Touring the UK: Part 1

It is Saturday, almost noon, and I feel like I've lived a lifetime between Tuesday and today. Did I really think I wanted to skip London? I loved it. The city is big but not too tall. It's not as overwhelming as New York, but just as interesting. How much can you do in two days there? We took a tour of the city on a double-decker bus--sitting on the top even in the rain. We took a cruise on the Thames from Westminster Pier (across from the Parliament building and St. Stephen's Tower--which houses the bell called Big Ben) up to Tower Bridge near the Tower of London. We ate at a wonderful pub--twice, and had tea there, too. We went to the National Gallery and attended a concert at St. Martin-in-the-field. We took the Underground, a lot, and it was so easy I could have done it by myself. We walked until our feet and legs were sore. We did the London overview. Now I'd like a few weeks there to tour all the historic buildings we only saw from the outside.

Yesterday we got our rental car. It's a Vauxhall. I only remember seeing one other Vauxhall in person. It belonged to my Aunt Flo. The drive from London to the Yorkshire Dales is long. Most of it is on interstate-style freeways which were crowded around London. The terrain in the south was flat but green, and we saw lots of hedges and wheat fields. As we approached the north we saw our first castle, many hills, and the quilted landscape with hedge or stone-fence bordered fields. The drive over the hills on a one-lane road, through quaint towns, brought us into another world. If you've seen photographs you only have a hint of how beautiful it is. The stone fences, barns, and houses really do look as if they've grown out of the hills. Everything seems so lush and tranquil. They grow sheep and rocks here, although I think the sheep are more economically profitable--and rabbits! I saw a crowd of rabbits in a field last evening. I guess they were just nibbling grass. Jon, what do you call a group of rabbits; a warren? a hutch? a parcel? Of course, you see the blemishesof the countryside when you get up close. They seem to have an abundance of spiders.