RANT ALERT: For the faint of heart, this is going to be a long spiel. But this is my blog, so this is where I get to try to preserve EVERY memory that I know how, using words alone. So, now that you know what's before you, gentle reader, just do your best.
....But you're a ninny if you can't hack this whole thing.
:)
I woke up at 6:30, packed my bag, and snuck over to our other house on Minnie street. I only had enough time to open up my gmail account, skim through the long list of update and junk emails for any names of friends or family.
To my delight, I had three. I opened each long enough for the message to load, then closed up and left for the van. No rest for the wicked, you see.
Once in the van, I opened up my three loaded messages and read them while I munched on my breakfast of honey topped crumpets. Many thanks to you three for sending me your updates! Its wonderful to hear what is happening back home in Utah. I loved Ryan's grand announcement to me. He had me get a camera and record myself as I read his engagement news. While I promise my reaction was genuine, I actually had seen the news two or three days back on facebook. :) Congratulations again though! I am crazy happy for the two of you!! You two look so incandescently happy! I would wish you all the greatest joy, but it looks like you already have found it! Though I'm super bummed I won't be there for the reception, I can hardly wait to offer my sincere congratulations in person. Till then, HAVE FUN GETTING MARRIED!!!
To everyone else: just go get a free slurpee at 7/11 today.
Jk, I don't mean to be that offish to the rest of you; if you are reading this blog, then you are a beautiful human being, but there are two of you that are exceptionally wonderful people. I very much look forward to thanking both of you in person as well upon my return.
So, we were back in the van, once again driving through the theraputically-beutifully gorgeous countryside I hope I never 'get over.' We drove to Caerwent, or where the Romans called Ventura, as it used to be a small Roman village about 2000 years ago. The Romans quashed the Druids who lived in Wales around 60AD and didn't leave until about 400AD, and they were worse than the Nazis were to the Jews in my opinion. And thats saying a lot. Lets just say that I think more highly of SPIDERS than I do of Nero. Nuff said.
The ruins were really cool, because all that is left is about 6 inches of wall sticking up from the foundations of the dwellings. This lets you see pretty much just a floor plan of the buildings, so you could see what was a hallway, what was a room, and how big (or rather, how tiny) everything was. I was surprised to see that every room was super small, no bigger than 6x6. If I could just build my house out of stone and morter in a big field, I would keep it small enough that I could manage it, but at the same time, I wouldn't make it Roman-gnome sized either.
How did the Romans take over such a ferocious burly nation if they were such tiny little people? Ant style? Good grief...
Any way, we didn't stay there long. We jumped back in the van and drove to the border of Wales and England, separated by the river. We drove over the bridge into England and up a really hilly residential area until we were at the top of Tuts Hill. There Tom stopped in the road just long enough for some of us to jump out and run to one of the houses to snap shots before Tom drove down the road and turned around to pick us up. What was so important about this random average-looking home, you may ask? Well gentle reader, the purpose of this van-jumping expedition was to see JK ROWLING'S old home right up close! That's right, this was the home of the woman who brought Harry Potter to life! Within two minutes, the huge white van slowed down in front of the house and stopped just long enough for us to jump in the open side door again. Bank robbery style.
We were only in the van for about five minutes before Tom pulled over to the shoulder and let us all jump out again before taking off again. Our mission this time: run across the border from England into Wales and keep running until were inside the great Chepstow Castle. To most of the world, we looked like some over-excited students jrunning across a long bridge. To the astute of intellect and appreciative of worthwile-living, we were a gathering of enthusiastic and educated adults, excited to experience running a historic route between two frequently at-war countries. Okay, so we probably looked more like geeks than anything, but I'll never apologize for it.
While in Chepstow castle, I came upon a set of 500 year old wooden gate doors, carefully stored behind a wire fence as they were undergoing a preservation process. As I walked into the great hall, I ran into a British couple who wanted to see where we got our accents from. We got chatting about castles, languages, history, and education, before we parted warmly. I stayed in the great hall for a moment more, trying to get a feel for the place (there really wasn't much of one, surprisingly) when I noticed the gentleman hurrying back over to us. He was calling to my companion and I again, because he wanted to tell us something. "Don't listen to the papers" he said, "the US has many strong friends here in Britain." I thought that was really awesome of him to come back and tell us that.
After leaving the great hall, I walked back towards the far ward, where suddenly, my two companions and I were attacked from above, by Miya and Calysta! Arrows and spears were thrown down from the ramparts. Lydia didn't make it more than a few moments. She groaned and crumpled to the grass (giggling all the way). I took an arrow to the arm, but had made for the wall below quickly. I snuck along the base of the wall to the opening. Fortunately, it was the one that led up to the top of the wall. Abby crept up the spiral staircase with me. When we reached the ramparts, we stormed our attackers, Abby wielding a mighty bit of straw as a sword. After a few moments, we called it a draw, and left together as better friends than ever.
And then we were back in the van, for another beautifully long drive to our next location.
Faint of heart, you were warned.
I have seen a few beautiful country landscapes in my lifetime. Not many, granted, as I really don't do a lot of traveling, but enough to know what I think really is lovely. This place, though, is something more than just pretty, or exciting, or even beautiful. It feels...right. Strange I know, but that's honestly the best word I think I've got. I've tried to describe what it feels to look out on such a lovely landscape as is here, but the best way to say it is that it just feels good to see it. When you're not downtown, you are engulfed by either a vast expanse of patchwork fields or lost in a dark green shadowy forest, with emerald moss bursting at every rock and trunk. Even the ever-continuous hedge enveloping both sides of the thin roads are grand. but as soon as that hedge dies down a bit, its such a joy to see all those rolling hills, the grass, the forests, the trees, the fields, the brooks, even the weeds filling up something so plain as my van window in splendid green majesty, all the way to the horizon. If I forget everything else I saw on this adventure, I pray I always remember what it was to look out on that splendor.
We drove to Tintern Abbey, an old ruined place as of about 600 years ago. When the crown finally started to get a hand above the power of the church (finally meaning, like as it is there today), an order was given to tear apart and raid everything that wasn't a cathedral. Because Tintern wasn't able to make the necessary alterations (in my mind, just installing a bishop's throne), it was raided and burnt. Fortunately, the walls and almost all of the pillars and archways have survived, even to today. And I must say, the architecture of this place was stunning. The support system, the standing arches, the windows, everything here was intricate, strong, and complex, which is very beautiful to me. I sat at the base of one of the nave pillars while we had a brief lesson and quiz from Tom before we were sent to explore. I walked around the building, took many shots, but then got a feeling like I wanted to just be alone here to do some important thinking. So I walked out around the grounds and the exterior of the building until I sat beneath the major cathedral window. I'd be lying if I said my thoughts got me anywhere with my wonderings, but at least I'm trying.
After about an hour of being at Tintern, we drove to the town of Monmouth. We walked through the adorable old town to the castle ruins. We looked around, briefly talked about some similarities and differences, then went back to the van.
Our next stop: Rhaglan castle. While this castle was a lot of fun, due to it's many unique features, it is also a popular filming site for the BBC TV series Merlin. Which I love a lot!!! Yeah, pretty sure I snagged a picture of me sitting at the same spot in the inner keep that the actor of Arthur and the Knights sat around. Good times, my friends :) Well, Rhaglan has some very unusual and well preserved features, including a gigantic fireplac (big enough for four of us to stand along with arms stretched out to each other) a double moat (one around the castle and one around the keep with a drawbridge), musket and rifle holes drilled through the walls as technology developed, and a five-story spiral staircase to the very top of the keep's flag tower. After we were sent to walk around and explore for about an hour, we met up at the beautiful Rhaglan tree out on the grounds. There we had a brief quiz session on castle anatomy, similarities, and differences.
Our final stop for the day was Usk castle. I hadn't heard much of anything about this castle before hand, so I had no way of expecting what I found there. We parked in a very dense, lush forest and got out; that was a first, every other castle was out on a hill top or in a field. As always, the vegetation was thick, but the closer we got to the castle, it became abnormally dense with plants and trees. We walked up a narrow walkway and came to where a little wooden tollbooth was poking just its face out from the thick surrounding blanket of green. A big black Labrador came out to meet us first. It didn't seem to be grumpy or hostile, so after I tested a hand towards him, I gave him a nice rub on the top of his head. Ha collar tag told me his name was Murray, so I started calling him by his name and he wagged his tail happily in response. A tall lady came to the door then, and after she looked us over a little bit, she said we were free to go up, as long as we were good to the place. We promised we would be, and she responded by telling us that we were welcome to have Murray walk us up. We thanked her and continued on.
The only way I'll be able to describe this place is by doing something I usually hate; revealing the punch line early on. But this seems to be a good time to do it. This, gentle reader, was a fairy-tale castle. Obviously it wasn't so when it was built, many hundreds of years ago, but the caretaker whom we had passed moments ago had preserved the grounds, she had brought it back to a new amazing life. The windy walkway up to the main gates was placed within stuffed hilly flower-beds, bursting with trees, shrubs, hedges, flowers, rocks, statues, waterfalls, stones, and little brooks. There was no spot big enough to see dirt within these beds. The ruined inner tower that served as the entry way had been left to grow over with grass, a huge well-groomed plant in the center, and ivy up along some of the inside walls. It was a lovely place. Tom had us gather around the circle here and split us into groups, where he started off a beautiful welsh trio that we had learned to sing in class. We took the cue and our trio quickly filled the roof-less tower. It was a cool moment.
After that, we were released to explore the grounds. We were not disappointed. The grounds were gorgeous! A gazebo hid back in one corner, i found a huge turkish tent out in the great hall, a huge black-trunked tree with a rope swing, a picture perfect bench under a rose bush, a jungle looking area with many large tropical plants, and many small plants everywhere else through the large grounds area. It was a very well cares-for garden, despite its size and complexity. I also found a tree that a huge (fake) nest had been built in. Inside the nest were three gigantic eggs, two dark blue and black and one red and black, a little smaller than volleyballs, but they looked so rustic that they looked extremely realistic. I knew that if Gretchen were there, that nest would have been her absolute favorite feature. :)
When I walked over to another tower, I could hear some of my friends within talking about the sheep. Wait, what sheep? As I got to the top of the hill where I could see into the entrance of the tower, as well as through a hole into the second level, two big sheep trotted into view on the second floor! They stopped there at the hole in the wall and stared out. I couldn't believe it! As I took another step closer to the entrance, two more sheep appeared in the lower floor-area just below the door. When I walked in I almost stepped on a sheep that was calmly just laying on one of the first few steps to the upper levels of the tower. She ba-a-ed either her curse or welcome at me (I actually don't speak sheep) to which I, well, didnt reply. Mostly I just thought about Gretchen again :)
A little bit later, Theresa came in the door behind me. Theresa's family has a ranch that they take care of every weekend, and her stories have included everything between driving cattle and birthing sheep. So when she came in and saw the sheep, she got pretty excited. She gave the one on the step a nice rub on the head and nose, and then jumped down into the lower floor area. The two sheep in there were not excited about that at all. They jumped and ran from her to the far side of the circular room, but the narrow doorway she had just jumped down was the only way out. They split up, one ran to her right and leapt for the top of the staircase, banging its knees against the last few before scrambling out past me and through the outer door. The other sheep ran to her left, leapt for the exit...and was snatched from mid air by Theresa. She pulled it back and put it between her legs to adjust her hold on it, where she spun it ninety degrees and then picked it up so she was hugging both sets of legs. It was one of the slickest things I had ever seen! That was crazy cool to see from my view at the tower entrance!
When it was time to go, we returned Murray to his owner and got back in the van. On our way home we stopped at Tesco, where I picked up a new towel and some sandwich fixings that were on sale. When we got back to the house, the six of us made some frozen pizzas for dinner and then headed to the wifi house. I had filled up my camera, so I put a little over 700 pictures on a Facebook album so that they wouldn't get lost and so I could just reuse the SD card I already have. I was also able to use a free phone to call home with, since it was around 2pm in Utah, to see if anyone there was able to get on Skype. I realized then that my family was out at the Maxwell reunion, so I just left them some fun voice messages to remember me by when they got off the mountain. After that it was a warm walk home and (eventually) a jump into bed. What a full awesome day!
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