We took the RTD Skyride bus to
the Denver airport, it worked great.

We took a short United flight to Chicago,
then boarded a 747 from O'Hare to 
London's Heathrow airport.

This is a map of the south part of England.  We arrived in London and stayed there for
the first 10 days.  We drove (blue line) to 
see Corfe Castle in Dorset and to travel to
Devon, where we stayed for another week.  The green lines show some of our side trips
in the SW part of the country.    

We ended up driving 1,200 miles
in the rental Vauxhall Omega 2.2,
on the left side of the road!
It proved to be a perfect car for us.

This is the rental car we drove during
the last half of our trip.

This is an excited Austin and Anna on their
first London Underground ride. 

(Click for small tube map, large map)

The red 'X' is where we stayed while in London.  The 3rd floor flat that was 
convenient to both Sloane Square 
and Knightsbridge tube stations.
(Click map for a more detailed view)

The Hortons and Campbells at 
Gate in St. James park.
(Click to get a more detailed picture).

Chris, Austin and Anna playing in St. James
park, at a new playground dedicated to
Princess Diana.

We saw these cars all over London.
They are called "Smart" cars, really
cute, and great gas mileage. 

Gardens at St. James park. 

We bought a 24 hour pass on the "Original
Tour Bus Company" tour bus.  There
were 80 different stopping points where
we got off and looked around.  We thought
it would be a good idea on our first day
to see many of the attractions which
would help us decide where we would 
spend our time for the rest the week. 


Here is Anna on the top deck of the
tour bus, with a red typical London
double decker bus in the background. 

This is where we watched the Changing
of the Guards at Buckingham palace.

The Buckingham Palace marching band.

Right after the changing of the guards, the
band marched right by us.  There were
lots of people here as the summer tourist
season was in full swing.

We all enjoyed this boat ride.

Parliament from the tour boat.

Westminster Abbey from the tour boat.

Today we spent most of the day at the
Towed of London.  

A Yeoman gave us the story of the Tower.

He was very good at bringing to life the
gruesome history of the Tower.

Anna and Austin with a Yeoman bear.

Anna posed with a Tower guard.

Austin also posed with a Tower guard.

The crown jewels are also here at
the Tower of London.  We spent
some time viewing the largest
diamond in the world which has been
set in the royal scepter.  The diamond
is called the Cullinan I. 

While we walked out onto the Tower Bridge
after this picture was taken, we were lucky
enough to be on the bridge when it 
opened!  Quite an operation. 

This first few days in London the weather
was beautiful, probably the nicest week
of the year.  We were warm most of the
time as it was almost 90F.  The tube
and Underground stations were HOT.

Austin with the world's best soccer player,
Pelè of Brazil. 

Anna showing us how tough she can be
by posing with Arnold.

Austin with Jackie Chan.  We were in London
for the opening of Rush Hour 2.  It was cool
seeing the movie a few hours before
anyone in the U.S. could see it!  We saw 
it at the Warner theater in Leister Square. 

Anna and Marilyn Monroe.

Anna and Spielberg.

Elizabeth finally gets to meet Brad Pitt.

The royal family, mum, heir and the queen.

Our president and his father.

Tonight we saw "Starlight Express", Andrew Lloyd Webber's roller-skating extravaganza. 

We took a taxi right to the door of . .  

Starlight Express was originally conceived by Andrew Lloyd Webber in 1973 as an animated television series loosely based on The Little Engine That Could. Instead, it evolved into a hi-tech spectacle on roller skates that featured a 5.5 ton steel suspension bridge and a gigantic set constructed of 6 miles of timber, 2.5 acres of sheetwood and 60 tons of steel. It took 1200 lanterns & 6000 pea lights on the back wall to create the star effect, and the production cost over 2.25 Million British pounds. The story revolves around a battered steam engine named Rusty who is encouraged to race a flashy diesel locomotive. 

Anna playing with the pigeons at 
Trafalgar Square.

We spent several hours shopping at
Harrods.  Anna is posing with the
Harrods bear.

Anna in one of the fountains at
Trafalgar Square.

Anna took this picture of Bob, also in
the Trafalgar Square fountain pool.

The dinosaur exhibit at the Natural
History museum was great.

Anna shows what it would be like to
get attacked by a T-Rex.

We also spent over an hour viewing a
fantastic display of minerals and other
geologic rarities.

Anna getting comfortable riding the tube.

The many pubs in London were some of
the best looking store fronts on the street

This is a picture of Anna, Austin and Elizabeth
at the top of St. Paul's Cathedral.  We walked
the 524 steps and were rewarded with a
great view of London in all directions.

We finished up the day with a IMAX 3D
movie.  We had bought a transit pass
for the week, so we just hopped on
the tube or street buses any time we
wanted to.  That was the best way to 
travel around town.

We stopped at an Indian restaurant, there
were lots of Indian food spots in London.

St. Pauls Cathedral.  This is where 
Diana and Chuck were married. 

The Royal Mews was not too far from
our central London flat.  This is the
place where the royal horses and carriages
have been kept for hundreds of years.

<- Anna with a Mews guard.

The Royal Mews riding arena.

Anna and Elizabeth in the Royal Mews
stables.  They enjoyed getting right up
close to the horses.

Austin in the royal carriage house.

The most ornate of all the carriages.  Queen
Elizabeth rode in this one for her coronation.

The royal limo.

Flowers around Hyde Park.

We toured the British Museum this afternoon.
It closed at 5pm, so only were here a few
hours, it would take days to see it all. 

The British Museum is one of the greatest museums of the world. It was founded by Act of Parliament in 1753. The Museum holds national collections of antiquities. The main Museum buildings are in Bloomsbury. The core consists of buildings of a floor area of about 600,000 square feet, designed by Sir Robert and Sidney Smirke and erected between the 1820s and 1850s. Major subsequent additions totaling about 340,000 square feet consists of the Classical and Assyrian Sculpture Galleries (1850s-1870s), the White Wing (1884), the King Edward VII Building (1914), the Duveen Gallery (1939/62) and the New Wing (1979/80). The glass-covered Great Court is now complete and is the centrepiece of the project.  The Great Court has cost £100 million.

The collections of the Museum are held by 10 curatorial departments: 
Ancient Near East
Coins and Medals
Egyptian Antiquities
Ethnography
Greek and Roman Antiquities
Japanese Antiquities
Medieval and Modern Europe
Oriental Antiquities
Prehistoric and Early Europe
Prints and Drawings.


Sculptures taken from the Parthenon

The opening of the Queen Elizabeth II Great Court on 7 December 2000 marked a new beginning for The British Museum.  The Museum's two-acre inner courtyard has been covered by a soaring glass and steel roof, transforming a space that has been hidden for 150 years into a new public piazza for London. 

One of the cool smart cars near our flat.
At the last minute we decided to take
the kids scooters with us on the trip.  
They rode them all over London!

Elizabeth caught a cold, so Anna,
Austin and Bob went to Leicester 
Square to see Rush Hour 2 the
first day it was released.  It was
a fun movie, and neat to see it
before anyone in the U.S.

We walked all over London with the 
GPS today.  We used it to take
us right to Leicester Square and
the Marble Arch.

Anna and Bob rode scooters to 
Battersea Park from the flat.
The park was pretty with lakes, live
entertainment, athletic club and 
lots of great trails.

The Marble Arch is of white Carrara Marble (cost 80,000 pounds when built), which looks rather splendid after its recent cleaning (February 1997). It has three archways, with Corinthian columns between, sculptural reliefs in the spandrels and in panels above the subsidiary arches, and wreaths at the ends completing the scheme. Keystone bearded heads form the keystones of each arch.

Elizabeth has been waiting her whole life
to see the castle that was purchased
by her distant Banks relatives in the 1600's.

The entrance trail to the Castle.

The kids trying on period clothing at
the Corfe Castle information center.

Elizabeth on the castle wall looking out over
the town of Corfe Castle.

The Bankes Arms hotel across the street
from the castle.

Austin Banks Campbell trying to
prop up one of the 11 foot thick walls.

Anna and Elizabeth walking in the
castle towards the Keep.

Anna went straight for the duck pond
as soon as we arrived at Woodford 
Bridge Country Club.

One of the peacocks that roam the grounds
at Woodford Bridge.

This is one of the ponds at Woodford Bridge.

Woodford Bridge combines the full range of facilities expected in a modern luxury resort with a rustic charm entirely in keeping with the beautiful surrounding landscape and historic location. Secluded within peaceful Devon woodlands, this lovely resort shares its spacious grounds with ever-present wildlife and is within easy reach of sites of national importance, including Tintagel, Cornish haunt of the enigmatic King Arthur.

There were trails to the main dining area, the
pool building and to our 'Lodge', which
was only a couple hundred feet from the
pool building.

This is the pool at Woodford Bridge.  We
went here almost every day.

We spent the day exploring the area towards the sea from Woodford 
Bridge.  In Bude, we found a great 
beach with a low tide.  We explored 
tidal pools and played with the 
waves for several hours.

These are beach scenes from Bude.
We dug around in the rocks on
the right side of this picture.

On the main street in Clovelly.  Kids are eating
'Cornetto Whippy' cones, their favorite.  
(The cones have chocolate bars sticking
out of the soft ice cream.)

Anna with a Clovelly donkey named 'Kiwi'.
They have special shoes that allow them to 
get a grip on the steep, wet stone roads.

Austin and Anna finding crabs in the
sand at low tide in Clovelly harbor.

At the Clovelly beach.

Anna with a heart shaped rock in front
of the sea wall that protects Clovelly harbor from the huge 40 foot tides, the 2nd highest
in the world.

On the sea wall by a tide dried Clovelly 
harbor.  We went for a sea walk and
spent the afternoon here. 

Typical tea house menu.  We ordered many
"Cream Teas" while in Devon and Cornwall.

What is Clotted Cream?

"Clotted cream is to cream what the Missouri is to 
rivers -- too thick to pour but too soft to slice. At 
its most fluid, it doesn't pour exactly, but oozes. 
At its thickest, it is next kin to butter. Unlike creme
fraîche, its French cousin, British clot has only the
faintest sour tang; it is sweet and rich. Unlike butter,
however, it tastes like cream, not fat -- just like very,
very rich cream. At perfection, it is not unlike a very
soft whipped cream without the air -- smooth and 
light and dairy sweet in the mouth.

The two areas in Britain famous for clotted cream are
Devonshire and Cornwall. Clotted Cream is served, 
best of all, at tea with hot scones and jam. Even 
today, travelers in Cornwall will find "cream teas"
served throughout the region. At its simplest -- and 
only the greedy could want more -- a cream tea
consists of the pot of tea, a plate of fresh-baked
Cornish spits (a small yeast roll) or scones, a dish 
of a local preserve, and another of clotted cream. The
scone or split is broken open, spread with preserve,
and heaped with clotted cream. That oozing morsel
is then happily if messily propelled into the mouth."

I could not get enough of this stuff!

Anna posing as a bee keeper.

We drove to the famous Quince Bee Farm in
South Molton today.

They had a clever way of breaking up a hive
into 10 pieces for observation, and 
then putting it back together again, every
15 minutes. 

We went to the Woodford Bridge
evening entertainment tonight where
they put on a version of "Who wants to
be a millionaire".  Out of the 50 entrees,
Elizabeth was selected as one of
the three contestants to compete.
She won!  We received a bottle of 
wine, and a free dinner for two at
the resort carvery. ->

Park Ranger, Tim, talking about beach life.

While in Exmoor, we participated in a two+ hour beach "Safari" conducted by three National Park rangers.  There was a
competition for best collection of tidal 
pool life.  We found crabs, limpeds,
kelp, other hard shell critters and lots
of pretty rocks.  The judging was
based on our biodiversity and
collection aesthetics.  (All teams tied
for first place.)

From the Exmoor site: "The National Park Authority's programme of guided walks and events is to start on 1st August, having been suspended all this year due to the foot and mouth crisis. The programme kicks off with one of the most popular events, the seaside safari, a rockpool ramble with a ranger for all the family along Exmoor's Heritage Coast, starting at the Lynmouth visitor centre at 2pm.

Exmoor is one of eleven large areas of countryside in England and Wales that are specially protected as our finest landscapes and an important part of our national heritage. It is protected for the conservation of its scenery, wildlife and cultural heritage and for the understanding and enjoyment which it can provide. It is not a museum: it covers 267 square miles of varied countryside and is home to over 10,500 people.

What are moors? 'Moor' comes from the Saxon word for marsh. Many now use the word for any open, treeless area which looks natural. They are distinguished by the distinctive vegetation resulting from their acid soils. So, to be true to the original meaning of the word, we try to keep the word 'moors' for wild-looking, open areas where there are wet, acid soils.

The moor in Exmoor that we 
drove through.

Woolacombe beach

Here we are behind our wind break.

Austin helping Anna find a wave.

Austin with body board and wetsuit.

Anna with body board and wetsuit.

Austin riding a wave or two or a hundred.

All of us had the cold by today, so we
slept in, watched TV and went for a
long drive in the country looking for a 
local carnival. 
(We found it, but there were only a handful
of people and it was raining, so we
passed.)

in our Vauxhall . .

This is the typical street scene as we drove
through the many little towns in Devon.  The
streets were often one lane, so you had to
pay careful attention when another car
came along!  

This time we drove back to Bristol, then
took the M4 Motorway right into
Heathrow airport in London. 

Austin on the SkyRide bus in Denver, the 
2nd to the last leg of our trip home.

We got up at 6am, drove the rental car
back to London, got on another 747
back to Chicago, continuing to Denver.
Took the SkyRide back to our car and
were back home at 10pm, a 23 hour trip!