Day 8 - A Grand Day Out We started our day with a drive north towards Buxton. Over the years we've been to many caves and try to go caving on every trip. This trip we added Poole's Cavern to the list. It's a cave with a long history of use from the early Brittons and Romans to highwaymen and thieves. Tours have been led there since the 1600s. The cave is still being formed and regularly has a river running through it. Fortunately for us, the area has been having a bit of a dry spell and the river was down to a trickle. There was on formation at the end of the tour that normally had water running over it. since it was dry today we could see the beautiful patterns and the sparkling ... read more

Day 6 - A Drive down Memory Lane After checking out of The Christopher Wren Hotel in Windsor we grabbed a rental car and headed north to the Midlands. On the way we stopped at St Albans and looked around town, including the protected ruins of an ancient nunnery. Next, we swung by Campton and Chicksands. Campton is a very small, don't blink you'll miss it, community near Luton and Bedford. Chicksands was a RAF base that specialized in combined US and UK intelligence missions in the 50s through 90s. Tony lived there while his Dad was stationed in England during the 80s. We stopped at Campton Lower School where Tony went to school. He told Michelle all about his time there and we walked around back and looked at the playground behind the school. Afterwards, ... read more

Day 4 - We've Got a Ticket to Ride A better night's sleep had us waking up at 10:30 and heading into downtown Windsor again for lunch with some friends at another pub, the King and castle. The menu showed how multinational this area can be with items from many parts of the world. After lunch we headed to the train station and worked our way by rail into London. We saw countryside and city out our windows. We even saw a fox being harassed by a crow at one stop. The train ride gave some of us a chance to take a little nap. After one transfer we made it to Victoria Station and walked towards Buckingham Palace. We spent some time getting oriented and then decided to get a two day hop-on/hop-off bus tour ... read more

Day 1 and 2 - Don't Go to Sleep We set off for England Tuesday afternoon. The trip took over 14 hours between the flight from SLO to Los Angeles and Los Angeles to London and then from the airport to Windsor. Michelle enjoyed the variety of in-flight movies. By the time we reached the hotel, it was 2PM, local time on Wednesday. We are staying at the Christopher Wren Hotel in Windsor, right on the Thames. Our room even looks out over the river. We checked in and tried to avoid sleeping until a reasonable time. Looking for something to eat, we stopped at the cafe across the street. The Chocolate Theater Cafe has over 25 different types of hot chocolate, including the American hot chocolate (with marshmallows), the penultimate hot chocolate, the ultimate hot ... read more

Day 6 – Doin’ Nothin’ The gray and rainy morning drove Michelle and Anne’s desire to stay in and relax for a day. After Tony went off to the office, Anne and Michelle ventured across the street to get some oatmeal and pastries. The oatmeal was good but the still warm croissants were the best part. Michelle had been thinking about how to build a carousel in Minecraft since she saw the one in Central Park. She spent the morning working on it. They went to meet Tony and some coworkers for lunch at Portage Bay near the offices. Portage Bay serves breakfast all-day and has some fabulous food but the best part is the topping bar for the pancakes, waffles and French toast. It has a huge mound of whipped cream, bowls full of berries ... read more