march is over

Phew. I’ve survived another Minnesota winter. Mind you, the calendar may say that spring

started with the vernal equinox on the 20^th. However, the very next day, we got three inches of very wet snow that resulted in thick, icy roads and thick, icy tempers. Every year I find that I have to dig deeper to get through the discomfort of the season. That said, I don’t have an exit strategy, so will need to find a way to make next winter more pleasant. Perhaps more hand-knit sweaters will do the trick (wink). Perhaps a trip to a warm climate may be the ticket.

The month did fly by in a flash. In a nutshell, I worked very hard at school, designing an entry door for the coffee shop, taking a midterm test in lighting and in architectural history, writing a short paper analyzing Pillsbury Hall (pictured above, via Essential Architecture) in the context of Richardsonian Romanesque, fighting a vicious and elaborate computer virus, and much more. I wish I had pictures of my work, as well as some of the knitting I have done recently, but I still haven’t taken time to get a good groove with picture uploading and posting on my new(ish) computer. 

I got a small break from school and put my feet up. Of course I had plans to bail out the house, but I mostly wandered around in a state of suspended animation, so relieved not to have deadlines. I devoured Gabrielle Hamilton’s memoir Blood, Butter, Bones. Despite the terrible resolution (above picture, via Random House), you can tell that the book is going to be fantastic by its really excellent cover. Kakutani thought the memoir rocked, too, so I'm not dreaming.

Hamilton is the multitalented owner of Prune*, a divine New York City restaurant. She is very highly regarded among influential food industry folks and chefs, such as Anthony Bourdain and Mario Batali. A few years ago I ate brunch at Prune, which is the teeniest restaurant. The menu was utterly unpretentious, the food so smart and delicious. One of my favorite parts of the book was when Hamilton described opening her restaurant. Her writing is honest, and it didn’t take long to find the connection between who she is and her interpretation of food. I also enjoyed reading about her incredibly bohemian childhood and coming of age on the streets of NYC, as well as her life as wife and mother of sons. Hamilton has a strong roll-up-your-sleeves work ethic that I found inspiring. I would recommend this to anyone who likes culinary essays or memoirs. Better, listen to the author read the audiobook!

Last week, for the last day of the boys' spring break, we went to the NCAA men's Division 1 swimming and diving championships, which were held at the University of Minnesota. I secretly hoped one of the boys would come out of a day of thrilling races wanting to participate on a swim team, but my wish would not come true. Close, though, as Winston was glued to the diving practice that took place in the adjacent diving well. I don't think he saw a single race. Later, we watched a few rounds of diving. All Win could talk about was taking diving lessons. We met a coach for a St. Paul club, who kindly gave us his card.The team practices at St. Kate's, which is so close to our house. The team also has five practices a week, and I don't see Winston sticking it out, though I would love to be wrong.

I’m looking forward to April. School will ramp up to its culmination, and I will be hard at work on final projects. The boys will start summer soccer. Seriously. I have foolishly agreed to manage a U9 boys’ team. It’s true…I’m unmotivated if I’m not overextended. I relish the sun’s increasing warmth and anticipate the greening up that will come with April showers. 

*For your convenience, I tried to provide a link to Prune. However, the website uses the insidious Flash and since I have disabled plug-ins (temporarily), I cannot  even enter the site. I encourage you to Google it and click on the menus. You won't regret it.

my march mood

While making mood boards for a recent studio assignment, I stumbled across some images that I liked but that were unrelated to my immediate project. Nonetheless, I dragged the images onto my desktop for safe keeping. The mood boards have been a blast to make as well as a great way to keep my Photoshop, Illlustrator, and InDesign skills sharp.

In theory, my mood should be obvious from the photos, but the upshot is winter is still in full force in Minnesota. To cheer myself up, I looked online for images that evoke the beauty of winter. I dig frozen waterfalls and Caroline Yang's speed skaters, who represent one of my favorite Winter Olympic sports. Typography and travel accoutrement always blow my skirt up. Blood oranges are just coming into their peak and are gracing our green salads. That intense orange is the pop of color that I am using for inspiration and to keep my spirits high(er) in the coming month. 

Spring will come, and with it, I hope to find some new inspiration.

movies seen in 2010

For posterity, here is the list of movies I saw in 2010, starting with Song of the Thin Man on New Year’s Day. My favorites are in bold; avoid-at-all-costs are in italics.

Song of the Thin Man (the sequels are weak, but Nick and Nora rule)

Elf (love all things Will Ferrell)

Darjeeling Express (though not my favorite of his, I will see anything by Wes Anderson)

Avatar (action was the saving grace for predictable story and overwrought CGI)

Away We Go (original screenplay by Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida)

Sherlock Holmes (great cast, nice treatment)

Percy Jackson and the Last Olympians (entertaining)

Weeds (5^th season)

September Issue (great documentary about egomania, fashion, and the creative process)

Paperback Dreams (sad struggle of two independent bookstores in northern California)

Ghost Writer (atmospheric thriller; perhaps predictable but very lovely none the less)

Diary of a Wimp (funny)

How to Train a Dragon (charming)

Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (violent and dark but wanted to see Swedish originals)

The Hangover (funny)

Pirate Radio (wanted so much more from the P.S. Hoffman vehicle about indie British radio)

Fantastic Mr. Fox (Wes Anderson’s all-star cast but animated)

Mad Men (seasons 1-3)

Iron Man 2 (ack)

Metropolitan (re-watch; still a classic; I wish Whit Stillman would make another movie)

Sex and the City 2 (predictable and slightly lame but I love the girls and the eye candy)

Sketches of Frank Gehry (watched twice; will watch again; love Gehry and Sidney Pollack)

Leap Day (in-flight movie)

Valentine’s Day (in-flight movie)

When in Rome (in-flight movie)

Knight and Day (matinee with John)

Prince of Persia (Disney)

Avatar: The Last Airbender (long)

Sex and the City 2 (will watch yet again while I wait for SatC3)

Sorcerer’s Apprentice (how did this movie get made?)

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (preparing for HP7: Part 1)

Greenberg (wanted more from this Noah Baumbach and Ben Stiller indie pic)

Bridget Jones: Edge of Reason (did not have high hopes for this movie; was not disappointed)

Despicable Me (funny and entertaining)

Low Impact Man (dude was hardcore in his low-impact footprint; interesting to see what is possible)

An Education (nicely filmed, atmospheric, artsy, lovely movie)

Mystery Men (such a fantastic cast, but I thought it was much funnier in 1999)

Hot Tub Time Machine (funny, but pathetic, too)

Whip It (exceeded expectations; heartwarming, funny

The Runaways (did not meet expectations; didn’t like any of the characters or how they were portrayed)

Salt (predictable but delicious thriller)

Cold Comfort Farm (loved the movie nearly as much as the book)

Rachel Getting Married (one of my favorite movies of the 00s)

Karate Kid (enjoyable)

Eat, Pray, Love (sets were lovely and exotic; faithful to book right down to the wise nuggets)

Jaws (scary movie)

Date Night (funniest movie of the year)

The Proposal (called Sandra Bullock’s worst movie of the year, I found it better than expected)

Blind Side (all that)

September Issue (watched 4 or 5 times in a loop whilst working on a project)

Riding Giants (exceptional surfing documentary with really big waves)

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (didn’t really get into it)

Killers (not the best movie but entertaining; better than Knight and Day)

Skyline (worst movie of the year, if not the decade)

Harry Potter 7: Part 1 (loved it; need to see again; can’t wait for July)

Endless Summer (fantastic  1960s documentary; surfing)

Endless Summer 2 (not as good as the first)

Freaks and Geeks (complete series; excellent; would love to find the soundtrack)

The Other Guys (don’t even remember what this was)

Twilight (watched with Simon; entertaining; will see follow-ups)

Julie and Julia (a re-watch; as touching the second time)

Voyage of the Dawn Treader (will see it again)

whidbey island

A week ago, I was basking in the temperature, wet glow of the Pacific Northwest. My friend Krista, whom I've known since 1993, when I was a publisher's rep for St. Martin's Press (now a part of the very large Macmillan USA), invited me to visit her on Whidbey Island, in the Puget Sound, about 30 miles northwest of Seattle. I jumped at the opportunity to see my friend (it had been three years since I'd last seen her) as well as to experience a climate different from my own, which is currently very snowy and very cold.

Krista met me at the airport, and we headed for the Mukilteo-Clinton ferry. Krista lives in Langley, which is a charming small town on the water. In many ways, Langley reminded me of Stillwater, MN, and Stockholm, WI, those charming towns that derive their livelihood from the quiet tourism of antiques stores, indie retail shops (clothing, wine, kitchen wares, books, and so on), coffee houses, and at least one solid high-end restaurant. 

Most of my time there was spent reading (Mary Roach's delightful Packing for Mars), listening to music (Budos Band III and Afrocubism), chatting, but also touring the island. We took a lot of long walks with Krista's spectacular cairn terrier, Orzo, and, in this manner, I got to see a lot of the island. Tip to tip, in fact.

Here, Orzo explores a monstrous piece of driftwood--an entire trunk, in fact--that appeared to be holding up the clay hill.

 Here are some of the highlights in photos:

Penn Cove mussels that, most likely, had been alive that morning.

Cool, enormous tree trunk.

Moss

Lichen, which, as you can see, is quite different from moss.

Deception Pass at the northernmost tip of Whidbey. Stunning contrast of sky, water, trees, mountains.

new year resolution 01: clutter bust

I am so glad to usher in a new year. I am ready for change and fresh starts and all that. “Do you make resolutions?” was a popular question at the New Year’s Eve party I attended. The answer is Why, yes. Yes I do. All the time. Every list I make is a resolution to get stuff done.

One list item that seems to be rather perennial, though, is to declutter. The entire house. We have piles of stuff everywhere. In fact, there isn’t a surface free from things that we aren’t using or have used and don’t know what to do with them next. Because, heaven forbid, we throw away anything from which we might derive satisfaction again. I wouldn’t say that we’re pack rats or, worse, horders. Rather, we just don’t deal with our stuff.

But no more. I can’t live like this any longer. The mess is affecting my sanity, especially when everyone expects me to find missing items. Well, guess what, guys? It is getting hard to find things because there’s so much stuff to sort through.

I’ve tried decluttering in the past. I have bought countless books about getting organized. I have purchased countless containers to store items with which I cannot part. Many of those containers are empty. Recently I stumbled upon this blog by a St. Paul mom whose children go to school with mine (though, I hasten to add, we've never met; we do, however, have mutual friends). She was wrapping up a year-long challenge to rid her house of 500 pounds of stuff. Her “before” photos of target areas resembled my home so much, I suddenly didn’t feel so alone in this struggle. Her “after” photos were inspiring.

This decluttering I am about to do may be brutal. Mostly, it may force me to toss things I’m fond of or think I may use/refer to again. I refuse to sort a pile only to create a new pile. So far, the only goal I have made for myself is to deal with some corner of the house every day of winter break and see where that gets me. At some point, I need to get buy-in with my little family. Honestly, we all contribute to the mess, and by that token, we each need to be part of the solution. Any ideas here?!

 I am hopeful.

my, what a year it was

Put a fork in 2010 and call it done! The year had many, many high point, as well as some low, but I feel quite secure knowing that the high exceeded the low. By far. Spring 2010 semester was pretty well documented, as was our remarkable trip to England. But other highlights include the following:

~Cape May, NJ

I took the boys to New Jersey to see their cousins and was rewarded with a wonderful week in a Victorian house in Cape May. We went to the beach every morning, and every evening we strolled the boardwalk, played skeeball, and ate ice cream. Would it surprise you to learn that the best ice cream was Minnesota’s own Kemp’s? At the end of the week we drove back to Princeton where the boys and I camped out in the playroom because our usual bedroom was infested with mice. In July.  I feel nauseous thinking about it.

~live music

The U2 concert at TCF Stadium was cancelled when Bono broke his back, which was a huge bummer. Still, we managed to see some live music this past summer. A bunch of us—Scott and Renee, Steve C., Jeff H., and husband John—saw Devo at the Minnesota Zoo. Who knew the bird amphitheater was such an incredible venue. I wouldn’t want to sit on the concrete bleacher seats for a couple hours, but fortunately we were on our feet, dancing and bouncing to new wave. The night was humid and hot, and we marveled at the band, comprised of 50 year old men, as they played earnestly in Tyvek jumpsuits and full face masks. Crazy. Cool.

~knitting projects

In addition to a slew of scarves and cowls, I managed to knit a sweater for myself. The project was notable because I learned two new techniques. First, the sweater was knit from the top down. I cast on the neck stitches, knitting in the round and increasing until I had an entire sweater on needles. Then, I knit the sleeves on double point needles, which was nerve-wrecking initially, though I caught on quickly and am hooked. Pictured at left is a sweater I started for Simon.

~lots of great run-around with the boys

Lots. We hit water parks, museums, skateboard parks, the Highland Pool (not such a bad place to edit a manuscript), movies. At right, the boys are interacting with some sculpture at Franconia.

Fall semester was seriously hellatious. I was required to take four courses, and while no one of them was overly difficult, all together they gave me a run for my sanity. Studio was difficult. The instructor wasn’t very generous with grading and I don’t feel like she pushed us to do our best work. Worse: I will have her again for second semester. Marker rendering was fun, though. Here is my final project--a sparkling wine shop.

Retail space

As a result, I’ve fallen out of touch with most of my friends and that is not awesome. I resolve to remedy that situation in 2011. I also miss my yoga practice and think resuming it will help me find peace and balance, especially as I try to tackle mounting anxiety. Plus, I want to spend more time here.

I have a good feeling about 2011!

happy merry to all!

It’s Merry Chaos here in Princeton. Has a year gone by already? This fall has been very busy. I took four interior design classes, two of which were studio classes and another that had a lab. More on this later. For now, a comment on the day. As anticipated, there is no snow here in New Jersey, which is fine by me. It's a blessed relief from the two feet of snow that blankets my neighborhood. I don't need a white Christmas to be happy, just surrounded by family. Lots of squeals of delight over plastic crappies (Scarlett and Sophia, 4 and 5, respectively) as well as more subdued gratitude for much desired cell phones (Simon and Winston). 

I feel like a kid myself after consuming half a pound of grapefruit gelees in lieu of breakfast. But, a 23-pound turkey with Southern cornbread stuffing--straight out of the Columbus, GA, Junior League Cookbook--and bourbon sweet potatoes are in my immediate future. So all is right in the world.

No matter where you are and what you believe, I hope that your day is filled with peace and glad tidings!

where did september go?

It’s a windy, gray Friday morning at the end of September, unlike the glorious summer day pictured above. Yesterday it rained for almost 24 hours straight, of which we have much evidence in our house. There’s a puddle on the tiled porch floor as well as cracks in the ceiling that have been highlighted in telltale brown. Looks like roof repairs are in our future. Sigh.

On a much brighter note, school is off to a good start. The homework load, so far, hasn’t been as intense and frantically executed as first year. All the same, my days are full with classes or reading or sketching. I am taking a full load with four classes. Here’s a brief synopsis:

~Textile Analysis: pretty self explanatory, but with a combination of lecture and lab, which is much like chemistry and biology. We get to examine textile samples made of different fibers under microscope. Plus we get observe the reactions from burning fibers (via Bunsen burners) and pouring chemicals on them. By the end of the semester, I will be able to name at least 100 textiles (by weave or fiber) and their finishes. Exciting!

~Interior Materials and Specifications: Boring class title, interesting subject. The class should be called Sustainability. The instructor, Rachelle Schoessler Lynn, is fascinating and inspirational and smart. She is an interior designer with her own firm that specializes in sustainability (green and renewable) and that designed Red Stag Supper Club. Red Stag is on of my favorite local restaurants because it has good food and drinks, as well as ambience. Red Stag was one of the first LEED-certified restaurants in the nation. I feel really fortunate.

~Interior Design Studio: studio #3 is all about how to communicate your design. The class should be called Rendering 101. We’re learning how to sketch a room, as well as color render with pencils or markers. This class is nerve-wracking for me. I’m still concurring my drawing issues, but as my instructor says, “This is design sketching [more impressionistic] not artistic drawing [more labored and finished].” I think I can handle that. And, it’s fun!! At the end of the semester, I’m going to be a fierce sketcher.

~AUTOCAD: this is a straight-up computer class. I’ve struggled in the first few weeks. Not with the material (because, ultimately, CAD isn’t difficult, and I am a good learner!) but with the instructors and their teaching style. The class has two instructors, both TAs in grad programs. One has more teaching experience and always corrects the other instructor, who never comes prepared to teach. All of which has made for a very confusing environment and has caused much frustration for me. But I feel like they are hitting a better stride here in week three. We’ll see. My current assignment is drawing a floor plan.

On top of school, I volunteered to team manage Simon’s soccer team. Basically I communicate with parents about the practice and game schedules, and I fill out a game report for the referees. Plus, the boys both have weekend games, which have overlap, usually in opposite, far-flung directions so I will miss most of Simon’s games. John is coaching Simon’s team, otherwise we could swap.

I am trying to knit or read daily. Fifteen minutes of either makes me happy. Fifteen minutes of pleasure is better than no pleasure, non? Most days, though, I’m scrambling to do everything I’m obligated to do. Then, I collapse in a heap. I mean, it's hectic and all, but I'm really happy.

December is looking better and better.

september is here

On the first day of September, the heat and humidity broke. In fact, in the shade I needed a light sweater. And, I'm not complaining. Love it, love it, love it. I even saw yellow leaves on a tree, but I'm not quite ready for that.


By this time next week, I may be freaking out about an impending deadline. But I hope not. School starts on Tuesday, and slowly but surely I will be prepared. At the least, my desk and drafting table will be cleared. And my pencils will be sharpened.


In the meantime, I'm chillin' with the boys—helping Simon make a papier mache monster and planning a few knitting projects with Winston. I'm reading and hauling boys to soccer practice and seeing friends. I have a couple projects on needles (more to come) and hope to get a few more started that I can chip away at over the next few months.


So much to do.

summer 2010

This photo of Simon sums up summer 2010—lots of pool time and a deliriously large smile.

mockingjay

This morning, after I dropped the boys at golf lessons, I high-tailed it to a bookstore so I could purchase Mockingjay, the final book in Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games trilogy. I harbor fantasies of curling up with the book and reading until its done or until I have to make dinner, whichever comes first.

sketches of frank gehry

While I’m on summer break, I’m trying to see as many movies as humanly possible. In addition to summer blockbusters, such as Sex and the City 2, documentaries about art, architecture, and design rank high on my list of must-sees. I saw Sketches of Frank Gehry back in June and have been thinking about it ever since.

The documentary was directed and produced by Sydney Pollack. He interviewed Gehry but also made himself present in the movie. Sketches is Pollack’s first documentary, though you wouldn’t know it. The film is competent, well-shot, and structured like most documentaries of the past 20 years—conversations with Gehry are augmented by interviews with clients (including a very healthy-looking Dennis Hopper), other architects and artists, architecture critics, and friends.

Gehry is a genius, and there is simply no debating this point. It could be easy to dismiss his architecture out of hand because it is complex with unusual angles and projections. But I think that’s his genius. He’s not satisfied with 90 degree angles and straight lines. His architecture challenges the viewer’s comfort level. He’s also very competitive and struggles with self-doubt. Here is the opening scene, “What’s This Fuss About?”:

SP: is starting hard?

FG: you know it is. I don’t know what you do when you start, but I clean my desk. I make a lot of stupid appointments that I make sound important. Avoidance, delay, denial. I’m always scared that I’m not going to know what to do. It’s a terrifying moment. And then when I start, I’m always amazed. So, that wasn’t so bad.

I love that Frank Gehry has his moments of doubt. Makes me feel more human, but also lets me know that I can allow a certain amount of organization to come into the design process.

These random facts about Frank Gehry sum up the movie for me:

~huge hockey fan (he designed the Anaheim Mighty Ducks facility, the interior of which was  inspired by Ontario rinks)

~likes boats

~competitive, but struggles with self-doubt

~fascinated by the design process (from trademark “squiggle” sketches to models and finished work)

~use of models (Barry Diller compares it the molding of claywork)

~likes awkwardness, elements that are so weird they’re interesting

~the fish sculpture was an accident. Gehry’s colleagues were “replaying” the Greek temple in their work, which gave him pause. He thought temples were anthropomorphic (which I don’t see but will follow for the sake of his argument) and took back 300 million years to the fish. He started drawing fish in a sketchbook, then realized there was something in it. Next, in a separate event, Gehry was looking at a piece of formica*, which he was using in a project. He threw the formica on the ground; the broken pieces looked like fishscales, which gave Gehry had an “aha” moment and he married the two. The fish has since appeared as sculpture, lighting, and even a building exterior. It has been done in glass (Walker) and in metal (Spain).

~the moment of truth: when a painter has a blank canvas, a brush, and a palette of colors…what do you do? “what’s that first move? I love that dangerous place.”

*The architectural critic Charles Jenkins calls formica a pristine, uptight material. 

london

Returning to London was complicated. Perhaps I should have taken more time to run around—back to my old flat, let’s say—by myself. Without a doubt I should have traveled to London sooner. London with John and boys wasn’t bad, but it was different, and I was unprepared for that. So I found myself feeling bittersweet and dispirited, on occasion. But, more often, I was overwhelmed by all the people. Has London always been such a zoo? I don’t remember the crowds, but I think I knew how to avoid them. 

But we pushed through the tourists and the shoppers to show the boys this vibrant city, which was a key scene to my formative years.

We spent six hours in the British Museum. We saw everything we wanted to see (Rosetta Stone [above], mummies, Lewis Chessmen, Sutton Hoo warrior helmet, Elgin Marbles [top]), though countless treasures remain for a future visit.

Retail therapy at Persephone Books. I wish I had taken a picture of the table that displayed the staff's current favorite books—"Books We Wish We Had Published."

How do the Royal Guards keep their heads up? Those hats must weigh 50 pounds. The Tower of London held treasure for all—crown jewels for me, an armory for the boys.

One afternoon, on our way back to the hotel, I got off the tube at an earlier stop and made my way to Harrod's. The food halls are simply amazing—a labyrinthine assemblage of rooms with treats beyond your wildest dreams. Oyster bar, soda counter, pizza bar, Spanish ham bar, bakery, produce, candied fruit and roasted nut vendor, chocolates and other confections, plus a candy store, and more. 

The boys made their own retail pilgrimage to Soccer Express on Carnaby Street for jerseys, which was only fitting since the World Cup was on while we were in England. We watched as many afternoon matches as we could, from the comfort of pubs, which are family-friendly until 7 p.m.

Most London meals were taken in upscale chains, such as Wagamama (noodle shop), Masala Zone (Indian), and Pret a Manger (sandwiches). They were clean and bright (decor and flavors), conveniently located, and affordable (London is expensive and all the restaurants on my List were prohibitively expensive).

I will always love London.

glastonbury

I’m not really sure how we chose Glastonbury as a site worth visiting. Perhaps the British Heritage site had a great photo. Perhaps we were intrigued by its history—legend holds that it is Avalon. In the end, we went because it was close to where we were staying, and because I needed to see ruins. I have a thing for ruins, which I can’t yet put into words, but my love goes back twenty years to Whitby Abbey. 

                                                    

Glastonbury has abbey ruins in spades. King Arthur and Guinevere are believed to be buried here. Joseph of Arameathea walked here, allegedly. This place is rich in leylines. Though please don’t ask me to explain.

The town is fascinating. Every store holds woo-woo: crystals and buddhas and fairies and Native American talismans. Plus, you can get spiritual alignments. 

And, then just outside of town is the tor. Someone at the abbey visitor’s center gave us a hand-drawn map with a dotted line leading directly to the tor. We cut through two fields and climbed forever before we got to the steps that took us up the backside of the hill. At the top, we zipped our jackets and gazed at Wales.

Glastonbury is also the site of a significant music festival, which was to take place just a week after our trip. Four days, forty-five stages. Need I say more? On one hand, I was glad to not deal with the masses. The festival attracts over 150,000 people. Yes.  On the other hand, the 2010 line up was pretty spectacular, perhaps a bit overwhelming, even. Well, see for yourself. Seriously, who didn’t play here? See that Gorillz, Snoop Dogg, and Corinne Bailey Rae appeared on the same stage. Crazy!

standing stones

As we planned our England trip, our highest priority for sightseeing was anything Bronze Age or earlier. The UK is peppered with standing stones, stone circles, menhirs, dolmens, and quoits. The Stone Pages was an invaluable source, and it’s fun to browse even if you’re not trip planning. Once we actually started traveling, our theme changed a bit, but we still managed to see a megalithic England with an emphasis on Avebury and Stonehenge.

Before our trip, we received much unsolicited advice to visit Avebury, especially making it a priority over Stonehenge. I had seen Stonehenge and other stone circles on a previous trip to England so I was aware that there were equally impressive, but different, types of stone circles. 

Avebury covers a larger area than Stonehenge. In fact, it encompasses an entire village (above; though it's difficult to see the stones, this photo was show part of one half of the outer circle). Many of the formations are similar to Stonehenge, including the avenue of stones leading to the entrance as well as stones that are believed to have played a part in sacrifices. Avebury consists of a large outer stone circle, which once held 98 megaliths, and two smaller circles, each with approximately 30 stones. In some ways, Avebury and Stonehenge are sister sites in that their stones share the same source—the Marlborough Downs. 

This ancient tree is allegedly where J.K. Rowling wrote Harry Potter. Gnarly.

More on Avebury: This site has incredible photographs (check out the wallpaper section!) and massive amounts of information. Please visit, if you’d like to learn more.

Stonehenge is all that. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. The stones are massive. Look at the lintels. One cannot help but wonder how the monoliths got to this site, how they were propped up, and why. How many people did it take to hoist those lintels?? What exactly was the purpose of this place? 

Notice how you don't see many tourists in the photos? It wasn’t difficult to filter out the masses once we were on the path. The bottleneck at the entrance, however, was so bad we almost left. I’m glad we didn’t. Twenty years ago, I never paid admission or crossed the road to get as close as possible to the monument, and I’ve regretted it since. 

John and I must have taken a photo every inch we advanced in our circumnavigation, trying to capture Stonehenge from every angle. And, yes, that Spinal Tap song played on an internal loop for days after.

white horses

On our first full day in England, we ate a Hot Breakfast and hit the road for Avebury. But first, at the recommendation of the innkeeper, we followed the brown attraction signs to Uffington in order to see a white horse. The Uffington white horse was the first of its kind—a large horse carved into a hill and filled with chalk so it could be seen from a distance. 

The carving dates to the Bronze Age. The horse’s purpose is still debated, though it is thought to have belonged to the Uffington Castle, a village with a fortress and earthen moat (pictured above) that ring the hilltop. Until the nineteenth-century, the horse was cleaned annually in a ritual called the Scouring, where the villagers would pull the weeds and grass from the horse and refresh the chalk.

The National Trust maintains this site so we were able to drive to the top of the hill, park the car, and take an effortless hike through a sheep meadow to get to the horse. We spent a lot of time here, primarily because the views were so stunning. 

On a clear day, we could see forever. The boys took full advantage of strong winds and flew a kite on Dragon Hill, situated just below the white horse. An impression of this place will stay with me for a very long time.

The Uffington white horse is one of eight that remain (at one time there were 13). Another white horse is just outside of Calne, where we would be staying for the next two nights. Among all the things to do in the area—Bath and various other sites were nearby—climbing another hill to see a hill carving was not high on my list. But the following day, still fighting jet lag and exhausted after a wonderful morning in Bath, we took naps then had a pre-dinner hike up Cherhill.

The Cherhill white horse is the third oldest, but its origins are sketchy. This is county Wiltshire’s official story (courtesy of wikipedia): 

The figure at Cherhill was first cut in 1780 by a Dr Christopher Alsop, of Calne, and was created by stripping away the turf to expose the chalk hillside beneath. Its original size was 165 feet (50 m) by 220 feet (67 m). Dr Alsop, who was Guild Steward of the Borough of Calne, has been called "the mad doctor", and is reported to have directed the making of the horse from a distance, shouting through a megaphone from below Labour-in-Vain Hill. His design may have been influenced by the work of his friend George Stubbs, notable for his paintings of horses.

Dr. Alsop buried glass bottles in the ground to form the horse’s eye. For years the bottles were replace when they disappeared, but at some point, people stopped that tradition. Our hike was fantastic. We followed the footpath up the steep hill to a monument. The clever turnstile we climbed is pictured above. The boys ran the whole way. Some kind hikers told us the boys had been spotted near the castle. As at Uffington, there is no actual castle. No ruins. Just a moat that surrounded the village. The castle was vast; I said a silent prayer that the boys weren’t taking a lap. But then we saw them near the white horse. 

On our way down, we walked through the middle of a cattle herd, which was frightening. John had a stare down with a cow that thought s/he’d follow us. He raised his hand, and the cow backed off. Simon took this picture; it's more ground than cattle but you get a sense of what we were up against.
These hikes would form the basis for our trips theme: climb to the top of big hills.