UK Camping Journal - Part 1

Greetings Friends and Countrymen,

Sherry's assembled some photos of our July vacation in the UK. We rented a "new school" VW Campervan and toured a good part of England and Scotland. Lyla was more or less her curious and active-self the entire trip.

It was refreshing actually to be so disconnected from the web, cell phone, etc. the entire month, but we did jot down a few notes each day so you can get a picture of what we were up to.

More or less we were on our own, but we did visit Martin and Holly and Jeff and London, the Browns in Brighton, and the Hardys in Cambridge. Thanks so much for the wonderful hospitality. Along the way we met many nice (and polite of course) English and Scotspersons.

So, I hope hope you like our abridged travel journal and photos. Hope to see you all real soon in Charlottesville or elsewhere.

-Cory

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Thurs July 1:
-Flight Zurich to London City
-Martin has a "fab" place in between Brixton and Clapham in South London.
-No elevators to speak of in the building, but a solid 7 sets of stairs to conquer WITH all of our luggage. Some stairs more closely related to onboard ladders.
-Nice meal out at "409" with Holly and Martin in Clapham. Lyla ever the trooper, but in the end, not able to deal with late-ish city dining hours. She was asleep in Cory's arms by evenings end.
-Holly very nice, very organized Australian. She gave some nice tips for what to do in London next day. Thanks!

Fri July 2
-Breakfast near Clapham Common tube station @ the "Rapscallion". Good tunes, good food.
-Poke around Camden Street then canal boat trip on canal (thanks Holly!). Lyla absolutely excited about the whole darn 2 hours of it. Nobody pedestrian allowed by us on the canal-side path without returning a Lyla wave.
-BBQ evening on Martin's fab rooftop terrace of fab apartment.
-Watched end of Uruguay-Ghana. Exciting finish! Amazing were the number of Africans congregating at bar across from Tesco supermarket. Brixton=eclectic neighborhood. Amazing also when Ghana scored...we heard the cheers from distant Brixton from Martin's rooftop.

Sat July 3
-breakfast with Jeff in Soho. Nice to see ya Jeff!
-depart for Brighton with all our stuff. Had to hire a car/driver for the task. He had a terrible time finding Martin's fab apartment (private road, no t in the GPS.. or SatNav as they call it. Traffic terrible between London and Brighton. ATM card non-functional at most ATMs... how then to pay the cabbie?
-Met Mama and Papa Eicher's friends Annabelle and Dave Brown for the first time, also their so Mark and family (Emma, Henry, Bertie). Lovely people, lovely house, lovely time (great dinner).

Sun July 4
-Happy Independence Day, the second I've spent in the UK in the past 20 years.
-Rested?
-Delish Fish and Chips in seaside village near the Browns fab house. Poke around the seaside path, beach, cliffs.

Mon July 5
-Poke around Brighton, veggie lunch, shops, coffee, paid 10 pounds for guy to crack our Swiss mobile phone and 1 pound for UK SIM card. I WISH it worked this way in the US. 10 pounds more and we were good for the month for phone in the UK.
-Walk around the South Downs (big hills near the Browns). Windy, not so warm.
-Slept?

Tues July 6
-Van delivery day. We had so much stuff we had to arrange for Mark (from kamperhire.co.uk) to bring us the van from near Portsmouth.
-Van is fab. Drove to Mark's farm to drop off a few empty suitcases.
-Next navigated to Southampton Ikea to buy a 11 pound (cost not weight) high chair with removable legs. Fantastically beneficial stop.
-slept Hollands Wood campground near town of Brockenhurst in the New Forest
-Arrivated lateish. Dinner = pasta salads from Marks and Spencer, yummy grapes, Knaeckerbrod Flerkorn (ikea crusty crackers).
-Holland v. Uruguay on van radio.

To be continued...