UK Visit, Part 1.

This post covers my trip back to the UK.  We flew in over Thursday night, and got to York at around 2pm on Friday.  After a nice quiet early night, and about 11 hours of sleep, we drove up to Edinburgh the next day in the mighty Vauxhall Mokka.

I didn't take too many pictures up there, as it was a bit of a frantic visit for selling my old MX5, clearing out a storage unit and catching up with friends.  We stayed out near Currie on the West of Edinburgh, near the countryside.

After Edinburgh, we drove back to York via Berwick and Bamburgh castle.

Once back in York, we did a loaf of day trips to places in Yorkshire.  First up was Fountains Abbey.

The road in is surrounded by a deer park, with plenty of them lounging around in the sun.

Fountains Abbey has a huge grounds, with loads of wildlife.

Around the grounds there are loads of smaller buildings, all immaculately maintained.

Walking up higher into the gardens gives some great views of the ruined abbey.

Walking towards the ruin gives you an idea of how big the ruin is.

Under the abbey is a well preserved undercroft.

Some of the other buildings have similarly stunning stonework.

Finally, a quick wander out to St. Mary's Church.

That's it for part one, next up is more of Yorkshire.

Bison in Minnesota

What better way to get over the excesses of Thanksgiving than a hike through a state park on a nice crisp November day?

We headed to Minneopa, a place I'd been a couple of years ago, where I took this image of the upper falls:

The weather was a little colder this time, and the trees a little barer.  We got closer to the lower falls:

One thing I completely missed in 2015 is the Bison Drive.  This is a 2.5 mile road through a stretch of prairie where there's a small herd of bison roaming wild.

There's a cool radio station you can tune into as you drive down the road, and listen to facts about the herd and conservation efforts.  The bison have right of way, regardless of how big your truck is.

We ended up pretty close.  

At the end of the road, there's an old mill called Seppmann Mill, built in 1862 by a German immigrant.