August 31, 2015 - Oxford,England

It was raining when we got up today and has continued throughout most of the day with varying intensities.

Tyler was off to work early and we hung out until close to lunch time when we walked over to the market to pick up bread for sandwiches. After lunch, we gathered up umbrellas and the Oxford City Walks guide book and started off on the “Jericho and the Oxford Canal” tour. Because Tyler’s apartment is next to the canal, we started in the middle of the walk.


Heading south along the canal we saw several canal boats moored in the “short term” parking areas, as well as many in the “long term pay” areas. The city of Oxford allows two free days for tying up in a 14 day period. Tyler and Katie are convinced that we would sell our RV and buy a canal boat if we lived here. It seems to be a popular means of traveling. Many of the boats have small gardens (in pots) on their roofs.
Near the south end of the canal, there is the Isis Lock, that connects the canal to the River Thames.

The canal ends at Hythe Bridge Street, so we turned left and came to “The Old School” beside the bus station at Gloucester Green. It is now a restaurant, but the carving over the entrance of the building shows King Alfred, the legendary founder of the University teaching boys on the right. On the left is St. Frideswide (the Patron Saint of both Oxford and Oxford University) teaching girls.

We followed along St. John’s Street where most of the property belongs to St. John’s College. Most of the buildings are made from Bath stone – the white-ish looking stones.

Circling around, we passed the Oxford University Press building which was built in 1828.

Across the street is “Freud’s”, a popular restaurant/bar, that is housed in a de-consecrated Greek Revival Church. It was easy to spot the architecture!

Back near the Canal, we went by St. Barnabas Church, which was built in 1856. It was founded and financed by Thomas and Martha Combe to serve the workers of the Oxford University Press.

We soon found ourselves back on Walton Road and a few blocks from home. We stopped at the Co-Operative Grocery and picked up things to fix for dinner. This afternoon was spent resting, reading, and hanging out.

We fixed dinner and will have an early bedtime. Tomorrow we will ride with Tyler to Birmingham, and go to do some sightseeing while he is working.

August 30, 2015 - Oxford, England

We slept in today – I got up at 1 pm and Tobey at 2 pm! I think we were tired!! Who would have thought we would sleep so long? Tyler arrived back from his trip to Colorado about 3pm and we visited for a while before walking into the city center.

We saw several of the iconic red phone booths – most of them look pretty sad, in need of paint – but they do have telephones inside them. I wonder if the phones still work.

We need to take a tour so we can identify some of the buildings we went by, but we are enjoying the architecture.

We enjoyed seeing more of Oxford and are looking forward to exploring more in the coming days.

We headed back toward Tyler’s and stopped for dinner at The Victoria Pub. Tyler and I had meat pies – mine was steak and ale, Tyler’s chicken and mushroom, and Tobey had the scampi and chips. Everything was delicious! We all settled in for the evening and will have an early bedtime. Tyler has to go back to work tomorrow and Tobey and I will do some exploring.

August 28 - 29, 2015 - Denver to Oxford, England

We have had a busy summer so I have been really bad about writing much. We have been camping and hosting exchange students and showing off our beautiful Colorado. Today, however, Tobey and I are left on our way to England to spend a couple weeks with our son, Tyler, who is working in Oxford, England. Funny side note – Tyler had to be back in Colorado for business, so we will actually arrive a day before he does!

Our shuttle picked us up at the house at 3:20 am. YEP – that is early! Poor Penny wasn’t quite sure what was going on – and she wasn’t at all happy that there wasn’t a place in the suitcase for her. Our moms are staying at the house with her so there will be lots of spoiling going on while we are gone!

When we were hosting two exchange students through the Lions Club, we took them white-water rafting on the Poudre River. It was great fun – until I was thrown from the raft and crashed my leg into a rock. That was three weeks ago and I am still recovering. I had a couple weeks on crutches and now can get around without them, I did bring a cane along and took advantage of the wheelchair getting through the Denver airport. If nothing else, it did get us through the security lines much quicker!

We flew through Washington, DC, and hung out in the United Club Lounge courtesy of free passes we got when Tobey applied for a new credit card. Since we had over 5 hours there, it was a good to have a comfy place to relax and have a free lunch!

Our flight to London left about 6 pm and arrived in London shortly after 6 am. Neither of us slept much and it has been a rough day!
We took a busy from Heathrow airport to Oxford, found a taxi and arrived at Tyler’s apartment by 9 am.

After unpacking, we walked back to the city center – about 20 minutes from here. After looking into some of the walking tours and the hop on – hop off bus trips, we had lunch at the open air market before heading back to Tyler’s.

There are several small markets nearby so we were able to stop and pick up things for breakfast. We are trying to figure out the different road signs, as well as construction signs. This one confused us a bit!
Tyler has a nice 2 bedroom apartment with some quiet neighbors – this is the view from his dining room window! I am looking forward to exploring more in the neighborhood and checking out some of the old headstones!

We took a short nap, watched a movie, went out and picked up a take-away pizza. We will have an early bedtime and look forward to Tyler’s return tomorrow!