Last weekend we took a road trip up to see Hadrian's Wall. It has been on our list of things to do ever since we got here. The pictures here are from my camera and are pretty limited, if you want to see the good stuff, go
here. The wall is at the Northern part of England and was the Northern line demarcating Roman occupation. built around A.D. 122. Although a beautiful, sunny day when we left Harrogate, it was cold, windy and very misty/cloudy when we got there. Dave said - I can see why the Romans got here and said, OK this is far enough! It was quite spectacular to see the ruins of the roman buildings and the wall itself. We went to two different sites and had a lot of fun. The kids took their swords and had swordfights with Dad in the middle of the ruins, it was really great. Sometimes I still can't believe we actually live here, surrounded by so much history.
These are the ruins of a Roman settlement called Vindolanda. It was very nice and beautiful there, although super windy.
Dave and Hilde at the top of one of the remaining towers.
Enoch and Hilde in the gardens.
Lunch break at the Housesteads Roman fort car park and Hadrian's wall itself. The fort and the wall merge into one building. We got to stand at the North Gate and see what it would have been like, since to get to it, you would have to trudge up a very steep hill. I sure hope they let you in once you got there.
On our way to Hadrian's Wall we stopped for lunch at an Italian restaurant in Newcastle that our guidebook recommended to us. The food was great, finding it was a little on the tricky side.
We got home exhausted and the kids slept well, exactly my idea of a perfect day out!
Two Sundays ago we saw the sun poking through the clouds and decided it was picnic weather. If we were in VA, we would have thought that it was a cold, windy, day, but here it was just fantastic! These pictures are especially for Uncle Matt C. in VA, the kids got their love of kites from the time you flew your kite at the beach.
In almost no time at all Hilde became a kite expert. She helped Enoch get his kite going a bunch of times and did a lot of running. I think she is almost ready for track now!
Enoch got the kite flying pretty high a couple of times. He kept falling over though because he couldn't stop looking at the kite and would get his feet mixed up.
Hilde strikes a pose after finishing a pretty energetic dance along the Stray including dancing around a tree and rolling around on the ground with intermittent poses along the way.
Thousands of Crocuses border the Stray. Here is one small stretch of them as well as a closeup. It really makes Spring here an amazing place to be. As we proceed through the next few months, flowers will continue to pop up in different iterations, each one with its own colorful glory.
