For my vacation this year I went on an 8 day hiking trip to the Cotswold region of England. Like all the other trips I've done, this was a great trip in many ways. I left home July 4 and got home again July 13. I flew from Indy to O'hare in Chicago to Heathrow in London and then took trains from Heathrow to London Paddington Station and from there to Oxford where the trip started. Coming back I just reversed this route.
While the trip went well, my return wasn't issue free. I got to London Heathrow and the gate for my flight to Chicago O'hare in good shape. But the flight was an hour late departing. Since I had 3 hours for my connection in O'hare I figured I'd probably be ok. But on getting to O'hare it took 20 minutes to get through immigration, 45 minutes at baggage claim, 20 minutes to clear customs after baggage claim and 30 minutes to shuttle from the international terminal to the American Airlines terminal. I arrived at the terminal at 10 p.m. and missed my flight which departed at 10:04 p.m. I was given an 800 phone number to call American Airlines and I got re-booked on an 8:37 a.m. flight to Indy. But by then it was almost 11 p.m. and I decided to camp at the airport rather than try to get a hotel room. The flight to Indy was fine and I got a ride back to where I had left my car. I checked and felt that I was tired but not sleepy. So I proceeded to drive home. I got on I-465 intending to take it to I-65. But around Harding Avenue my direction on I-465 came to almost a dead stop. We inched along for 10 minutes and I didn't see any end in sight. So I exited at U.S. 31 and took it home. It may have taken an extra 30 minutes compared to the Interstate in normal times. But who knows how long the Interstate might have taken that day.
With hiking trips weather can be a big factor. Europe had been having a serious heat wave, temperatures around 100 (F). But we had good weather the whole time. It was warm but not seriously hot. One day I did get pretty sweaty but that was more due to the long hill we hiked up than to the weather. And we had no rain the whole time we were there. So perfect weather.
Most trips that I do are characterized by mountains. However the Cotswolds region of England does not have mountains - what they have are long vistas of rolling hills with a mixture of fields, pastures and forests. Forests are not something I'm used to on trips. In fact they reminded me of Brown County State Park where I do hiking to train for these trips.
The other feature of the Cotswolds are small, rustic, picturesque villages with homes with thatched roofs. Three of the four places we stayed were in such villages. We also hiked through a number of these villages.
The four places we stayed were part of a small local chain, "Cotswold Inns and Hotels". They were all a little off the beaten path which made them that much more enjoyable. And all the rooms had names and some places numbers. Sometimes there was a theme to the names, sometimes not. We would leave our keys at the desk when we went out on our hikes. On coming back we would ask for our keys by name rather than number. But at one place I had a trainee who hadn't learned all the names so I used my room number.
| Hotel | Room Name | Pattern to names |
|---|---|---|
| The Lamb Inn | Tannery | Stated no pattern |
| The Broadway Hotel | Kicking King | Race horses |
| The Bear of Rodborough Hotel | Utley | Unknown |
| The Swan Hotel | Mallard | Birds |
One day after our hike we made a trip to Stratford-upon-Avon, William Shakespeare's home, and got a tour of the Royal Shakespeare Company's theatres. There were two threatres, a small one seating about 450 people and a large one seating about 1000. Both were similar to the Global Theatre in London with a "thrust" stage. This means that there is audience around 3 sides of the stage. In addition to the theatres we saw costumes, sets, props, back stage and technical operations. In addition we learned about what they use for blood. It has to be non-toxic since it could get into someone's mouth and must be easily washed out of clothes. And finally it had to look and behave like the real thing.
One day along the trail we got a tour of a cold-war nuclear observation bunker near Broadway Tower. In the event of a nuclear attack these bunkers would attempt to observe nuclear blasts to determine their location and altitude and then to monitor weather and fallout. This information would be reported upstream eventually getting to the Ministry of Defense. All of the people available to man these bunkers were volunteers. The bunker was 15 feet underground and to get into it we had to climb down a shaft. This proved easier than we expected. If you were standing on the ladder and let go with your hands you'd maybe fall back a few inches before you bumped into the back of the shaft. The actual bunker was small but in actual use would have held 3 people.
We had a last minute change in leaders. The person originally scheduled to lead the trip was ill and a replacement leader, Jeremy, came in. It turned out fine - Jeremy had an Aunt and Uncle living in the area and from previous visits with them he knew the area. But in the process we did not get one of the regular vans used for trips like this. An "equivalent" one was supplied by "Thrifty" rentals. But it certainly wasn't equivalent assuming that the original van would have been similar to the one I used in Ireland two years ago. "Thrifty", as we started referring to it, was the right size and held the right number of people. But that was about it. The only windows which opened were the driver's window and the front seat passenger side window. The car had no air conditioning. Given that the weather was moderate we survived without air conditioning and when we were moving open windows did make matters acceptable. But it would have been nicer with the usual van over Thrifty.
On our hikes we came across several trig points. Trig is short for trigonometry. These are pillars about 4 feet or so high located at known points. They're similar to survey markers in the U.S. When learning about trig points we also learned about benchmarks. A benchmark can be a small rectangle maybe 3 inches by 5 inches. sometimes made of bronze, and like trig points marks a location. There are many more benchmarks than trig points. Benchmarks are sometimes attached to trig points but not always. And sometimes they are marked on buildings. There are people who try to visit all the trig points or benchmarks in the U.K. While visiting one of the churches on our hikes our leader managed to locate a benchmark he knew to be there. After finding it, others in our group tried to find it and even with lots of hints it was hard to spot.
On our last day of hiking we saw the Uffington White Horse. To quote Wikipedia this "is a highly stylized prehistoric hill figure, ... formed from deep trenches filled with crushed white chalk." There isn't an accurate date for when the horse was created but it is somewhere in the range of 3,000 years old. Every 7 years the figure is refreshed by people from the area. We were told that the most recent refresh was a week or two before we were there. For Terry Pratchett fans, the character Tiffany Aching lived near a white horse similar to this one.
On the first day of the trip we visited Blenhein Palace. It is the only palace in England which is not associated with the Royals. While it was finished in 1722, it is noted for being the birth place and home of Winston Churchill. In addition to touring the palace, we walked through the secret garden (not really that secret) and past the cascade / water fall and along the lake on our way out.
On one of our hikes we saw where the Costswold Games are held. This is a yearly festival with various games, some we would recognize such as tug-of-war and some we wouldn't. The games you probably haven't heard of include shin-kicking and dwile flonking. If you're really interested there are youtube videos of shin-kicking and dwile flonking
First, the company I travel with is no longer known as "Mountain Travel". At one point "Mountain Travel" merged with a rafting company called "Sobek" and became "Mountain Travel - Sobek". Recently they re-branded themselves as "MT-Sobek". But to me they'll always be "Mountain Travel."
We had an accomplished opera singer, Jill, in our group. Sometimes we would be hiking down the trail when an aria would come out. Not only did she sing but she was also involved in productions of operas. One time she was in the chorus when Luciano Pavarotti was performing. She has met Prof. Peter Schickele. I mention these two because they're almost the only people in opera whom I've heard of and remember.
We had another accomplished singer in the group, Diane. She was a member of a doo-wap group and would sometimes accompany Jill. One time we were visiting a small chapel and the two of them sang a very fitting hymn.
While it's tempting I don't think I'll try to write about the "Baked Potato" song.