Intro to the UK - A Trip with Andrew

If you read the post dated July 14, 2017 on this blog, you know what a James Herriot fan I've been through adulthood.  The man was just amazing, and his back story as interesting as his books.  I've read the Creatures Great and Small series through three times, and ever since the first have wanted to visit the country where he lived, practiced, and described so vividly and fondly...a bucket list item, if you will.

The chance finally came.  About two years ago my son Andrew went with some friends to the Lake District National Park in the UK.  After returning he gushed on and on about how beautiful the place was, and that I need to go there to take some pictures.  Just my kind of place, he said - it's picturesque all around and the primary pastime is walking the hundreds of trails in the area.  Didn't take long for the idea to strike that, "Hey, why don't we go together and you can show me around?"  Meanwhile, Andrew became engaged to be married in the spring, providing the catalyst to do it sooner rather than later.  This was it - time to make plans!

Discovering that the Lake District is an easy drive from where Herriot lived and worked made it a no-brainer to include a little time there.  We settled on Windermere in the Lake District for the first four nights, two nights in Kirbymoorside near Thirsk, and the last in Manchester before flying from there back to Houston.  But the upcoming posts will not appear in that order, for reasons that will become obvious tomorrow.

Proper planning was done to make this a great trip, with the exception of one thing - I ended up with only ONE CHARGED BATTERY for the Bigger Cahoona, and no charger to rejuvenate it once depleted.  Fortunately it was at 100%, but I had to ration its use on a per-day basis, shooting, say, 10% on a given day but 15% the next because of where we were going to be.  The system worked fine, yielding 1,670 captures more/less evenly spread through the trip, with 7% left at the end of our stay in the UK.  But I wasn't worked up about it either way, photography being the secondary - not the primary - purpose of the journey.  Any keepers brought home were be pure gravy...

Bookmark - Lake District Lake House (Landscapes)

How ideal is this...a remote lake house in England's Lake District!  Captured this guy while we were on a boat tour of Windermere Lake.  It was windy too, and cold, on that September day in 2018.

England - Lake District Tour, Walkers on a Hike

I was impressed with the patience that Brits had with walkers.  They were everywhere around the Lake District, even at times occupying precious space in the lanes of byways and highways, but nobody honked or complained.  Lots of older folks doing this, very productively spending their retirement days either alone or with a spouse or companion.  These older people, and the more serious walkers of the younger generation, always had walking sticks.  I have an aunt in Colorado who said that, if started when young, using two walking sticks on every hike will increase the life of your knees by about ten years.

By the way, do you see the walkers in this photo?  Barely discernible among the vegetation is a path, close to the exact middle of the photograph (click to enlarge).

Cancún 2024 - Boat Parking Area / The Steak House

There's something about boat patterns, all parked in a row like this.  Wider shot below of same:

Similar pic, sort of, from Corpus Christi posted here from 2021.

And I'm surprised this one wasn't posted in my Lake District series, so here it is - belatedly, as the series was posted in 2019.  The location was Windermere-on-Bowness in England's northern Lake District:

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Last night our son took us out to a top-tier steak house for Father's Day.  It was a new restaurant, located on the edge of the Heights here in Houston.  A good time was had by all, and the steak (as well as everything else) was superb.

Normally when a person thinks "steak house", he or she might imagine cloth napkins and table covers, place settings with a jillion knives and forks, wine glasses, and a lights turned low in an elegant atmosphere.  I, however, almost always conjure the memory of a brightly-lit greasy-spoon establishment in Beaumont, Texas.  And yes, the steaks there were great, too.

This was in the summer of 1977, when I was working for the KFDM (Channel 6) news and production departments.  My boss in news was Larry Beaulieu, and I reported to Jeff Pryor when doing production work between the 6 & 10 newscasts.  Sometimes, if the workload was heavy enough, I'd stay until midnight, or even later.  This was back when the station was located just off of I-10, between Harrison and Louisiana Avenues.  Much of this period is covered in a series of stories posted in the fall of 2019, written to cover my radio and TV work as a teenager.

Usually I took a dinner break after the rush of the six o'clock news was over, and one time my co-workers persuaded me to go with them to this hole-in-the-wall eatery nearby, on 11th Street.  Nothing could beat their steaks, they said.  Sure I'll go, why not...

So five of us piled into one of their cars (I didn't own one so almost always rode my bike to work) and headed to this great place.  And what we pulled up to was definitely a hole-in-the-wall, in a nondescript strip center - a dive at best - but my friends swore by the quality of the food.  Once inside this was affirmed by the number of people waiting for a table in the smallish eating area.  Because we worked for the TV station and because my companions were regular customers, they found a place for us almost right away.

Great, so we all settled into a booth and ordered from a waitress who retrieved a pad from the pocket of her apron and pencil that was kept in her hair.  Several of us ordered the famous steak, among other things.  As we waited for our order I felt a positive, busy vibe.  An older man wearing a stained white apron, whom I presumed to be the owner or proprietor, presided over the whole business with an authoritative air and blue collar tongue.  At times he gave my workmates a respectful nod of recognition while manning his station behind the counter.

Then our food came.  My buddies were eager to get my take on the quality, which was actually very good.  After we'd been eating for a little while, the owner guy came over to our booth and sat right down to chat it up with my co-workers, during which I was introduced as a first-time customer.  After a little small talk this fellow took a look at me, then down at my steak on the plate, then back at me, saying, "No, you're doing this wrong!"  Then, with his bare hands he grabbed my meat, turned it around on my plate, and with his finger instructed me to cut with the grain, not against it.  I complied, and once he saw that it was being done correctly continued his small talk with the group as if we were never interrupted by my transgression.

Forget what this eatery was called, but I'll always remember that encounter, and the gruff man who made sure I did justice to the steaks he so proudly served.

England - Lake District Tour, Blue Flowers

As mentioned earlier, the day after arriving in England's Lake District we took a tour to scope out the larger picture.  This and the next half-dozen or so posts will feature miscellaneous photos of bits and pieces here and there from that tour...

Bookmarks - Gormire Lake (Landscapes)

This is Gormire Lake, in the Sutton Bank National Park, made famous by the inimitable Jim Wight - a.k.a. James Herriot.  Our visit there marked the ticking off of a true bucket list item during a trip to the Northern Lake District with my son.  We decided to hike a trail to its shores, which was quite a trek!  It was there that this reflection shot was captured and made into another bookmark:

 

England - Lake District Tour, A Couple of Lakeside Houses

Ending up at the north end of Lake Windermere, we took a boat to get back to where we originated at the beginning of the tour while our guide drove the van to meet us there.  It was plenty windy and cold, but Andrew and I persevered topside to take in the sights.  This house and the one posted below are idyllic in their isolation and lakeside locations:

Bookmark - Honister Statues (Silhouettes)

Also captured during our trip to the Lake District in England, this one at the Honister Slate Mine.  Lots of potential for lettering here...

England - Stone Circle in the Lake District

Very interesting, these odd stone circles dotted throughout England.  This one is dated back thousands of years, and is assumed to have had religious purposes.  If only they could talk...

Andrew is in the middle there with red tennis shoes on.

Taiwan - Chenjean's Village, Road Shots

Had a friend over the other day that said he likes "road shots".  I do too, so showed him this panorama from the Lake District in England, plus the one below which features another angle of the old vendor stall posted more recently:

Bookmark - Byland Tower #2

Got a lot of bookmarks out of the Byland shoot, due to the many towers left standing and the general structure of the original buildings.  Having the Bigger Cahoona helped, as the high resolution gave room for a good bit of cropping when needed.

Suppose it's no surprise that the quantity and quality of pictures that came out of our trip to the Lake District in the UK coincides with this being one of my two favorite vacations (the other one being our trip to Italy with Allison).  A photographer can only capture beauty if he sees it, and a good time with family opens the way to this kind of creativity.

Bookmark Project - Honister Girl with Statue (silhouettes)

Seems that silhouettes and fog shots often go hand in hand.  This is a girl taking a selfie at the Honister slate mine in the Lake District of England.

And because I was shooting with the Bigger Cahoona, was able to crop in to make a second bookmark from the same pic.  Just a little bit of fringe, but not much:

England - Lake District Tour, Modern Lamp Post / Getting Lost in Flight

As mentioned several times before in this blog, I was a student pilot once and got to fly around a little black and white Cessna 150 (tail number niner-four-golf) out of Brown Airport in Orange, Texas, now known as Orange County Airport.  My instructor was Ed Feuge, an awesome teacher - one of the best - who worked a day job at DuPont.  Until the funds were re-prioritized I made it all the way up to solo cross-countries and practicing stalls, etc for the FAA check ride.  For the practice sessions I would head out by myself to the practice field, somewhere north of I-10 where there was nothing but forest below.

One of my cross country flights ended well but there was a hiccup somewhere in the middle of my outbound leg.  I had climbed up to my designated altitude of 6,500 ft on the way to Lufkin for a round-trip there and back, and was tracking my position using VOR out of Jasper along with ADF from the destination.  Having filed a VFR flight plan I depended on landmarks below, comparing them to my nav charts.

It went along OK for a while, but about halfway through the flight I looked down and found that nothing matched.  There was a railroad track and a road alongside, but they were on the wrong side of each other!  I checked and re-checked, but still it made no sense...I was not where I thought I was or should be.  But there was a small town ahead - all towns have water towers with their name on it, don't they?  I decided to position the airplane directly to the south of the town as I decreased altitude to 1,000 ft AGL (above ground level), the lowest legal limit over a populated area.

As I approached the town, now traveling due north, I flew a little to the right of the water tower so that I could read the name, and sure enough it was Zavalla, a town I could identify on the map.  Now all I had to do was approach from due south, turn x-number of degrees toward Lufkin, make a small correction for the wind, and regain my altitude.

And it worked!  The nose of my little craft was spot-on the center of the airfield as I approached.  All I had to do then was descend to the downwind leg of the pattern and put'er down!  Worked like a charm.  It was a three-point landing, all three wheels hit the paint in my parking spot, and the lady in the FBO kissed my logbook to make a lipstick print.  It was quite the adventure...

Bookmark - Lake District Bovines

...and speaking of bovines, this is one of the most popular of all my bookmarks because of the cattle that are all uniformly brown against the vivid greens.  Of course none of this was entering my mind as I snapped the photo on our Ambleside hike, but was serendipitously pleased during post-capture and consider it a keeper.

Will cap off this three-shot bovine bookmark series with one at the "back end" tomorrow...

Bookmark - Ambleside Felltops

Again, being entirely random here...some felltops in England.

James Herriott wrote of the incredible tenacity of farmers/ranchers that manage to eek out a living among these heights, though in Yorkshire (this was captured in the North Lake District).  This pic looks OK in a 5-inch bookmark, but because it was captured with the Bigger Cahoona a print more than five feet across could be made.

Bookmark - Windermere Flower (Flowers and Blooms Series)

Of all the flower pics captured in the Lake District of England (which weren't that many), this one popped with enough color and luminescence to be called a keeper.

Bookmark - Ambleside Eye (Animal Series - Mammals)

One from the prolific shoot of our Ambleside walk in England's Lake District.  Still amazed at what I was able to capture considering that I hadn't brought along a charger or a spare battery.  Series posted here.

Bookmark Project - Ambleside Mushrooms (plants, non-flower)

One of my all-time favorites, this pic in its larger format was posted here in the Lake District series.  Sometimes it all comes together...on this day the sun came peeking through the foliage to highlight this cluster of mushrooms just as Andrew and I were hiking by on an Ambleside walk.

And yes, I know that mushrooms are technically not plants, but here they are anyway...

England - Ingenious Gate Closer in the Lake District

...and this is how we got in there, through this gate that uses the weight of a stone to automatically close it after passing through.  Interesting to see technology that could have been - and probably was - here a thousand years ago to do the same thing.

Bookmark - Herriot's Flowers (Flowers and Blooms Series)/The Bucket List

Flower cluster taken inside the back garden of the fabled James Herriot's house.  Being there checked off a true bucket list item as I approach the golden years of life.

So what are the other bucket list items?  Let's see...

• Overwintering in the Alaska wilderness, to become a sourdough.  Would be better to spend the entire year in that awesome state.  In fact I told Chenjean that we're ready for such a venture, as I've studied the western coast and now know of its ins and outs, its pleasures and dangers.  No problem.  When pressed, however, I was forced to admit that it was from the deck of a passing cruise ship, but no matter...I read a good book that makes up for the fact that I've not yet actually set foot on those shores.
  
• Hiking the Grand Canyon.  At the right time of year of course.
• Driving up to Maine.  At the right time of year of course.
• Visiting Sweden.  A holdover from having a Swedish childhood friend.  His family was fresh from across the pond, and they all had an accent when speaking English, as Swedish was still their primary language and was what they spoke at home.  I very much enjoyed hearing them speak to each other, especially during heated arguments.
• Returning to spend three consecutive weeks in West Texas.  Would like to get some good rest, and heal a little bit.
• Sharing England's Lake District with Chenjean, plus a visit to Highclere Castle.
  
• Etc. etc...