Nostalgia

Today I spent some time re-reading all of our posts about England & The Great U.S. Trip of 09. I've been remiss in my postings, and I think I need to take it up a notch. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this site - as it is Cameron & Kerri's Excellent Adventures - but I'm going to make more of an effort to post on here.

So far this summer the boy & I have only 1 spectacular trip planned - which we can't wait for! We're heading to the DC area at the end of July to go to a family wedding. This would not be possible for us to do without Tia. Thank you, Tia, for allowing us to have this amazing adventure. We're really looking into what we can do to get as much history as possible over a week.

Last summer, we had a similar trip - but more people were along for the journey. I am looking forward to this one because it is just Cameron and I (and Tia, but we're dropping her off with her sister-in-law so it's really just us for a few days.) We're definitely hitting all the places we missed (Hello Jackson Pollack & The other Smithsonians we missed!!!) I can't wait. I love that I have a family that gives us the opportunity to go around our great nation and learn all that we can. Thank you. Thank you.

In the meantime, I just may post a few things - I'm trying this new "go with the flow" thing - and as I'm typing am realizing the release that blogging does. I will not be posting everyday - that's what Facebook is for, right? But, if it's amazing - maybe I'll let you know.

Road Trip!! (AKA 2 Weeks in the Car with 5 People, Part 1)

So, Sonya's getting married. She lives in Carbondale, Illinois now - instead of just down the street. Which is good, because I so much prefer the man she's marrying to the boys she's dated in the past and am happy to attend this wedding. Because Illinois is not down the street, we decided to Road Trip It. "We" being myself, Cameron, Patrick, Fernando and my mom. YEP! 5 of us in the car TOGETHER for 2 WEEKS!!! Could be great, could be yikes! I'm thinking it's going to be a mixture of both, but because we are the age that we are, we can make the most of it and deal with it without too much of a meltdown, just minor crankiness.

We left Saturday afternoon with the intention of making it to Albuquerque, as I have some friends there - one in particular. The Official Road Trip started at about 2 PM Arizona time, and we drove north and headed for the I-17 to make it to the I-40 to get across Arizona and partway across New Mexico. There was quite a bit of rain on the way there, but it was just gorgeous. Northern Arizona, on the 40, is so different from any other part of Arizona. The Navajo nation lands are amazing. I can't believe how much the wind cut across various parts of the land and just created amazing canyons and caves.

Patrick drove the whole way, which was good because our Google directions for the hotel were way off. I thought we were getting a hotel just a few miles from my friend Tyson's house, as we were supposed to meet up to get drinks and I didn't want to have to go too far. Uh, Google was WRONG! I had to text him with our location and the hotel address to direct us, but Fernando also was checking his GPS so we were good. Drinks with Tyson was saved! [Side note, Tyson is a friend I had back as a teenager in Douglas who I lost touch with for about 20 years (really!) and recently reconnected with due to the lovely interweb & MySpace (pre-Facebook). I've gone out to Albuquerque twice to hangout, and it's been great to reconnect and become better friends as adults.] Tyson came and picked me up, and we decided to hangout at the hotel bar because it was close, and that way my mom could come have a few drinks, too. It was a lot of fun! I'm glad that my mom, Fernando and Patrick were able to meet Tyson - now they have a face and person to put to my friend.

Next day, we leave for Oklahoma City. I'll tell you what, Albuquerque to Oklahoma City is a loooong drive. It's pretty damn flat throughout Texas. Not really all that pretty, not like Austin. We came up with all the George Strait songs about northern Texas as we drove through, but that was about it. We did see the "Biggest Cross in the Northern Hemisphere" though! Saw some pretty funny signs as well : "Gusty Winds May Exist" (we decided this would be the existential question for the new millennium) and "If You Think All Casinos are the Same, Think Again!" were just a few - lots of religious ones that were pretty funny, but don't want to offend anyone. Animals changed as we drove through the various states. I swear that there were gazelles in Texas!! Then, we remembered the "Home On The Range" song and remembered that they're antelope! Whoops! Made it through seeing a few antelope, a couple of weird road kill animals (camel? kangaroo? chupacabra?) Patrick drove from Albuquerque to Amarillo, I drove from Amarillo to Oklahoma City. We made it to OKC, saw the interesting downtown buildings (one looked like the Empire State Building, just MUCH smaller) , and once again Googlemaps failed us. Drove us to a dead end. No hotel in site. Great. I am not a big fan of driving in unfamiliar cities with speed limits which are below my lead-foot limit to start with. But, we eventually found it (we made Patrick go in and ask for directions and then related the information to the previous hotel 8 miles from where googlemaps said to go) and checked in. It was about 10 when we finally checked in. Oklahoma City at 10 PM on a Sunday does NOT leave you with many options for dinner. Really. We ate at Denny's. Really. A Denny's without beer. Really. I was ready to go to bed and then leave OKC.

We woke up early this morning (well, it's central time so it's 2 hours earlier than back home) and headed out for the Oklahoma Memorial Site. I wasn't too sure how I felt about going there, I wasn't really excited about going to see the Twin-Towers in NYC, and this was the same feeling I was having about going to a place where a complete and total nut job decided to prove a point about the government by killing a shitload of people. Why should I go there? Then, I got there. I saw the fence where little kids put pictures and bracelets and memorials for the kids killed there. I saw the fence where parents put pictures and memories of their adult children and kids who were killed there. I saw the faces of the innocents who went to day care or to work like any other April 19th. I thought about going to Auschwitz and other concentration camps - we go there so we can remember, reflect and make sure that it doesn't happen again. Why should Oklahoma City be any different? We need to go there so that we can remember, reflect and make sure it doesn't happen again. I'm not sure if everyone will agree with me, but that's the perspective I took this morning, it is a place of pure quiet and peace now, but was at one time a very busy place with laughter and talking and noise, until one person decided to change that. I thought going to somewhere where people were killed for no good reason was wrong; that going would be recognizing what that person did to the innocents. But I found that going there recognized the innocents and that by not going there I would be giving that power to the person who wanted to take that away from all of us. If I can, I am going to post a picture of something that a rescuer spray painted on the building next door that touched me most of all "Team 5 4-19-95 We Search For The Truth. We Seek Justice. The Courts Require It. The Victims Cry For It. And God Demands It!"

Cameron was really affected by the site. He has a friend at school whose uncle was killed in the bombing. Their family is from Douglas (for more about the story, go to my mom's site). We found the chair that represented him and he sat there for a few minutes and thought about his friend and her losing her family. He looked at a tree that survived when it shouldn't. He saw the building next door that was partially destroyed by the bombing, but they repaired it as a reminder of the day. He saw all of the outpouring of love and caring that children from all over the world sent via tiles that they decorated. The National Park Service has done an awful scene justice and presented it in a way that is really appropriate.

After OKC, we headed out for the 7 hour drive to St. Louis. Missouri is really a beautiful state. They have some weird stores, like the "Kum 'n Go," which we laughed over for hours. We are trying to find as much levity in the trip as we can, which we have to with 5 people in a car. Our hotel here in St. Louis is directly in front of the Mississippi River and the Arch; two blocks or so from Busch Stadium. Really pretty. Can't wait to explore tomorrow. We're heading to the Zoo tomorrow (Cameron, my mom and I) and Patrick and Fernando are going to Six Flags. Fernando, Patrick, Cameron and I are going to see the Yeah Yeah Yeah's tomorrow night, so I'm not sure when my next posting is.

I apologize if there's a bunch of rambling here. Think about all the sleep I've missed out on!! I will add pictures later, the "Free Wireless" sucks!!!

Due to Popular Demand....

Due to popular demand (well, demand of a few specific friends who mean a lot to me), WE'RE BACK! Tomorrow we embark on a monumental journey from Gilbert to our ultimate goal of Carbondale, Illinois for Sonya and Jason's wedding. This journey will last two weeks (YIKES!) and is a road trip across the central part of America. Our first stop will be in Albuquerque tomorrow night, where I hope to meet up with a few friends to start the fun. After that, I believe it's Oklahoma City and then St. Louis. We're going to spend a few days in St. Louis soaking up the history and sites, and then on to Carbondale for the Special Occasion. After that, it's Chicago for a few days and then to Mount Rushmore. After the beauty of the Badlands, we're heading to Leadville to see where we're from. I can't wait to see the sites and learn the history. The Boy is excited! If you have any suggestions on places to see and/or eat, leave them in comments. My goal is to update this daily, but we'll see.

After the trip, I'm home for two weeks and then off to Atlanta for a conference. I will be posting from there, so I don't forget what I learn. I am going to meet my family in Baltimore on the 30th and then we're off to Washington, D.C. for the next day of site seeing (and possibly seeing some AZ family). Then, it's an East Coast Scott Reunion over the 4th of July weekend. We'll post then, too. We're hitting up Monticello, Jamestown and other sites that started the U.S. It'll be a wonderful contrast to England and seeing what we did to start our country. Hope you check in often and leave comments. If I'm not posting, let me know that you want me to, and I will! I'm also going to have Cameron (the Boy) keep a travel journal on the site to get his writing skills up to par. Love you all, thanks for your patience.

Saturday

Today Cameron & I decided to explore some more on our own. We rode the tube down to Oxford Circus, which is where there's a main shopping district, to shop until we dropped. Well, unfortunately for me, the new fashion here appears to be what we American's were wearing in the '80s. Big hair, side ponies and lots of neon. I'm sorry, I already did the neon. So, for my bank account it was good, for my closet even better, and for all of my friends - well, they'll thank me for not bringing back neon pink shoes to wear with a neon yellow dress when we go out. Cameron and I did go to Hamley's, which has been around in one shape or another for about 275 years or so (I think since 1766). This store puts FAO Schwartz to shame. It's about 5 levels of fun for kids, and mostly reasonably priced. Cameron bought a dragon model made of wood which is actually a robot that he has to put together to make it work. One thing I did find out about London is that a basement is actually called -1, ground floor is 1 and then it goes up from there. (So I guess I live in -1). It was a cool shop. They had some really neat Harry Potter items, one notable item being a 294 pound (Price) Chess Set, which Cameron was drooling over. We ate a late breakfast/early lunch at a local restaurant that was decent. I've noticed that people here start having pints pretty early in the morning, I however did not join in on that local custom.

After we shopped (I found a cute store and bought some t-shirts which are definitely NOT neon), we dropped our things off at the hotel and then walked down to another shopping area - Oxford Street. As we walked and walked, we discovered that all of these places we've been taking the tube to are really not that far from our hotel. Again, nothing purchased, but lots of fun. We treated ourselves to a gelato (Cameron had flakes w/ his, I did not - "flakes" are a local Cadbury candy bar that they stick in ice cream). It was delicious. We walked through Notting Hill, saw Portobello Road (sang the song) and then headed back to the hotel to freshen up.

My friends Shad and Nikki have a friend named Rodney who owns a tavern in Wimbledon, and Shad let him know we were going to be in town so Cameron & I headed in. The tube ride took about 30 minutes with transfers, and when we got there Rodney was not in because his wife/girlfriend (I'm not sure) was in "labour and he wasn't expected to come in this evening at all." I left him a note saying I stopped by and that Shad and Nikki were thinking of him. It was a really cool music place, I think I'll have to come back to have a pint there.

All this shopping and walking and riding left Cameron and I hungry. So, we went to Carnaby street to a restaurant called The Red Onion, which is a Mediterranean restaurant that we went by the other day but it was a 30 minute wait. It was really good. I ordered a ravioli porcini carbonnara, which I soon discovered was a mushroom ravioli. Dammit! It was delicious! I have always had a thing against mushrooms, but now I guess I don't. Cameron enjoyed his spaghetti. We've had nothing but great food here, which I am glad for because I was nervous about eating only "fishing chips."

We head home early tomorrow and we'll get the site updated with Cameron's History Lessons, including a video he narrated about the Globe Theatre. Thanks for your support while we've been gone with your comments and just reading along with our journey!

Just found out a cool tidbit about our hotel - this whole block is a big gigantic mansion of hotels, and at one time time it was just one home of one family who had a big ballroom on the ground floor (now the lobbies of the hotels), the second floor (where our room is) was the bedrooms, the basement (breakfast) was the servants quarters, and the back (behind our room) was where they kept their horses. Apparently, this was the home of one of the Lords of Parliament at the time when England was the super-power in the world. I'm definitely going to have to do some research on that. I'll take a picture tomorrow to add to this post. Man, don't you just love history???!!!???

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Day 4

Today we got up really early and got ready, then headed to the tube for Victoria Station to catch the coach for a tour of Stonehenge, Salisbury and Bath. We couldn't find the place at first, and I didn't even think of mentioning to Patrick the coach station, but we found it and caught the coach for our tour. Our tour guide was a woman named Jessica who was very funny and also pretty interesting.

Our first stop was Stonehenge. It was pretty amazing, to say the least. In the middle of all of these green fields there are a few stones which the ancients, from about 6,000 years ago (about the same time that the pyramids in Egypt and Mexico were being built,) yet there was no communication between any of them. Audio tours are big here, I think because there are so many tourists from so many countries that it's cheaper for the sites to have one source that they can give to all to choose their own language from. We walked around the stones and learned their significance, and the fact that the larger stones were brought from 19 miles away - they aren't sure if it was from logs that were rolled and placed in front of one another as they moved or possibly sleds. What I found to be amazing was that the smaller stones, called Bluestones, were brought from the Preseli Mountains in Wales, which are about 240 miles away! AMAZING! The smaller stones weren't small, just "smaller" than the large ones. They also used wood working skills to build this particular henge, as there were earlier henges built of wood. The stones that are upright in the ground go about 1/3 of their length down, and then have a point carved into them on which the stone that overlayed them had depressions carved into them so they would fit and not moved. Kind of like a shoulder socket and arm.

After Stonehenge we went to Salisbury and to the Salisbury Cathedral. It is one of the oldest Catholic Cathedral's in England, it was consecrated 751 years ago. It is a gorgeous building that is the burial site of many a person, and many a famous person in England who was Catholic. It is also the home of one of four existing copies of the Magna Carta that was made in 1215 at the time of the signing. On the ride from Stonehenge to Salisbury, our tour guide filled us in on the history of Richard the Lion Hearted and also King John. I think most people are like me, my understanding of the two Kings pretty much comes from the Disney cartoon Robin Hood, and I recall learning about the Magna Carta in high school. That's about it. Basically, Richard was a thug-type who enjoyed fighting and proving his manlihood, so he joined the Crusades to have an honest way of harming others. King John was a momma's boy who trusted no one but his mother, and taxed the people of England mercilessly to pay for wars and things that he wanted. The Barons and others (who were the basis of what today's Parliment is) didn't like this and forced him to sign the Magna Carta, which started the idea of "Fair Trial," and promoted the idea of the separation of Church and State. Back when the Cathedral was being built, only those who were in the clergy were educated. One went into that business to be educated and then they worked as advisors for various kings and queens, etc. pushing the ideas that the church promoted at that time. The serfs and others who were underneath them in the feudal system just went along with it because they didn't know any better. It wasn't until the printing press was invented in Germany that brought the bible and other ideas to the people in their own languages (prior to this everything was in Latin and only the educated read Latin, and the educated were those who were wealthy or in the Clergy) that the idea that the Church and State should be really separated (hence the Reformation, Protestants and King Henry VIII - that's another story.) Cameron told me a really facinating story about King George (whose statue was next to that of St. Patrick's on the outside of the church) which I'll have him retell at a later time.

After Salisbury we headed to Bath. I slept the whole bus ride, but Cameron heard the whole story. He's asleep right now, so I'll have him tell me tomorrow and I'll transcribe what he knows. We'll post more tomorrow, I'm tired as it's been a long day.

Day 3

Today we woke up early and went down to the basement for our breakfast before heading out. We had two choices English or Continental. The English Breakfast consisted of a fried egg, rashers, sausage, toast, beans and coffee/tea; while the Continental was comprised of toast, jam, cheese and coffee/tea. There was also a buffet of cereals and juices. Cameron and I had an English Breakfast and Patrick ordered the Continental (which really wasn't that much food for him). I have discovered that I like tea with milk, and coffee with a little bit of milk as well. The coffee here tastes really different from the coffee back home, I'm not sure why. After breakfast we headed out to start our adventures for the day.

Our first stop was Buckingham Palace, we rode the Underground to Victoria Station and then walked up to the Palace. We heard yesterday that you needed to be on queue by 11:00 AM to have a good viewing of the 11:30 Changing of the Guard. We got there about 10:15 and were taking pictures of Victoria's Monument, the Palace and other things around there. It is really beautiful and I can see why it is such a popular tourist destination. While we were there, we were able to see some of the Guard march by with their drums and the horses, it was cool! While we were distracted by this, a few news vans and police cars pulled up and were around the Canada Gate and in front of the Victoria Monument. I thought that maybe something cool was going to happen, but we weren't sure that we wanted to hangout for another hour to see a few guys change places (that's how Patrick described it) and I know that we were also anxious to get on to the Tower and other places we wanted to see. So we left, and we found out later that the Queen went to the Palace and gave an award to a man who helped save people when the Underground was bombed here a few years ago. So we missed seeing her. Bummer!

After the Palace, we headed to the Tower of London and purchased the audio tour to walk around with. It is really an amazing place. We were able to go into the room where King Edward II slept! We saw the prayer room that King Henry VI was reportedly killed in. The story was that he was poisoned or died of natural causes, but witnesses reported seeing his blood when his body was put in the casket so he became a sort of martyr to the English. We saw the Crown Jewels, which is in the most secure room in England. Holy cow! They were so beautiful! The diamonds were HUGE! The gown that Queen Elizabeth II wore for her coronation weighs 20 pounds and is made with gold thread. The history in one small place was amazing. Not many people were actually executed in the Tower itself, just famous people like Ann Boleyn, Lady Jane Grey, and others. (Cameron found a way to remember Henry's 6 wives - which must be the way the British children learn it - divorced, beheaded, died; divorced, beheaded, survived.) A majority of the people who were executed for treason were actually hung on Tower Hill just outside the Tower because they could build bleacher-like seating for the thousands that would come, and the executions inside the Tower were reserved for a select few onlookers. It's amazing what one could be executed for, it's a good thing justice is a slight bit better today. We decided to cut our visit short because we wanted to head out and do a few other things, and just the small part we were able to see took almost 2 hours.

After the Tower, we took a boat ride on the Thames to the Dali Experience. That was quite the museum. There weren't any of the Dali paintings that we are all familiar with, but it was cool nonetheless. We saw his infamous "Lobster Phone" and the "Mae West Lip Couch" he made. We found out that he was "for snails" and "against spinach," which Cameron particularly thought was hilarious and could agree with him about. One thing I was particularly impressed with was the dresses that some designers like Ferragamo designed based upon his paintings. Cameron really enjoyed the sculptures that were there made of bronze that were based on his paintings. Downstairs from Dali was a small exhibit on Picasso. We were able to see some drawings, pottery and even rugs that Picasso made. Some of the pictures make me think of the pictures that Cameron draws or that kids draw for me at school - anyone can be an artist if they really set their mind to it and want to do it. This left us thirsting for a little more art, so we headed over to the Tate Modern.

One super-cool thing about London is that nearly all of the "public" museums are free. We went into the Tate and were able to see so many fabulous REAL works of art. We saw Dali, Picasso, Monet, Johns, Pollack, Miro, Ernst, Basquiat, Raedecker, Matisse, Kadinsky, Mondrian, Cezanne and Lichtenstein masterpieces to name a few. I had always wanted to see a Jackson Pollack to see what the fuss was all about, my class learned about him last year in Art Masterpiece but I didn't really get it. Seeing a painting of his up close and in real life made me see the beauty in it. I was particularly intrigued by Joan Miro's paintings - the colors were amazing. We learned little things like how Piet Mondrian disliked green and didn't use it or have any of it in his house. The Basquiat painting was "Tobacco vs Red Chief"and was amazing. I really enjoyed this museum and am glad we went. Cameron knew a lot about some of the artists, again, because of Art Masterpiece and from Mrs. Garza in Art Club.

We left the Tate and walked next door to the replica of the Globe Theatre. Shakespeare's original Globe Theatre was actually on the other side of the Thames than where the replica was built. The original theatre burned down during a performance of Henry VIII when a spark from a prop canon ignited the theatre. Around this same time Oliver Cromwell came into power in England, and he was a truly awful man. Although the Globe was rebuilt, it was not put to much use after that because Cromwell was a puritan (amongst other things like enslaver of the Irish) and decided that the country and people would be better off without art and plays, and had all the theatre's closed down - including the Globe. After that, it wasn't of any use to Cromwell or his puritan cronies, so they had it torn down and built tenements there. Such a shame!!!! It seems like the Globe was a wonderful place full of laughter and even of education. I think that sometimes people who are egomaniacal and are in power are afraid of their underlings knowing too much and discovering the truth about them.

All this thinking about art and Shakespeare made us hungry, so we ate at a restaurant called Pizza Express. Sounds like a fast food place, but it wasn't! It was actually pretty fancy. Cameron and I shared a thin crust called "The American," which we thought was pretty funny. Patrick also had "The American," but a thicker crust. It was really good! We've seen them all over town, but weren't sure about them - the name implies fast food, but looking inside they seemed too fancy (wine glasses on tables, low lighting, etc.) All in all it was delicious and I'm glad we went. By the way, "American" is a pepperoni pizza. All the others had all kind of flavors of toppings on them.

We walked back across the Thames on the Millennium Bridge (known to the Londoners as "Wobbly Bridge" because when it was first built it wobbled and shook) to find an Underground station. Cameron and I seem to have better luck finding one on our own than we do when we're with Patrick. We found one and headed back to the hotel to grab jackets, today was windy and a bit overcast. Then we went shopping because Thursday's the late night for stores. Late is really not an accurate descriptor of the time. We only got in about an hour, Patrick did some damage at Zara; Cameron and I found an outfit each at H&M. We'll go back on Saturday to do some real shopping . Tomorrow is going to be another long day, we're headed out to Stonehenge, Bath, Salisbury and where the Magna Carta was signed. This should be really interesting. We are really looking forward to it.