9/19 Meeting up with Ed and Michelle

Most people that we saw enjoying the complimentary breakfast this morning seemed to be hikers, bikers or outdoor enthusiasts. We are in the right place!😁. Our breakfast was hearty …Tim got the Full English breakfast and I got shakshuka. Of course, we also had to share a chocolate croissant! 😋

The weather seemed cool and the skies overcast, so we put on some layers and set out to explore. Without even looking for a footpath, we discovered a trail that seemed to be well traveled.  We followed the trail…past the community garden, through empty fields,  navigating the various gates to keep livestock in place (13 to be exact) all the way to a beautiful, well kept arboretum and garden centre.  

The Batsford Arboretum is a 60 acre garden with many Asian garden features , plants and architecture. 

It was exciting to get a text from Ed (my brother) and Michelle letting us know that they would soon be arriving at the train station in Moreton-in Marsh.  We found a beer garden to celebrate the start of our long planned hiking vacation in the Cotswolds. 

We love hanging with Ed and Michelle and are thrilled to be starting our hike tomorrow with them. 

We decided on a dinner this evening at a very local pub. 

We started off with gin and tonics made with Cotswold gin and a twist of grapefruit. (Gin & tonic hold special memories for all of us.) 

The menu was quite basic and included very traditional British dishes.  We finished everything! 

9/18 Onward to Moreton-in Marsh

It was so nice having a laidback start to our Friday. Coffee was a morning requirement, but no need for a breakfast since our bellies were still very satisfied from the previous night. We were packed up and heading to the tube  🚇 around 10:30 destination Paddington. Once there,  we found our way to the Great Western Railway  to board the train to Moreton-in-Marsh. 

After a chai latte and a look about in serveral shops in this quaint town, it was time to check into our accommodations. The room is probably twice as big as our previous night and had our luggage and  two delicious cookies already within. 😋

In mid July, when I was picking wild blackberries with a group of  new friends, we were discussing tv programs that were entertaining and non-violent. One couple brought up Clarkson’s Farm and another lady in the group was enthusiastic to say she also really enjoyed it.  They shared that Clarkson’s Farm is a funny, partly educational reality/ documentary series about Top Gear and Grand Tour presenter Jeremy Clarkson purchasing and trying to run a 1000 acre farm in the Cotswolds despite having no farming experience.  When I heard the location of the program, the Cotswold, I knew we would check it out, but not realizing we would binge watch 5 seasons of the program in just over a month!  We knew that we would really like to visit the pub that was opened by Clarkson, but didn’t know if we could make it happen. Clarkson’s pub , called the Farmers Dog is a very popular pub because of the publicity of the TV program, but also due to the fact that everything served there is British produced.  So, no pepper on the tables, no coffee, no chocolate in the desserts, they cannot cook with olive, avocado or coconut oils. It supports local farmers  (but has also reeked traffic havoc in the small nearby communities). 

While in this area of England, we knew we would get together with Simon, Tim’s coworker and friend of many years. Over a month ago we talked about maybe going to The Farmers Dog with him and his boys.  Due to the popularity, Simon tried to make reservations a month in advance to no avail. We so appreciated that he made the journey to Moreton-in-Marsh to pick us up and he suggested we go to the Farmers Dog and at least check it out along with the small adjacent shop. 

Driving out there, I was entertained by his two boys Hugo and Oscar in the back seat, while Tim and Simon were catching up. We arrived at the very, very busy Farmers Dog, had parking karma, and made our way inside. 

Simon checked with the hostess to see if there might be any availability for us. She conversed with her management and lo and behold we were being seated in the Farmers Clubhouse. So exciting!!

Conversation with kids around a table is always entertaining. It was fun to hear how excited Oscar is to start his growth hormone injections now that he has dealt with brain cancer. He will be able to nightly inject himself. It was so heartwarming to see him and his family feeling so ready for this next positive step. 

We said our goodbyes as Simon dropped us off right in front of our accommodations. Upon entering the Redesdale,  we heard the live music from the bar that entice us check it out.  

This mighty duo was very talented,  she played 5 different instruments and he had 2 string instruments in addition to both of them having good voices and great song selections.  We were free spirited enough to get in a dance before they took a break, and that initiated a conversation with a couple of local guys at the next table. Fun chat! 

 

9/17 Food and Family in London

We had plans to go to Borough Market, but since we got a tip yesterday from a London local, we knew we wanted to get there when it opened, before the crowds. It seems our walk over the London Bridge was opposite the masses walking to work. 

We found our way to Borough Market as the vendors were setting up their stands.  Our first stop was Ginger Pig for their “world-famous” Sausage roll. Fortunately they opened earlier than the other vendors and we only waited behind one person. 

We checked out the numerous incredible food stands and farmers market stalls. By 11:00 the crowds had descended 
on the market and lines were forming at many of the stands.  

The skyline of London has such an iconic mix of modern and old world. Spectacular! 

We journeyed on the tube to the South Kensington stop to see my cousin Eric, wife Helen and boys Blake and Bastian at their beautiful Chelsea home.  

After a sharing a lovely bottle of  French Bordeaux and catching up on conversation, we headed out to an absolutely wonderful Michelin star Indian restaurant called Amaya Bar and Grill. Helen ordered an incredible array of unique small plates for sharing.  The wait staff presented one or two beautiful and extremely delicious selections that we shared, took away the empty plates and presented us with a couple more. Each dish had its own praise worthy combination of flavors. This continued for well over an hour, until we were beyond satisfied and lost track of the number of items that Helen had ordered.  

After all the items had been presented and enjoyed, Eric share something that our grandmother always said… there is always room for dessert!   So dessert was ordered! 

This was an evening to remember and cherish. Thank you so much  Eric and Helen. 

Hello London 9/16

Virgin Atlantic provided the service of days of gone by. We were provided with blankets, headphones,  snacks, drinks, full dinner/dessert, and a large breakfast, and fortunate for us we had an empty seat in our aisle, yet traveling 10 hours in crammed quarters,  we didn’t feel very energized once landing in London. We thought we would get a good street view of different areas of London from our ride to our hotel by the Tower Bridge, but the challenge was keeping our eyes open during the almost 2 hour  Uber journey to travel less than 20 miles!    By 3 PM we were able to stretch our legs and walk to the Bermondsey Beer Mile.  We crossed the river Thames over the crowded Tower Bridge. 

The breweries on the beer mile are not open until 5 on Wednesdays, but we did find a pub, Simon the Tanner, to enjoy a half pint and an appetizer of Pot and Pickles. 

My Angels Camp optometrist, Dr Adams, informed us to check out the Bermondsey Beer Mile and more specifically Anspach & Hobday brewery.  Shortly after 5 we were enjoying a half pint. (We are pleased that the alcohol percentage seems to be lower than California IPAs and that half pints are available here. ) 

We saw this fun brewery on our walk… Southwark Brewing Co.  Here we enjoyed a flight of 3 cask pours. Cask beers are typically less cold, less fizzy and continues to mature naturally in the cask.

Before heading back to our hotel, we shared an order of fish and chips with water! 😉

We were soundly asleep by 8:30. 😴💤

Destination London 9/15

Our house sitters Beth and Jonathan arrived with plenty of time to meet us and Lucy and learn the best of the Mueller household. They are a wonderful couple that are world travelers with TrustedHousesitter.com. We are super happy to have them caring for Lucy, the houseplants, garden, the hen, and the 🐝 bees! 

We enjoyed a quick visit and a tasty lunch with Mom before heading to SFO. 

Amazingly quick check in and through security with lots of time to kill…   Since we walked all the way to our boarding gate we decided we earned a nice cold brew!  

Getting ready for a new type of Adventure

We are excited to hike the Cotswold Way in England with Ed and Michelle in mid September.  To prepare, we’ve been hiking more and increasing our mileage and elevation gain.  The total Cotswold Trail is 104 mile trail and climbed  over 11,800’! 😳. 

We are familiar with drinking 🍻 beer, so we will be ready for the many pub visits along the way.  Tim and I watched all the episodes of All Creatures Great and Small ( PBS series based in the Cotswold region in the 1930’s)   More recently we have been watching Clarkson’s Farm- a funny and eye opening documentary series about a wealthy person deciding to become a farmer. His farm is right in the Cotswold region. If you’re looking for a lighthearted program… this is a fun one. 

Together with Ed (Cathy’s brother) and Michelle, we hiked on the Arnold Rim Trail  in  June. 

Lucy has very much enjoyed the hikes with us. … she has been on a lot of different trails! 

Puerto Rico to California

Our time in Puerto Rico has been very special, but we are looking forward to being home again. Hotel breakfast, uber shuttle to the airport and easy check in process. Now it’s waiting time … time to reminisce our 2 weeks on this small, proud island. 

Stats:

10 days of riding

345 miles

7850 feet of climbing

Grades up to 20% !!!

Tim kept track of the mileage each day using Gaia GPS app. The photo connects each day using a different color. (The middle golden colored roads are highways we did NOT travel)

In our travel experience - things that we noticed that are generally unique to Puerto Rico include:

• Puerto Rico is home to the Pina Colada and other great rum drinks. 

•The very, very colorfully painted homes and businesses especially in older neighborhoods/towns. 

•The coffee is locally grown,  sun roasted and is smooth and delicious. 

•The only Bioluminescent lagoon on the planet is here. It is a tourist attraction that they monopolize on. 

•Drivers that we shared the road with were thoughtful, but the rules of the road are much more relaxed, almost leaning on suggestions not rules. 

•The abundance of stray cats, especially in Old San Juan has been a problem for decades. 

•Stray dogs can be seen in tiny town and larger cities and all of them that we encountered were very mellow and sweet looking. (We did not try to pet any)

• There are hens, roosters and chicks pretty much everywhere. It doesn’t appear that they have a home. 

• Puerto Ricans take great pride in their vehicles. There are not many  old beat up looking vehicles. 

• Very loud sound systems are a status symbol… maybe they believe the bigger, the louder… the better. 

• Any older infrastructure, (which there is a lot of, including most of our stays) have compromised plumbing. There are  signs above most toilets that says do not flush ANY paper products. The wastebasket near the toilet is a yucky indicator. 

•Baseball is hugely important and most towns have multiple baseball diamonds that are well maintained. 

•Wrought iron decoration is very commonly seen covering windows and on porches, especially on older homes/businesses. At one point it was painted, but much of it now is chipped and not looking  decorative. 

• Trash is not confined to specific areas. It is sad to see the lack of tidiness throughout the country. Random bottles, papers, cans and plastic as well as full trash bags can be seen on the side of the roads. 

Like many other countries we’ve traveled in, we experienced the kindness of the people. I had over 200 days of Duolingo racked up… but that is not enough for me to communicate with any confidence. The people of Puerto Rico were helpful and interested in our crazy adventure. At one point, when we were approaching a busier section of a city, there was a guy following us in his car and wouldn’t pass us in the second lane. We were beginning to be annoyed until we saw his flashers and after we turned off the road he gave us a beep and friendly wave, turned off his flashers and resumed normal driving. He was just trying to protesct us. Super cool! 

Tim’s final Puerto Rican sunrise grounding location. 

11:11 at the San Juan airport. 

Our flights were long and the overall journey to California was not fun, but we were so happy to get to mom’s house in Los Altos before 11PM.   The next morning after breakfast, we were heading home to Angels Camp happy to reunite with Lucy and see Abby our new house sitter friend. 

We had a warm welcome home from Lucy and Abby. 

Everything is looking great. Lucy is happy, hens are happy, bees are buzzing and with all that rain the yard is exploding with color. It’s wonderful to be home. 

❤️🏠🐶🐝🐓🪴❤️