Microblog

It’s a joy to be traveling through Schiphol again. KLM hands these Delft houses, filled with Dutch gin, to passengers traveling B. There’s 102 different designs, some fetch over $500 on the secondary market. This evening, I’ll be sipping cheap wine in steerage en route to MSP.

On my walk along the River Tyne: Dunston Staiths, possibly the largest wooden structure in Europe. This was a shipping point for coal from 1893 to the 1970’s. Coal is no longer mined in the area, but a new electric car battery factory promises to provide up to 8,000 jobs.

The northeast of England has some of the loveliest beaches I know. Walked past some of the beaches from Tynemouth to Whitley Bay, towns I knew well when I was a kid. The North Sea was untypically placid and blue today.

Today, Prince Charles rode the Tyne and Wear Metro for two stops. So did I, but I paid for my ride, and rode it all the way to my friends’ house.

Arrived in Newcastle upon Tyne, my home town, then went walkabout. At the Quayside, looked upriver at several road and rail bridges. The top bridge was a prototype for the Sydney Harbor Bridge. The bottom, swing bridge stands on a site that may have had bridges since Roman times.

I’m in York, England with my brother for a couple days, a city I have explored so many times at various points in my life. Revisited York Minster’s Chapter House, an octagonal space dating from the 1280s. Took this (somewhat distorted) photo.

Posted Thames Path Hike.

A mint garnish was all that remained of a sticky toffee pudding: a fitting end to dinner on the last night of our three-day Thames Path hike to Oxford.

Walked from Wallingford to Abingdon, the longest section of our three-day Thames Path hike. After dinner we walked through this gateway, the entrance to former Abingdon Monastery, on our way to our hotel in a big old house by the River Thames.

Day 1 of 3 hiking part of the Thames Path. Home tonight is a 16th century coaching inn in Wallingford, a picturesque market town. Grateful to be walking with good friends: one I’ve known since school days, 60 years ago, and another I’ve known since moving to the US 40+ years ago.

Spent the day with friends in Fleet (Hampshire, UK). We chatted so much, I forgot to take photos. Took this picture from the rather fine footpath between the train station and their home.

Posted The Day Swinging England Invaded America.

Wandered through soaring, flowing spaces, admiring how architect Eero Saarinen understood how to leave so much out yet leave us with more. Tonight my home is TWA Hotel, New York JFK Airport. Public spaces are in the restored and reassigned 1962 TWA Flight Center.

A surprise on our Mississippi walk: Vincent van Gogh reimagined as a hot-air balloon.

Posted Superior Hiking Trail: Fall 2021.

A radioactive injection followed by a bone scan seemed appropriate for Halloween. Glad to learn tumor is too small to be visible.