UK Travel

Are We There Yet?

~ Elizabeth Hurd ~ 3 Comments

99 bottles of beer on the wall

99 bottles of beer

Take one down

Pass it around

98 bottles of beer on the wall

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Road trips in the US are as much de rigueur today as they were when my grandparents loaded everything they owned onto their car and drove all the way from Oklahoma to Oregon to escape the Dust Bowl. They fell out of fashion during the heyday of the cheap airline ticket in the 80’s and 90’s, but since the days of heightened airport security and airlines charging extra for just about everything the road trip has come back into its own. You haven’t lived until you’ve been confined to the backseat of the family car for a few days with your siblings and actually sung “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall” all the way to the last bottle.

When it comes to road trips it is my firm belief that people fall into one of two categories: conquerors and explorers. Continue reading →

Lest We Forget

~ Elizabeth Hurd ~ 3 Comments

High on a barren, windswept bluff overlooking the majestic Columbia River Gorge in southern Washington State sits a strange concrete structure of pillars and columns encircling a large stone slab alter. Most motorists speeding along the interstate highway which hugs the great river below do not even know it is there, and only those who are actively looking for it can pick it out from among the other rocky outcroppings and cliffs. In the summer it is blistering hot and brush fires frequently sweep through the area. In the winter the bitter wind is funnelled up the steep gorge, howling fiercely and driving rain and ice sideways before it.

This is the Maryhill Stonehenge.

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Commissioned in the early 20th century by eccentric businessman Sam Hill, it was the first US memorial dedicated to soldiers who fought and died in WWI. Mr. Hill, a Quaker, believed that the original Stonehenge in Wiltshire had been used by the Druids as a sacrificial site and he wanted his replica to be a reminder that mankind is still being sacrificed to the gods of war. Inscribed with the names of those men who served and died in the war are these words: Continue reading →

We Were Happy Here

~ Elizabeth Hurd ~ 8 Comments

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“Maybe you had to leave in order to miss a place; maybe you had to travel to realize how beloved your starting point was.”  ~          Jodi Picoult

People will sometimes ask me what I miss from home. I can easily rattle off a list: my family and friends; Starbucks with drive-up windows; giant watermelons by the truckload in every grocery store during the summer; 4th of July parades and bonfires on the beach; really good Mexican food; wide roads; orchards and vineyards that stretch for miles; tall, snow-capped mountains rising dramatically out of untamed wilderness; the Oregon coast. Continue reading →

On Songbird’s Wings

~ Elizabeth Hurd ~ 4 Comments

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The fog comes

on little cat feet.

 

It sits looking

over harbour and city

on silent haunches

and then moves on.

–          Carl Sandberg

 

Those lines by Carl Sandberg captured my imagination from the first moment I read them. I was still just a child and was curled up in a corner of the couch with the big, blue Arbuthnot Anthology of Children’s Literature spread open on my lap, thumbing through the tissue-paper thin pages. The imagery of fog creeping into a city on cat’s paws delighted me, for I have always loved a well-turned phrase and the evocative beauty of language. Continue reading →

A Romantic Night on the Village

~ Elizabeth Hurd ~ 1 Comment

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 This was originally going to be a blog about coffee and tea, and how the expectations British people have about coffee in America, and Americans have about tea in Britain, are often disappointed by reality. However, I am discovering, as writers must often do, that my blog is not cooperating. It simply will not behave and do what I tell it to do, and so it shall be abandoned for this week, and instead I shall tell you about what I suppose could be called my husband’s and my date night last evening. Continue reading →

The Happy Wanderers

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In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks. ~ John Muir

“I’ve come up to ask you to go for one of our old-time rambles…” L.M. Montgomery

We are walkers, my husband and I. There are few things we’d rather do on a free weekend than throw a picnic lunch in a rucksack and strike out on foot through forest and field. You might say that makes us both a cheap date. Be that as it may, the times we spend together walking in both companionable silence and deep conversation have been some of the happiest we’ve spent together. Continue reading →

Riding the Bus

~ Elizabeth Hurd ~ 3 Comments

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The medium-sized city where I used to live had excellent bus service…or so my husband has told me. I have to take his word for it because in the twenty-one years I lived in that area I never stepped foot inside a single one of the city busses. I’m your typical American. I had a nice, shiny car with a heater that blasted heat in the winter, an air conditioner that blasted frigid air in the summer, and a stereo at my fingertips that blasted whatever kind of music I wanted blasted, whenever. Why would I ride the bus when I could travel everywhere in splendid, comfortable isolation? Continue reading →

The National Trust

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Oh, to be in England now that January’s there!

 The correct line from Robert Browning’s famous, oft-quoted poem is actually, “Oh, to be in England now that April’s there.” Perhaps Mr Browning was more than happy to be far away from this part of the world during the dark, rainy months of winter, but for those of us for whom spending the winter in Italy is not an option the shorter days and colder temperatures do not stop us from enjoying many of the wonders that the U.K. has to offer. A large proportion of those wonders are all covered under the umbrella that is the National Trust. Continue reading →

Divided by a Common Language

~ Elizabeth Hurd ~ 2 Comments

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“England and America are two countries divided by a common language.” That quote, often attributed to George Bernard Shaw, but sometimes also to Oscar Wilde, is one of my husband’s favourites. Most of us are aware of the well-known differences – lorry instead of truck, torch instead of flashlight, courgette instead of zucchini. It is when a familiar word or phrase has a different meaning that signals can become crossed. Continue reading →