Six days to go...

It is almost a good thing that we have had so much rain because although it has hampered our outdoor activities a bit, it has also allowed me to do lots of planning for our upcoming trip to Eastern Europe.

King Alfred's Tower

Back in 1762, a banker by the name of Henry Hoare II decided to build a tower in the middle of nowhere, and with no purpose. Bankers can do things like this, because they have so much excess money. Even back in 1762!

Wells Cathedral is Amazing!

Yesterday afternoon we went to wander around the city of Wells. The city itself has a population of about 12,000. Wells is officially the smallest city in England, where you obtain official city status because you have a cathedral. And Wells most certainly has a cathedral!

An 800 Year Old Church

That's still in use today. When you visit a town who's referenced history goes back to the year 733, it's a pretty safe bet there will be some old buildings to see. Yesterday, we visited Somerton (pop 4,700).

Korunas, Zlotys, and Forints

Oh, and of course Euros. We plan on being in four different countries during our six and a half week tour of Eastern Europe. And each country uses a different currency.

Sore muscles

A little late getting to the blog post this morning. We've been busy making more travel plans, and we'll be able to tell you about them soon! In the meantime, we're keeping busy in Somerset, England. Only a week and a half to go until we leave for our six week tour of Eastern Europe!

We can see the sea!

We've been in England for about a month now and yesterday we had our first view of the sea. Well, it was the Bristol Channel actually, but it does look out into the sea!

Castle Cary

Yet another cloudy day yesterday, but it didn't start raining until the afternoon. Tony was going into the village of Castle Cary to get some new tires on his work van, so we followed along in the car just for something to do.

A surprisingly nice day!

There's been so much rain here that it's become kind of expected. It's pretty much a given that it's going to rain tomorrow. Even the forecast didn't show any sun. So when the clouds disappear, it's a nice surprise.

How do we research a trip?

Not much to write about this morning because it rained pretty much all day yesterday. Reader Joe in Indiana had asked the other day if we would talk a little about how we research a trip and he's right that our upcoming Czech Republic and area excursion makes for a good example.

Nine mile hike in the rain

While much of Canada and the U.S. experiences summer, we here in England have been left behind. July the 6th felt like mid April! But that didn't stop us from going out for a nice hike at Burrington Combe.

A Tower on Top of a Tor

Well I tried to go to work yesterday, but when we got there our third helper cancelled on us. So it's now been put off, possibly until next week. I guess I just wasn't meant to get in a full days work! Oh well, that's my lot in life.

A rare post from Ruth

Well today you will get a post by me, Ruth.  Kevin went out the door this morning at 7:30am with Tony to help him put up the ceiling at Kelly and Paul's place.

Next stop, Czech Republic!

My older sister Elaine, was the correct one to guess Czech Republic yesterday. And no, she didn't have any hints. Other than the fact that she knows I like to do family history research, and that our paternal grandmother was born in that area.

Went to Bath and had a shower

My uncle and some of his family are having a vacation in England just now, and it turned out that we were getting fairly close to each other. So we drove up to Bath to have lunch with them!