Cornwall Road Trip

We braved the 'wrong' side of the road, and made the three day drive out to the Southwest tip of England. The Cornwall coast, somewhat similar to the Oregon coast, steep cliffs, rocky shoreline, frigid water, and very beautiful. Not very inviting, but a great place to sit and drink English tea behind windows blocking the 40mph horizontal rain.


Cleveland I think the town is here, we decided to stretch the legs after a couple hours of driving and shifters gears on the 'wrong' side. My dad started off as a back seat driver after leaving our Oxford flat, then silent except for the comment about having a stroke, and soon after, directed his full attention on reading the map. We were a great three person team, me driving, Dad reading the map, and mom reading the guide books on what was worth exploring.


This is Powderham Castle, not fortified, just a palace where the wealthy lived the high life and heavily taxed the local poor.


Our first night stop was in Looe, not like louis, its pronounced loo, otherwise known as the toilet. That was another thing the Miller family was great at, between my dad and I, and my mom desperately trying to correct us, we absolutely butchered the English names. Nice little night view from our Bed and Breakfast, as we walked downtown to the local English pub for dinner.

The morning view of our Bed and Breakfast. Just a typical driver's view of the Cornwall coast.


I think this was a picture of the main street through Fowey.


After visiting several fishing villages during the day, we decided to go through St Ives instead of staying, due to its city feel. We kept driving out into the countryside, in which we found one Bed and Breakfast, The Tremedda Farm Bed and Breakfast. We initially drove past their small sign posted out on the country road, with our mission of getting to the town of Zennor for our 'awaiting' Bed and Breakfast accommodations. After driving into Zennor, we realized the town was just a pub, and how it made it on the map is a good question. We then drove back to the little sign posted along the road, and found The Tremedda Farm Bed and Breakfast. After finally tracking down the owner, she didn't seem too excited that she had guests, but it could have also been the common dry English personality. It couldn't have worked out any better, having the experience of staying at an English dairy farm, hiding inside our warm room listening to the wind and rain all night, great English breakfast in the morning sun, with fresh MooMaid ice cream before our big day hike.

View overlooking the grazing fields for the farm.


The Zennor headwall, a view along our coastal hike.You gotta love that 10 sec delay shutter .......

Bruce and Cindy Arrive In London

The Millers made it to London, England. Lucky for them, there was a very rare event that occurred during their visit, it snowed in London. This typically happens once every three to four years, and yes, Bruce and Cindy got to experience it on their vacation..... so lucky.

This was their first day in England, fresh off the plane, dazed and confused, without sleeping for over 33hrs, ahh the joys of traveling.

Yes, it's official, Tyler and his parents were in London together. Occasionally the sun did come out, just to remind us how cold it actually was when the sun wasn't out.



This is the famous clock tower Big Ben. Nice little view of the London Eye in the background there.


My last suggestion of items to bring was your bini (beanie), because you truly feel the cold with the humidity. Lindsay was such a good tour guide, reading to us about the history in our current view.



Anyone know what that is? Hint: it's some famous landmark in London, England that crosses the Thames River.

For any of those who want to view a photo album of Bruce and Cindy's trip in England, see link below
http://www.mypublisher.com/bookshelf/bookviewer.py?d=cppl%60je%3E3293:14-tq%3E2

London Weekend

This trip was back in January, the weekend before Tyler left for the states. It was our first weekend in London, after being here for over three months. Chris and Gloria (family friends of the Wrights) offered their flat to us for the weekend in the heart of the Soho District. Thank you Chris and Gloria!!!! The Soho District is pretty much the place to be for the never ending entertainment of London. Here is a view from the main room in the flat, great views overlooking London.

What a great little tourist guide.

What's a picture of London without the famous double decker bus?

After watching a football (Americans call is soccer) match in the local pub, we decided we would give the tourist thing a shot, the one and only London Bridge in the background. Check, back to more football accompanied with fine English Ales.
You end up doing a lot of walking in London, since the underground (subway) costs about $4 per block. Although the underground is no doubt a cultural experience you don't want to miss, you don't get to see much of the city, so it all works out.

A night view from the flat, thanks again Chris and Gloria. Although the Soho District is known for never going to sleep, we made it to 11:30pm, barely.......

Oxford Flooding

So far, although I could be jinxing it, everyone comments about how aweful the weather is in the UK. Weather is relative, and when you come from the Northwest, after living in both the Willamette Valley and The Gorge, the winter weather here in England has actually been really nice. It's the middle of winter and we are still running outside in t-shirt and shorts, ok maybe that's just Tyler, but either way, the temperature is very mild year round. This is caused by the warm Gulf stream coming over from Mexico, brings warm water, the westerly winds blow over this warm water, and therefore blows warm air across the country, there you have it. "Does it rain all the time?" This also has not been true, as most days are grey in the morning, sunny in the afternoon, and grey in the evening. We did have a week long spell of a 'little' rain in January. This was truly very little rain in comparison to The Gorge, and everything flooded. As you can see in the picture above, our running activities were rerouted during this week.

This picture was taken earlier in the year, shown here as a comparison, Oxford was one big lake. For a country that 'gets so much rain' you would think they would be more prepared for it. Flooding has become more popular in the last couple years, must be that 'Global Warming".

These are communal gardens that are all two feet under water.

Besides that week when it rained, any of you who want to escape the winter in the Northwest, come visit us in England, where the weather is 'nice'.

Worcester

We made it up to Worcester in January for a Saturday night getaway from the books and working world. Yes, this is the town where Worcestershire Sauce was first brewed, in case any of you were wondering.




This is an environment that isn't difficult to find on any block in England, an English pub. They always have a great atmosphere, cozy, good English ales (warm and flat), deep fried food, with very friendly locals. Pubs are a huge part of the English culture, so don't miss them.
The beautiful 'Fish N Chips' always good after a couple pints.

I think Tyler may have found the church that was in his guide book.

Quick, one hour train ride back to Oxford, reading books and soaking up the countryside views...... public transportation is really great.

ok ok ok ..... back to blogging

Now that I am four months behind I will try to catch up in the next couple of days.
After Lindsay's exams were finished, Lindsay had a week of downtime hanging around Oxford and sleeping in, while Tyler finished some things up at work before the holiday traveling began.
We had a wonderful trip meeting up with the Wrights in Spain
http://picasaweb.google.com/millerbtyler/SpainWithWrightFamily?authkey=cEgFcExJd24
Then Lindsay and Tyler continued on down south to Morocco
http://picasaweb.google.com/millerbtyler/Morocco?authkey=GyQW_wvDURE
Morocco was one of those adventure trips, great cultural experience, glad we had the experience, but maybe next time stay a little more on the tourist route, as we had a few too many 'deep' cultural experiences.