before the road block was our hotel - a miracle, really! We parked in the car park behind the hotel, got checked in and left to explore.

We walked across to the ocean and sat on the quarter sized rocks, not sand, for a bit before heading to the pier to walk and see things there. I took pictures of people fishing and some mackerel a man caught. We walked back in from the pier and looked at the burned building. There was a sign about the police thinking it was arson, asking for the public's help. I asked an older woman with a walker what had happened. She and her husband live nearby and she told of the building burning a few weeks earlier. We ended up walking and talking with Gordon and Millie Hodgson for about 40 minutes down the boardwalk. It was fun to listen to their British accents and they told stories of their lives and living in Portsmouth. We took a picture together and parted ways. I think part of the fun of going somewhere is meeting new people, even if they only touch for lives for a short time. I will remember these two fondly as a good memory of Portsmouth, England. We bought groceries and found a Turkish diner to have a lamp doner. We spoke with Rez, the store owner, who told us about escaping Iran in the '80s. He said he had Mormon friends (because that came up after we said we were from Utah) in Utah and he might go visit sometime. I took a picture of him and Riley.

We watched the sunset from our hotel room that night while talking to Amy on video chat. She had been sick and in the hospital in Cambodia. I was glad she got the help she needed but got a little emotional thinking I was so far away from her and unable to help. I was glad I was prompted to put her name on the temple prayer roll that morning!

Saturday we tried to get out quickly because we had a big day ahead of us. We ate a free breakfast in the hotel restaurant. I liked our Best Western Royal Beach hotel because it provided free parking, free breakfast and free Internet. (I don't like Marriott because they don't.) We got out of town all right and were a little more comfortable navigating and driving to Salisbury where we saw the tallest cathedral in Europe and one of the original Magna Cartas. It was beautiful. The cathedral was beautiful and we liked walking the streets of Salisbury. We left and went next to Old Sarum, a 5,000 year old castle site. It was pouring outside so we stayed in the car to eat bread, cheese and apples for lunch. Then, each with an umbrella, we walked to Old Sarum and toured the site. One interesting part was the intact toilet for the king - only he could use it. It was a big walled-in pit that, when the king left the castle, had to be cleaned out by someone lowered into it. Yuck. England does a great job maintaining historical sites. And they have a Heritage Pass you can buy to allow you entrance. It saves money if you visit more than a couple of sites and we did. The Darwin house, Old Sarum and Stonehenge were the three we visited on the pass although there were many others we could have.

We drove from there to Stonehenge but got in a big traffic jam that lost us an hour of time. We thought it was cars getting to Stonehenge but it was traffic on another road. We toured this site for a couple of hours, listening to the audio tour, walking the perimeter again without it, taking pictures and talking. There were thousands of other people there - a site in the middle of farmland with sheep in adjoining fields. It's nice to see lots of people are interested in history. And Stonehenge is amazing and baffling. How did the people 5,000 years ago get those huge, heavy stones in place? No one knows for sure. We also visited Woodhenge and Avebury Stones, sites similar to Stonehenge. There were less people at these sites and we liked that.

We decided to skip the town of Bath and get to Bristol for the night since it was getting late. In Bristol we got lost on a dead-end street, got back to one Marriott to get directions to our Marriott. The streets in these port towns are crazy and hard to figure out. The young man at the first Marriott told us to "turn left past the Fangdons" which is what Riley wrote down. They were actually fountains which were about two feet high so you couldn't see them. But we found our hotel, got checked in and went walking. We decided to head to the water and because it was Saturday night, the area was brimming with partying people. I took pictures of a rainbow in the sunset and a group of men who were dressed like leprechauns at the other end of the rainbow. Where was the pot of gold? We found it in an Italian restaurant where we ate delicious pizza and spaghetti with shrimp. It was a nice meal and we sat window front with a view of the restaurant and street.

I didn't get on the Internet that night because it cost a fortune. Plus it cost $25 to park there and there was no free breakfast. I don't like Marriott - they don't treat their customers as well as other places. But the room was nice and we slept easily because we were getting worn out with all the travel.

Sunday we left Bristol and drove on the motorway (freeway) to Wales. We paid a toll going in and Riley asked if the toll person could make change for us coming out. She said, "you only need to pay going in, love, not coming out." I love how polite people are. Wales ended up being one of our favorite places of the whole trip. The drive up the Wye River Valley was green and beautiful. We stopped in Tinturn to see the Tinturn Abbey, a dilapidated cathedral that is a historical site. It was cool, calm and less peopled than the previous day. We looked in the gift shop and decided not to tour the inside of the abbey but took pictures of the outside.

We left Tinturn and continued up the valley road to Monmouth where we turned around to go back down the road. The whole drive was on a narrow road, as usual, with many roundabouts, as usual, but we were more confident in driving now. You still couldn't let your guard down or do without the map book but we were less nervous. We stopped at two places on that drive - one was for a walk through the forest to the Eagle's Nest, a climb that took us to an overlook of the valley, the Severn and into England. It was magnificent. We loved the quiet, cool walk that morning, a Sunday morning - perfect for the day. We only passed a few other people on our walk. We also stopped at a swap meet in Chepstow where we ate chips, a pork roll sandwich, Welsh cakes and doughnuts. Then it was back across the bridge out of Wales. We continued on the Motorway, me taking pictures of odd road signs, to the turnoff for Bath and spent an hour or so walking the streets of Bath, seeing the Circus and Crescent and pump house. It reminded us of Jackson Hole or Park City - tourists and locals leisurely enjoying the sunny day. Our favorite spot was on the river looking at the Pulteney Bridge on the Avon River - very nice. We continued on the motorway all the way back to our hotel near the airport in Hounslow, near London. We were tired. We walked to a pub - the Three Magpies. We had pretty good food, not the best of the trip, but good enough. We slept easily again - really worn out.

Monday we had time to re-pack everything for the flight home. We ate the last of our clementines and apples and bread. We took some last pictures near our car then returned our car to the rental place. I was amazed we had made it without any problems to the car. A shuttle took us to the airport and we spent several hours going through security, spending our last pounds, eating and waiting. The flight home was nice - I tried to stay awake so I could sleep Monday night. Coming into Atlanta the ride got bumpy and I got queasy but was ok. We had to hurry from that flight, through passport check and customs with our luggage to re-check the luggage and make our next flight. They were already boarding when we got to the next gate. We flew from Atlanta to Salt Lake without any problems and made it safely home in our truck driving on the right side of the road.

What a trip! I love thinking of where we went, who we played with, new friends we met, food we ate, the sites we saw and the feelings I had at various times. I love to travel to capture these new memories but I also love returning home to the familiar routine I have here. It was good to see our cats and the house was in good shape, thanks to Duncan McKay. And I can now drive comfortably and breathe at the same time.