Blogs from Barton-under-Needwood, Staffordshire, England, United Kingdom, Europe

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