As summer rolls to a close, I’m thinking back on its best moments. One highlight of the summer was my trip to England and Scotland, a three-week jaunt from corner to corner of the UK – from Eastbourne’s white cliffs in the southeast, to the black shale cliffs of Cornwall in the southwest; from the dolphins of the Black Isle in Scotland’s northeast, to skylarks dropping fullthroated from the blue above in northwest Gairloch. We had comfortable stops with family in Lancaster and Leeds; we stumbled across the Queen visiting Edinburgh. A trip to satisfy the eternal wanderlust. A travelers’ trip among cloud and damp and mist, or in the occasional sunlight glittering across the dunes at our campsite by the sea or on the barges of the Lancaster canal.
We visited the writers’ museum in Edinburgh, lovely place, and I felt a kinship with Robert Lewis Stevenson, who left his dank home to adventure off to Hawaii and Samoa. May travel never lose its savor.
More contemplations on Great Britain: Americans have no right to roam, but they should, in the Valley Advocate:
One can crisscross the British landscape on foot, exploring farmlands and forests and graveyards and churches that date from the 1100s and even the bottoms of people’s back gardens. Blackbirds, wrens and chaffinches twitter in the hedges; snails creep past underfoot; wildflowers crowd the path edges… read more