Off to Oxford - May 3, 2012

Now I was leaving Winslow for Oxford - land of Inspector Lewis, the Alice in Wonderland store, thousands of bicycles, and Oxford University (38 colleges, 6 museums, 21,000 students). Some of my family moved here, but previously, in 1871, Grandma's uncle, Mackwood, began training at age 17 at St. Mary Hall (which I think is gone now), Oriel College.

I arranged a ride from Winslow at noon so I could have a leisurely morning; besides, check-in at the B&B in Oxford wasn't until 1:00. When I woke up to rain, I was glad I didn't go with the bus option, which would have involved going back to Aylesbury, getting a second bus to Oxford, then a taxi up to the B&B two miles north of town.

The driver, who owned the company Church Street Cars, drove like a madman (I was starting to get the picture that that's how many people drive in England), and missed the turn-off to Oxford, but he was friendly and chatty, so it was an enjoyable trip. 

Ignore the red lines and my ink scribbles. Oxford is at the bottom of the map; Summertown at the top, and two family houses are in between.

The main event for me was Woodstock Road which parallels Banbury Road then joins it in a V at the bottom. From the B&B to the Woodstock house is about a mile, maybe a little more, and that again to downtown Oxford. I could have taken a bus but I always walked there and back.

Take Woodstock Road to the north then west for easy access to the Cotswolds or straight up to Woodstock / Blenheim Palace and beyond to the Cotswolds.

Where is Winslow?

Where is Winslow? Some might even be asking, 'Where is Buckinghamshire?' Here are a couple of maps, which will enlarge if you click on the picture.

Left: Buckinghamshire is shown in dark purple.
Right: Aylesbury is underlined in yellow. My destination, Winslow, is marked with a yellow line and star.

A road trip to Washington & Oregon

Friday July 9, 2010

The main reason for this trip was to attend the Arlington fly-in, but since I'm not working we were free as birds. The only constraint was money.

Original proposed route
(wound up being very different)

We decided to include the Bavarian-themed town of Leavenworth on this trip. Our very first trip together was to Leavenworth, 14 or 15 years ago. From there we planned to head north to Osoyoos in BC, then drive back west through Canada. But that didn't happen. Instead, we drove west through Washington via the Cascade loop, and then south to Oregon.

We've been on this ferry route between Sidney and Anacortes before so I won't spend a lot of time on it. I wish I'd taken a picture of one of the very rusty Washington State ferries passing by because it was a quite a sight - they don't look well maintained at all.

Here we pass Spieden Island, an unusually dry and barren island in the San Juans, privately owned by a sunglass billionaire.

We had to chuckle when a passenger discovered, as the ferry sailed past San Juan Island, that he wasn't going to that island after all. He was so annoyed that he wanted to speak to the captain, as if it wasn't his own fault that he failed to check the schedule.

Most of the San Juans look more like this, similar to our Gulf Islands.

Our ferry cruised around aimlessly waiting for a place to dock. We should have been at our hotel by mid-afternoon. Instead, it was suppertime. We were starving by then since there isn't much to eat on the Washington State ferries other than hotdogs, popcorn and baked goods. It would have been smart to take our own food.

We checked into a Holiday Inn Express in Marysville, which is just a few miles (miles not kilometres in the US) south of Arlington. I hadn't stayed in a Holiday Inn in decades so was not sure what to expect. We were pleasantly surprised. Staff were friendly and efficient, the room was just fine and do-it-yourself breakfasts are included at the Express hotels.

Top and bottom left: Our room was well equipped with a small fridge, microwave, coffee maker, desk, iron, sitting area. No in-room safe though.

Top right: Glenn was happy to see the sink in the bathroom like this, rather than outside of it as is the case at some hotels. I was surprised that there was no tub, only a shower in this room.

Bottom right: Breakfast room off lobby. Thumbs up for lots of bananas always being available. Glenn gets cramps if he doesn't have one every day. Here is a curious thing - there were biscuits, hot scrambled eggs, sausage paddies and then some liquid stuff that we couldn't identify. I figured it was some sort of porridge but later we saw this exact same thing in another hotel and found out it was gravy (for the biscuits maybe). We concluded it must be an American thing, just like salt-water taffy seems to be more popular in the States. Another difference between Canada and the US is that their gas is much cheaper.

Time for a map

Thursday October 1, 2009

Click map to enlarge. La Jolla is marked with a pink square. We'll be driving north from there, along the coast.

In the La Jolla area a bit north of our hotel are the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, Stephen Birch Aquarium and the Salk Institute. Jonas Salk, of polio vaccine fame, lived here, I think... at least he died here.

A 3 day airshow was on this weekend so we saw some jets blasting around. We chuckled when we heard the Snowbirds would be there - Glenn has seen enough of them to last a lifetime. The airshow was being held at the Miramar Naval Air Station - the large grey area east of La Jolla.

Our main destination was the Quail Botannical Gardens in Encinitas. Otherwise, plans were loose.

Trip to San Diego

We're just back from our quick trip to San Diego. We got there by cruise ship and returned to Seattle by train, then took the float plane home. Report will be coming up.

Glenn made me do the Titanic thing

Canada by train

This shows the route we'll be taking by train between Vancouver and Quebec City. (Click on map to enlarge.) It's too bad we can't make that extra 'hop' over to Halifax on the east coast, but that is another 18 hour train trip from Quebec City, one way.