Lo-Tiv-Ro 2012 Tour - Day 3

On this day I again struck out on my own and went to see some of the English countryside, including a stop over in Bath, Lacock, and Stonehenge. Here are some select pictures:

 Ferrari Being Delivered (Tour guide stated they were at the wrong address as he didn't live here.)

 Just some nice English countryside with sheep

 A view of the town of Bath

 The Roman Baths in Bath, England

 Bath Cathedral

 Another shot of Bath

 More English countryside

Cute cottage in Lacock 

 Lacock Abbey, where some scenes from Harry Potter were filmed (Google it)

 Burial Mounds on the way to Stonehenge

 Stonehenge, way off in the distance

 Stonehenge, a little closer, but still from outside the fence

 Stonehenge, from within the fence

 Stonehenge, closer

 Stonehenge, inside the Inner Circle. One of the cooler moments of the whole trip. 

 Stonehenge, inside

 My shadow at Stonehenge

 Our room was #137. Which direction are we supposed to go to get there? 

London hotel room. 3 women. 3 twin beds. Barely room for luggage. And the adventure continues. 

Illness in Casa ABBA

The past 24 hours have been challenging in Casa ABBA. I woke up yesterday morning with a pretty rough cough and sore throat and opted to work from home and try to get in to see my doctor. I called and made an appointment for 9:00 AM. The doctor said that I probably had picked up a viral bug and gave me a prescription for a Z-Pack only if it didn't improve by the weekend (knowing that I don't like to abuse antibiotics and build up a resistance to them I knew that I wasn't going to get it filled). She also recommended that I just try and conquer it with OTC drugs and rest...Okay, that is do-able.

I leave the doctor's office and head home. I come in the door and go to let Leo out of his crate (we had to start crating him again since I returned from Lo-Tiv-Ro as he needs to be reminded of some things). Sadly, he is sitting there looking all pitiful and there are two piles of vomit. I get him out and he runs to the backdoor so that he can get out in the yard and pee. He comes back in and lays on the floor and just looks at me. I go clean up the vomit and look for the vet's number. When I get back and sit down next to Leo, I realize that his ears are burning up and he is having some trouble breathing. I call the vet and they can get him in immediately. So, I shoot a quick note off to my co-workers telling them that I'm still going to be out of pocket a little longer.

I get Leo to the vet and he just wants to curl up on my lap, which means I have to sit on the concrete floor, but to try and make him comfortable, I'll do it. When his temperature is taking it is over 104 degrees (normal is 100) and the vet says that she can't really hear anything but he has yellow snot coming out and due to his history wants to do a set of x-rays and blood work.

The x-rays came back and showed that he had some fluid around his heart region, which is a different area than the upper lobe of his right lung where it was before. We were sent home with a decongestant type med to help open up his bronchial tubes and another 4 weeks of antibiotics.

He came home and curled up on the couch and that is pretty much where he has been since 3 yesterday afternoon. He isn't eating, so will be running to the store shortly to pick up some rice to cook for him. He also isn't drinking, unless I dip my hand into a bowl of water and have him lick the water off. It really is breaking my heart that I can't take this off of him. Once again, I never thought I would be this person and secondly, I do not see he you parents out there can do this for another human and not crack.

Lo-Tiv-Ro 2012 - Day 2

Day 2 of the trip consisted of a trip to Highgate Cemetery and wandering around some of Lisa's old haunts as she lived in London for about a year. Here are a handful, or more, of pictures from the cemetery. I have to say that the day was beautiful and sunny, even though I think the cemetery would have been very interesting if it had been cold and dank, but we can't get everything, can we?

General Grave Sites:

Thought this was really cool with the pen pot left next to the headstone.

Is this Jesus or an ugly woman, we couldn't tell...

Did we have an escape?!?

There were a number of graves that had animals included, here are the dog ones that I saw:

And, there was one grave site of a man who had a "menagerie", which included a lion. This is also the start of a mini-obsession that started to take pictures of lions (of course with a dog named Leo the pictures of lions were going to start at some time, right?).

After the cemetery, we walked into town and stopped at this little restaurant called Corks and Forks. The service was terrible but the food was good and the experience of sitting and letting the day pass while watching the world walk by was pleasant:

This place had a whole selection of California and Washington wines (I didn't check them out to see if they had any Texas wines).

We then headed into town and wandered around near the canals. We did see one guy who paid me some attention:

We stopped for dinner where Audrey had Bangers and Mash:

Lastly we wandered around and took some night pictures, here is one of my examples:

Lo-Tiv-Ro Tour 2012 - Part 1

Well, I made it back safe on sound from my grand tour and am slowly getting through my pictures and memories to share.

Day one was spend in London. I landed at around 8:30 AM after flying all night. I sadly did not get much sleep on the plane, but the plan was to get into London in the morning and power through the day and sleep that night to get on London time. In theory, that was a great idea. In practice, well....

So, I drop my luggage off at the hotel and change clothes in the hotel bathroom and freshened up a little. Tempuratures in London were unusually warm so I put on a short-sleeved shirt and grabbed a jacket and headed out. My plan was to grab one of the Hop On-Hop Off buses and drive around the city to get my barings. Unfortunately, with the lack of sleep, the warm sun, and the slow moving vehicle, I fell sound asleep. Here is an example of my outstanding photography from atop the bus:

I did manage to get a couple of good shots when I would wake up:

After the tour, I met up with my travel cohorts and had a bite of dinner. We then headed back to the hotel, which was next to the Tower of London and Tower Bridge:

We were all pretty tired and opted to just crash as we were getting up early the next morning to do some exploring and head over to Highgate Cemetary. My initial plan was to get up REALLY early and go to Westminster Abbey and then meet them at Highgate, but nixed that plan as our time for the cemetary tour was very specific on when we had to be there and since none of knew how to actually get there we were all a little leary of splitting off in that manner, especially with me not really knowing anything about the Tube system.

More on Highgate tomorrow....