Torqay and Dartington

This is our friend from Torqay, Skanyrich, His family owns and manages our hotel. Rich promised us a cricket match, a barbeque and a view of the ocean and herds of wildebeast. The cricket game rained out, but two out of three isn't bad.

A view of the ocean and tennis courts from our window in Torqay.

We have breakfast with Helen and Chris in Dartington. They take us on a wonderful walk through and old estate. They're setting up for a concert tonight. Dartington became sort of a new age mecca for radicals and eccentrics after the war. Helen and Chris and I have been frequent pen pals for about seven years.

Chris is a Scottish gambler and vegetarian.

Helen convinced me to sell our house, buy an RV and adopt an indian name by writing a poem called "Bluejay and the Pink Plastic Rose"..

Bluejay and the Pink Plastic Rose

Bluejay stepped out into the new day and attached a pink plastic rose to the inside mirror of his Sundance camper van.

And the sun flashed a laser ray over his face and he was a painted warrior.

'I shall drive this van along four thousand trails' he said, 'in search of the pattern of music.'

So Bluejay drove for four thousand days along four thousand ways.

And there were many times across many lines.

There were stories and glories.

There was dark and dangerous mystery.

'Oh yes, there were faces and scars and songs and stars and yet no pattern of music' said Bluejay, as the light turned into indigo night. And the moon flashed a laser ray over his face and he was a painted phantom.

And all the while the pink plastic rose had remained attached to the mirror. Bluejay was exhausted. He tore down the flower.

'So hey' he said. 'and what are you
You rose which never dies
And what know you of joy and grief
Beneath these sacred skies?
You have no fragrance, have no thorns
You need not light nor rain
And do you dream your plastic dreams
Eternal life to gain?'

Bluejay stared at the rose. He heard a whisper through the nowhere silence in his head.

'I may be plastic, may be gold
I may be life or wonder
Some day within another time
I will be death and thunder
I run through questions, run through blood
I am both pure and tainted
There is no place of light or shade
My pattern is not painted.'

And Bluejay threw the pink plastic rose high high into the sky.

'Fly music,fly' he said.

He watched the rising sun flashing a laser ray onto the inside mirror of his Sundance camper van, and drove into the new day.

This is a tilting field...maybe they jousted here at one time?

In the afternoon we drive along the shore. This beach has a WWII sad history. It is where a U-boat caused a heavy American loss during an amphibious training operation.

Lunch and low tide.

Stonehenge:Summer Solstice

We're lucky to hit Stonehenge on the Solstice.

About 50 people are dressed in white bedsheets and enacting what they imagine to be Druid rituals, although I don't think anyone was taking notes or videos back then.

The expensive GPS we rented was broken and we promptly got lost leaving Heathrow. Eventually we find our way to the Salisbury Cathedral (mostly by sense of smell). It has one of the original Magna Cartas with all 67 clauses on a sheet of vellum.

I got into a long conversation with one of the priests, who was going to North England for the weekend to watch his grandson play cricket. Catholic priests don't have grandsons that they talk much about...

With difficulty, we found our hotel in Bath and walked to the town center in the evening to buy a new GPS (or Sat/Nav as they call them here).

In the Morning, the kids and Mrs. Phred see the Roman Baths, while I go to the Bath Cathedral by myself.



Christian nuns established a foothold here about 670 AD so the first bosses were abbottesses.

Queen Elizabeth came here in 1973 to celebrate the 1,000th anniversary of the crowning of King Edgar.

We drive from Bath to Stonehenge with the GPS set for shortest, rather than quickest. We see two hours of lovely  villages, one lane roads and about 1,000 traffic circles

Eventually we find Torquay on the coast and have a Bar-B-Que with my friend Skankyrich (Rich Blagden). He operates the Cavendish Hotel. We have a great view of the ocean, clay tennis courts and herds of wildebeasts. As evening approaches we find ice cream and cookies and wander the oceanfront.

Want a Marsh mello?

Bubbye and Zaza visit the grandchildren

 

We're spending two weeks here with our seven grandchildren before we get on the Big Bird to London with the two oldest. Raleigh has a direct flight to London.

The campground  is on Falls Lake. The water is warm. I'm showing off my cooking skills with hamburgers, chicken and yellow rice, chili, steaks and other meals for ten or eleven...

I'm installing and painting shelves in the laundry room and a large closet. It's nice to have a little project to help pass the time. Most of my old tools ended up here in Kenny's garage.

Warren is an enthusiastic wood gatherer and fire builder.

Above  is the patriarch, Vivian and Riley. The trip to the United Kingdom is coming up soon. The first day we'll see Windsor Castle, Stonehenge, and the Salisbury Cathedral. We'll sleep in Bath.

On our second day we will see the Roman baths, Glastonberry and the Wells Cathedral. That night we've been invited to play in a cricket match and enjoy a family birthday party in Torqay.

On day three we'll have breakfast with Helen and Chris and explore the villages and National parks in the southwestern peninsula.

The picture below (left to right and back to front) is Taylor, Brooke, Riley, Barret, Warren, Carolyn and Vivian. Taylor and Brooke are coming with us to see England, Ireland and Scotland.

If you want to know about day 4 though day 21 of our UK trip, follow the blog.

Carolyn offers me a marsh mellow.

Mrs. Phred is known to the grandchildren as "Bubbye" and I am "Zaza". Bubbye is the name for a Jewish grandmother. Zada is the proper name for a Jewish grandfather, but it was mangled by the firstborne, Taylor, and I'm stuck with Zaza now....

Zaza and Vivian above...67 years age difference. Today I told Taylor that my own grandfather was born in Cork, Ireland. Time is fleeting...

Bubbye and Zaza with the seven grandchildren. Kenny behind the camera...

Asheville

We've spent about five nights in Asheville. One night we went to see friends from Sun and Fun. We ate at a Mexican restaurant. It was interesting to watch their videos of black bears wrestling in their front yard. Jerry and Michelle were very cool to visit with.

We have a little hard court in Asheville that we use. Carol got invited to play three sets of doubles with three locals. Most days she plays two sets with me. Our scores are 6-3, 6-2. 6-1 and 6-0 and so on and on...

They park the cruisers by our tennis courts.

One day we run up into the Blue Ridge Parkway. Probably Fall is the most lovely time to see the hills.

We run into "Slide Rock" and try to remember all the times we've been here. The first time was with our son Kenny back about 35 years ago.

It's a cool place to slide in the summer.

We spent $53 to have a martini at the Grove Park Inn. That was $37 for the martinis ( $15 each martini plus an 18% service charge plus a 7% tax.) We also had to valet park our old beat up to Toyota which was another $10 plus a $4 tip since there were no parking spaces....we felt like we were members of the 1%.....

Mrs Phred liked the evening...we walked around downtown Asheville and had tapas and drinks downtown...

Nashville

We end up spending almost a week in Nashville because of the bent front axle on the motor home. They also added a 4th leaf to the right rear spring to fix a sagging back end. Too bad they don't do work on people.

Mrs. Phred took some shots of the Gaylord Hotel near the Grand old Opry. The picture above is an example. I dislike country music. Spelling and pronouncing "opera" incorrectly is a sort of a reverse snobbery that really annoys me.

The Cheekwood Botanical Gardens and Art Museum was worth the trip.

Mr. Cheek traded his Maxwell House coffee stock for IBM stock in 1933. It was a spectacular decision. Unfortunately he died in 1935. You can't take it with you.

There are many acres of beautiful gardens.

We were stuck in Nashville for the long Memorial Day weekend. Our RV park sponsored some music events and a barbeque....

Butterflies are pretty insects....

We got tired of Nashville while waiting for the RV to get fixed. We cruised up to Mammoth Caves National Park in Kentucky.

We took back roads up to the caves. The area has endless corn and wheat producers.

Mammoth Caves National Park has 392 miles of cave system that has been discovered. We see 250 yards of that. The caves are the 2nd oldest natural tourist attraction in the US. The oldest is Niagara Falls.

The music scene in Nashville is mostly on downtown a street named Broadway.

We spent some time and money on Broadway. We found a couple of groups that were not too country to bear and spent a night in a downtown hotel.