A Thing…

So… I decided to do a thing.  I have a bit of extra time right now, so what better opportunity is there?

I decided to write a book.  My thought right now is that it will be about my trip, commingled with the last couple years of my life.  The record of my experience; my emotions, my fears, my successes, my failures.  What the trip meant to me, and what the people in my life mean to me.  A memoir, I guess. There will likely be some overlap with this blog, but this blog has always been more about the things I do and see, rather than the emotional experience of it…

I have no idea if it will go anywhere, or be any good, or if it will just collect dust on my hard drive, but I will never know if I don’t write it.

I wrote some pages today.  You have to start somewhere.  Everybody starts somewhere.  Am I just crazy?

London 2018: The Shard

Day 3, Tuesday, June 26, 2018

Growing up near Seattle, I’m no stranger to tall, needle-like buildings that offer a view of the skyline.  The Shard is so much taller than the Space Needle though!

The Shard is designed to look like a shard of glass extending skyward, to a total height of 1,016 feet, and 95 stories.  It is a mixed use building, with residential, office space and a hotel occupying its 95 floors.  We were there to visit The View from The Shard, an open air observation deck and viewing gallery with a cocktail bar, and some of the best views of London.  The View from The Shard occupies floors 68-72, and there is not usable floor space up above that, so you can look straight up and see the architecture of the building and the sky!

Once you pay your admission, access to the observation deck is via a high speed elevator – it would have been cooler if it was a glass elevator with a view, but I guess you can’t have everything.  Then you have to climb a couple of flights of stairs in order to get to the open air observation deck.

Once at the top, the view is incredible, and you can stay as long as you like.  We had a cider, and sat on the AstroTurf and checked out the view.  There are windows on all sides, so you can see all four directions, although the glare of the sun made it a bit difficult for us to see in that direction.  Even the bathrooms had a floor to ceiling window!

My only complaint about The Shard was that I wish there had been more seating on the observation deck.  We had been on our feet all day, and really just wanted to sit down for a few minutes!  Nobody bothered us when we sat on the AstroTurf, but it just felt a little bit weird.

The Shard was expensive, but it was certainly worth it since it was included with the London Pass.  Relaxing with a great view!

On our way home we stopped at a Greene King Tavern pub for a late dinner and a cider.  I had a simple ham and cheese sandwich.  We got back to the hotel at 10:15 – a late night for me!

Tube Stations: London Bridge (near The Shard), Earl’s Court (hotel)
Costs: The Shard – 27.20 pounds (free with London pass), dinner and cider
FitBit Steps: 14,500!

 

London 2018: Tower Bridge

Day 3, Tuesday, June 26, 2018

Nearby the Tower of London is the Tower Bridge, so we headed there next.  The bridge was built between 1886 and 1894, and is a bascule (otherwise known as a drawbridge) and suspension bridge.

Me and Taryn with the Tower Bridge in the background

The bridge was built for both pedestrian and vehicle traffic.  However, there is a twist!  The bridge was built with pedestrian walkways up above too so people could still cross the bridge when it was open to allow ships to pass through.  Talk about a view!

Tower Bridge

The view of the upper walkways from below

Taryn and me with the bridge

Unfortunately, you had to climb several stories to get to the top walkway and most people didn’t want such a workout just to cross a bridge.  According to some sources, the upper walkway became a place frequented by prostitutes and pickpockets.  As a result, the upper pedestrian walkway was closed in 1910.  The official story is that the upper walkways were not used because pedestrians preferred to wait at the bottom and watch the bridge open when ships came through.  Perhaps they preferred to wait at the bottom because of all the prostitution on the upper walkway!

In the 1980s the upper walkway was reopened and now you can visit.  When we were there, the elevator was broken, so we still had to climb all those stairs – 206 steps!  On a very hot day…  With no air conditioning…  Wow – it was a good workout…

The exhibit explains how the bridge was constructed, with divers wearing those old fashioned bell helmets submerging to build the underwater portions of the bridge.  These workers were very well paid!  It also shows some of the more than 50 designs that were submitted for the bridge before the existing design was chosen. Additionally, the exhibit shows other bridges around the world and the way that they are designed.

A diving suit from the late 1800s

The real draw (ha ha – no pun intended!) of the paid experience is the glass floor that allows visitors to see down to the bridge and the water below.  It is a very interesting experience!  I was a little bit nervous about standing on the glass at first, but I was brave!  Once I got over my fear, it was pretty amazing.

Me on the Upper Walkway, with The Shard in the background

Brandon on the upper walkway

Me on the glass panel

Your admission also gets you into the original engine rooms; the bridge was once lifted with steam power, 20 – 30 times per day!  It took a crew of 80 people to keep the engines operating.  In 1976, the operation of the bridge was converted to electricity, and now the bridge is only lifted approximately three times per day. It is pretty incredible to imagine what went into making this bridge operate!

One of the original steam engines

I enjoyed our visit to Tower Bridge, and the view of The Shard nearby.  We were going there next!

Costs: Tower Bridge – 9.80 pounds (free with London pass)

Hello Waves

While I was on my trip, my mom sent periodic photos of my cat, Coraline. I loved this one!

Hello Mama!

London 2018: Tower of London

Day 3, Tuesday, June 26, 2018

After departing from the City Cruises boat, we made our way up to the Tower of London.  This is another one of those iconic can’t-miss London experiences.

The Tower of London was originally founded in 1066 as a part of the Norman Conquest of England.  The oldest structure on the site, the White Tower, was built beginning in 1078 by William the Conqueror, and it has been in continuous use since then!  The site was added on to several times over the years and has served as a royal residence, a prison and has housed the royal menagerie, the treasury and the Royal Mint.

Despite its reputation as a prison, torture chamber and execution ground, only 7 people were executed here until the 20th century.  Most executions were actually carried out at Tower Hill, which was north of the Tower of London.  During World Wars I and II, 12 men were executed here for espionage, surpassing the total number of executions during the medieval period.

A tower at the Tower of London

Me and Taryn with the Tower Bridge in the background

Me! With a new hat!

In the 11th and 12th centuries, the tower was expanded to its current size, with two concentric walls built around the White Tower.  There was construction to further fortify the castle with moats and ditches too.  The Tower of London site is large, encompassing 12 acres.

We spent several hours wandering around; checking out the numerous exhibits in various areas of the castle.  There was a very interesting exhibit on the Royal Mint, explaining how money is made and counterfeited, as well as historical attempts to crack down on the counterfeit problem.  The King and Queen’s quarters are open to the public, so you can check out how royalty lived in the medieval period.  I do have to say, I’m glad to live in the modern era – I like flush toilets, being warm and showers a bit too much to have been very happy back then.

The King’s quarters

The chapel where Henry VI died, presumably murdered

A throne in the King’s quarters

From 1235 until the 1800s, the Tower of London housed the royal menagerie, essentially London’s first zoo.  There were lions, a polar bear, an African elephant, and in later years, pumas, eagles, tigers and a jackal were added.  Of course, there was very little real knowledge about the care and feeding of the menagerie’s animals, and the keepers fed elephants a diet of meat because they assumed they were carnivores.  Perhaps even more bizarre, one elephant arrived with instructions from the Spanish King to only feed it wine between September and April.  Sadly the elephants didn’t live long, as I am sure you can imagine why.  Visitors could see the animals, although it was not for the faint for heart.  In later years of the menagerie the animals sometimes injured or killed their keepers, and even visitors!  It’s not a good idea to pet the lions…

There is an exhibit in the White Tower on armor, which was cool!  They had so many suits of armor for horses!  They also had suits of armor that would fit gigantic men, and young children.

There were also lots of other random artifacts, including the original Norman Garderobe.  That’s a fancy way of saying toilet, which is a fancy way of saying hole in the outer wall where your waste could drip down the outer wall of the castle.  Yuck.

The White Tower – built beginning in 1078

Horse Models

A historic toilet!

A domesticated raven at the Tower of London

A dragon sculpture

Even though the Tower of London didn’t have many executions, there was an exhibit in the Salt Tower documenting the stories of some of the prisoners that were kept there over the years.  And an exhibit of some medieval torture methods, including the rack.

Graffiti from one of the tower’s prisoners.

More prisoner graffiti

The manacles

Finally, no visit would be complete without checking out the Crown Jewels!  The line was long, but it moved quickly, and the jewels were incredible!  Room after room of staffs, jewelry, table settings and of course crowns.  No photos were permitted inside this exhibit, but the jewels were very pretty!  They even had two moving sidewalks that took visitors past the crowns – to prevent people from bottle necking at the crowns.  Taryn and I went back and got back on the other sidewalk to get a better view of the jewels on the other side.  What can I say – I like shiny things…

A tower Beefeater

While we were at the Tower of London, we had lunch at the New Armouries Cafe, one of their onsite food options.  I had the fish and chips, which came with peas.  A little malt vinegar and I was happy!  The cafe is cafeteria style, but they do a pretty good job with the food.  Taryn and I also had some sorbet while we were waiting in line to see the Crown Jewels!  Delicious!

The Tower of London was well worth the visit, with so much to see!  We weren’t anywhere close to being done for the day; our visit to the Tower Bridge is coming up next!

Costs: Tower of London – 22.70 pounds (free with London pass), Lunch at New Armouries Cafe.

Thanksgiving Turkeys

Tomorrow is that day of days, where we Americans stuff ourselves silly with turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, green bean casserole, pumpkin pie, wine and the aptly named stuffing.  If you are truly serious about this free for all of gluttony, you wear your fat pants…

I snapped this pic of some wild turkeys at the campground where I stayed in Cape Ann, Massachusetts.  I liked the framing of the dirty, cobwebbed bathroom window…  Art is everywhere.

Happy Thanksgiving!  Now make sure you are ready – go find your fat pants!

Turkey Window

 

London 2018: City Cruises River Cruise

Day 3, Tuesday, June 26, 2018

Tuesday we made the most of our day.  We were up at 7 and out of the hotel room by 8:30 – it was a bit chilly in the morning!  There was a bit of trouble with the Tube, since there was some sort of issue with a train on the line we wanted, but we were soon on our way to the Westminster Pier.  We were going to take a cruise on the River Thames!

Brandon, me, Taryn and the River Thames

City Cruises offers a 24 hour, hop-on-hop off pass; we boarded and enjoyed a leisurely ride up the river on the boat.  Our guide gave us lots of information on the history of the river, and the buildings and bridges that we saw along the way.  He was very funny too, and it was a beautiful day for a boat ride!   If the weather is cooperative, I would definitely recommend sitting up top – you can’t beat the view!

The view of Big Ben and a statue

The London Eye

Taryn, me and the River Thames

This is a hotel, I think

The dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral

The Golden Hinde – a full-sized reconstruction

Shakespeare’s Globe Theater – a reconstruction

Modern buildings

The Belfast with The Shard in the background

The Tower Bridge

We departed at the Tower Pier; we were going to the Tower of London next!

Tube Stations: Earl’s Court (hotel), Westminster (at the River Cruises dock)
Costs: City Cruises River Cruise – 18.75 pounds (free with London pass)  Note: City Cruises advertises this as a 24 hour pass, but the boats only ran until about 6 pm at the latest – check the times!

Circus Trip 2018: Withdrawals

I have been home since Monday night.  I unloaded the car and have put away most of what was loaded into it.  I have seen my parents, four of my friends, got my hair cut, and had my tires rotated.  I brought my cat Coraline home.  It has been good seeing people here, but I miss Jeff.  And I miss being on the road.

I drove 13,660 miles on my trip.  It’s hard to believe there are that many miles to be had in the United States, but there you have it.  That’s almost as many miles as I typically drive in two years!  Even with that many miles, there was so much I didn’t see, and I would go back out in a heartbeat if I could.

I am certainly missing this view, from Valley of Fire State Park in Nevada.

Circus Trip 2018: Reconnecting

I was 13 years old when I met him; we were introduced by an older mutual friend.  He was 15, adorably cute, funny, and sweet.  We were both instantly attracted to each other.  We started dating, and spent a lot of time together, but sadly, neither of us really remembers how long we were together.

The memories are 30 year old memories.  The photo booth at Woolworth’s, him meeting me after school at my school (his school got out earlier than mine), walking around downtown for hours, lots of kissing.  Snippets of a time when we were happy together – the kind of happy you feel as a child, before responsibilities and life weigh you down so much.  Our biggest issues were making sure we made it to the last bus home, doing our homework, and arguing with my brother about how much time we each got on the phone.

He spent a lot of time at my house; my parents were stable and kind – his parents did not give him the same sort of blissful childhood I enjoyed.  He was living with his dad and step-mom in my town, but he didn’t feel wanted.  My house was a respite for him, with the kind of parents he wanted to have.  I have the kind of parents that any kid is blessed to have.  We spent a lot of time in my room, talking, kissing, laughing.  We cooked after school snacks; and I began his lifelong attachment to Minute Rice, although I didn’t know that at the time.

And then we got in trouble.  We snuck out together and stayed at a friend’s.  It was innocent; the stuff of good kids who were smart and cautious – we watched The Princess Bride, stayed up all night and kissed.  But he got caught.  He was marched over to my house the next day to confess to my parents while I was still out with my friend.  I got grounded for a few days.  His punishment was excessive; he was put on a plane and shipped back to his mom’s in California.  Banished for a minor teenage mistake.  I never even got to say goodbye.

Life went on and I pined for him at first; later on the memories faded and I thought of him less.  But I still thought of him from time to time.  I even tried to look him up more recently online and on Facebook, but was never sure if any of the countless profiles with his name was his.  The one who got away.  The curse of a common name.  I never knew he thought of me too.

In early July I posted a video on YouTube of my swim with whale sharks at the Georgia Aquarium in order to embed it into my post on this blog.  It was shortly before I left on my big road trip, and it was the first and only thing I have ever posted under my name on YouTube.  A few weeks later, on July 30, I was at a tiny state park in Minnesota.  I needed a day of rest and had found a little out-of-the-way park on a man-made reservoir with farmland all around.  It was quiet.

I woke up from my first night in the park to find a comment on my YouTube video.  “funny, i used to have a girlfriend with the same name…..but she had braces and LOVED minute rice. then my parents screwed it all up and grounded me for life. i felt like a jerk and always missed her. its probably been 30 years now. i’m a dummy.”  The comment was left with an obviously fake name, but I instantly knew who it was, and I knew he had found the right girl – given that only one other person on the internet shares my extremely uncommon name.

We started emailing, then talking on the phone, as I drove further and further away from California (where he still lives), on my trip.  The connection we felt as teenagers was still there; he still made me laugh, his core personality was the same as the boy I dated at 13, only grown up now.  We have both been through our share of joy and trials, and we both keep trying to find happiness in the simple things in life.  We found ourselves talking everyday, and he soon asked if my trip would take me through California.  Days turned into weeks, then months, as we texted and talked, and exchanged photos – my trip, his life at home.

My trip did indeed take me into California, where the things I was feeling over the phone turned out to be even stronger in person.  Can first loves work out?  Can you find happiness with someone from your past who has found you again?  We never broke up as teenagers; there was never a fight or a gradual loss of interest.  He was simply taken away from me.  At 13 and 15, before cell phones, driver’s licenses and the internet, or even the money for long distance phone calls, being 1,100 miles away from someone is the kiss of death for a teenage romance.  But we have been given a second chance after all this time.

He is kind and sweet and I have fallen in love with him all over again.  His quirky sense of humor makes me laugh; he keeps me from being too serious.  There are details we both need to work through if we are going to work; it will take time and it is complicated.  We both want it to work though.

It is strange that my past found me 2,000 miles and 30 years away from home?  That we just clicked – the same way we did when we were kids?  I always wanted the fairy tale.  And finally, once again, my Westley found his Buttercup.  As you wish.

Me and Jeff

 

Circus Trip 2018: The Home Stretch…

Tomorrow I’m leaving California for home.  I don’t want to, but I have to get back to restart things at home.  I have been away almost four months, and in California for over a month.  I don’t want to, but it’s time.

I’m not sure how it will feel to be back home.   I am excited to see my friends and family.  Excited to see my horse and my cat.  Excited to see fall in one of the beautiful places in this country.

I feel more ambivalent about the house.  It is beautiful, but it is too large for just me, and it is a lot to maintain.  My ex-husband wanted a larger house after we married, but I miss the small home I owned when I was single.  When we got divorced, it made financial sense to stay in my house, and I wasn’t emotionally in a space to pack everything up and move, but I have been thinking for a while about whether I want those memories there.  I know it is time to make new ones.

Leaving California to go home also means leaving someone special to me.  A month here has given me one of the things I have been missing most in life – love and affection.  I won’t be cryptic – I found someone – or to be more accurate, he found me.  I’ll introduce you in another post.

So tomorrow morning I’ll be back in the car for the long drive north.  Sigh…