A Quick Update

Hi again everyone,

Welcome back to our continuing adventures in the USA. Last Monday I had to be in Colorado for work so we took the opportunity to get out of Gillette on Friday afternoon and drove south towards Denver. We stayed at a great place called Fort Collins about an hour north of Denver. It's a university town with lots of nice bars and clubs and we had a great night there. Unfortunately the weather wasn't on our side for once and we had our first real rainfall since we had arrived in the US.
We stayed in a relly nice hotel called Armstongs; thoroughly recommend it if anyone is over this way.




On Saturday we drove up to Estes Park at the entrance to the Rocky Mountain National Park. It was another really nice spot but it was snowing so heavily that it was hard for us to do anything. We tried to go into the park but the rangers were warning unessential travellers not to enter because of the road conditions. We didn't need to be told twice so turned around and drove into Denver.
In Denver on Saurday night we managed to visit a couple of the nice places we went to on our first visit way back in November. Went to a nice jazz club but have now decided we're not as much into jazz as we thought we were.

On Sunday we left Denver on route to Craig around the bottom of the national park. We had to go up across the Rockies and it was pretty spectacular. Lots of snow and wonderful scenery; we got as high as 11,000 ft which was a long way up.
We stopped for lunch at a place called Grand Lake. During summer it must be a great place fo boating but right now it's just a very large ice cube. The lady where we had lunch told us they drive a fire engine out there at Christmas and that the ice is 6 - 8 feet thick.




After Grand Lake we continued on to Steamboat Springs; a great ski resort on the west side of the Colorado Rockies. Unfortunately we hadn't packed our ski gear but we did manage a ride to the top of the mountain in the gondola.




On Wednesday night we began to experience some of the weather that Wyoming is famous for. After having basked in the sunshine for a couple of weeks, winter was back with vengence after a winter storm parked on top of us and dumped about 4 ft of snow. Travelling to work on Thursday morning was a nightmare and by lunch time they had declared a level 3 emergency in the area, closed all the mines and sent us home. Today (Friday) it's beautiful sunshine again but we are locked in the house because of the snow. Hopefully they will have cleared it enough buy tonight that we can get the car out and get to the shops. We may head back to Fort Collins again tomorrow if the forecast stays ok.




I've added an album of all the latest photos; not a lot but hope you enjoy them.
Click on the following picture.

Until next time.

A bit of everything

My London Trip

Hi everyone.

It's my turn to do this blog as I'm the one who's been flitting around the place!! I've just had 2 weeks in London with Anita and Sam and I had a great time - loved it. The kids have got themselves set up very nicely over there and the area that they're living in is really nice and on the tube line which makes life easier for them as far as getting to work etc. They have bought themselves a car so we were able to get out into the English countryside for a week.








The first week Anita and I spent a few days looking around London - we walked along Oxford St and checked out a few shops and ended up in Harrods which was fantastic - could've spent a whole week in there!!!




We also went to The Tower of London, Covent Garden, Portobello Rd, went on the London Eye and visited Kensington Palace where Princess Di used to live. One afternoon we went to a theatre show called "Wicked" about the witches of Oz which was great and then we walked past Buckingham Palace on the way to dinner.





The second week when Sam was off work as well, we went away for a few nights. We were originally going to go for 3 nights but we were having such a great time and had more to see, so we stayed an extra 2 nights. Anita had done a great job booking us into 3 different B&Bs and we were lucky enough to be able to get the 2 extra nights in Bath. We went up to Stratford-Upon-Avon to see where Shakespeare lived. I'm not really into Shakespeare but it was very interesting to see the old houses that are still standing after all this time.




And the town was very pretty, in fact all the towns down through The Cotswolds were beautiful - I think my favourite was Lower Slaughter and Boughton-on-the-Water. As we left Stratford we went over to Warwick Castle which was very interesting too. It's owned by Tussauds so they have put in some wax figures to show what it was like back in the old days, so it was great.






We did a lot of driving off the main road and along some very narrow roads where you couldn't even pass the car coming towards you. You had to back up into a driveway so they could get past. It was good that we got off the beaten track because we got to see some wonderful little villages. I must say though that Sam and Sally Sat-Nav (the GPS)were very helpful at times!! The next night we stayed in Stow-on-the-Wold at a farmhouse and went to a great pub for dinner in Oddington. It was the racing carnival week in Cheltenham so it was a big week for the area and lots of people around.




The third night was in Bath and we needed extra time to have a look around there - it was a wonderful place. We checked out the old Roman Baths and it's incredible to think they are still there after all this time. We went into the Thermae Spa for a couple of hours one night and floated around in the pools there which was just wonderful - we all had to buy new swimmers so we could go in there because we forgot to take them with us. (Shame about that!!)






While we were in Bath we went to for a drive to Bristol just to see what was there. On the way back to London we went past Stonehenge and Avebury Circles which were both very interesting, although Stonehenge was the most spectacular and a very eerie place.




I had a wonderful time over there and loved the hustle and bustle of it all and I can't wait for next year when John and I go over - I'm looking forward to showing him the things I've seen. Thanks to Anita and Sam for giving me such a wonderful time. I've put a few photos on here but if you click on the London buses below, you can have a look at a whole lot more if you're interested.

Bye for now.

London Trip Album