Chip's Our 1st Visitor

Chip gets the prize for being our first visitor-we'd only been here three weeks! It was wonderful to have him visit and he was able to explore the new territory with us.

We stopped in Mildenhall on the way from the airport and watched the sun set behind the Mildenhall church. It was a neat glimpse of what we'd see in the days to come.

This is Mildenhall town square behind us. It's a fairly small town, but we enjoy it.

Our road trip started at the white cliffs of Dover. The weather was quintessentially English.
The building in the distance above Scott's head is Dover Castle. It was a bit too foggy to see France across the channel, but we watched a lot of ferries leaving to head over there.
After we hiked a ways along the cliffs, Chip and Scott decided to run down to the water. I stayed up top and watched as they did run all the way down and back. The pictures they took of the coast were sufficient for me.
Right after we arrived at Dover Castle the fog suddenly lifted. It was pretty neat to see the castle in the misty fog and then with a background of blue sky. We got there right before it closed so we ran around and looked at what we could. Next time we will tour the secret wartime tunnels.

After hitting the castel we went down into town for some fish and chips. It was neat to have the castle in the background as we ate some "real English" food. We then drove a few hours to stay in the Cotswold at an old AF base. It was a great place to stay and hit some sites.

The next day we hit Stonehenge. There were a ton of people there even though it was the end of April. The stones were roped off, but we were able to walk around then while we listend to some audio commentary. They pretty much have no idea why they were put up, but it was interesting hearing all of their theories.

After grabbing some lunch we went to Stourhead Garden. We finished some dessert in the grassy area of the house before hitting the garden. The garden is where a scene from the new 'Pride and Prejudice' was filmed. It was beyon beautiful!!! I just loved it. Chip and Scott were good sports as I went nuts:)

This was the first glimps we got of what we were going to see. So beautiful!

Everything was just blooming. This is a monster rhodedendron plant. I didn't know they got this big!

The temple behind me on the right side of the picture is where Mr. Darcy first propsed to Elizabeth(Kiera Knightly) and she rejected him. The bridge on the left is the one she runs across right before she is propsed to. We had a lot of fun watching the movie when we got back.

We walked all the way around the lake. Spectacular!

This is the temple close up. Pretty cool.

I like the statue on the right:)

I have to admit, my feet were a little tired from all the running around I did.

The next day we drove around the Cotswolds. We stopped in a cute little town with a beautiful church. We had lunch and Chip's first spot of tea.

The houses were cute. I loved how a lot of them had wisteria growing on them. It was fun driving around the towns.
On our drive home we stopped by Warwick Castle. It was neat to see, but we didn't realize it was kindof a theme park. Luckily we got there toward closing so many of the people had left. It was still a neat castle though.
This is the view from one of the towers. Very picturesqe. This castle is near where Shakspeare was born.

I like the moon above the tower.

The grounds around the castle were very serene.

Once we were back to Mildenhall, Scott had to work so I took Chip around towns close to us.

We went and had tea and baguettes in Ely. We had a fun time walking around the cathedral and taking pictures. It is such an incredible building and the flowers added such a nice touch.

Looking through someone's garden at Ely Cathedral.

There were several horses in the field next to the cathedral. This little guy wasn't very old and we enjoyed watching him with his mother.

After Ely we headed to Cambridge. Chip really enjoyed the buildings and bridges on the River Cam. This was his favorite, it's the mathmatical bridge.

Though it was a quick trip, we had a great time with Chip exploring our new home. It was great he came, and we are glad he got us out to see some sights. We look forward to when he can come again!