Just Hangin’

The last couple of days we have just wandered around town and had a look at some of the sights. The highlight yesterday was a trip down to Trafalgar Square and Canada House.

Sharing the square with Canada House is the National Portrait Gallery home to many of the Old Masters. I am sure we walked by many millions if not billions of dollars worth of paintings but not to many would have made it onto the walls at Dogpound North or South, but interesting nevertheless. We also walked down to visit with the Horseguards and get the mandatory picture with them.

So that horse is looking like he is saying “So what’s with the Canadian Cowboy in Queen Elizabeth's court?” Pretty quiet horses as there were literally hundreds of folks swarming around petting and getting their pictures taken with him. We continued our walk on around the Buckingham Palace to get a few more of those required pictures and do a little visiting.

Well Liz must have heard we were in town so she told the boys to make sure the gates were locked.

And another gated neigbourhood along our trail today.

Down at the end of this street is #10 Downing Street, the residence of the Prime Minister of Great Britain. An unfortunate side effect of the world we live in, the last time I was down this street in 1993 I am sure you could walk almost right by the door.

I am throwing this fellow in here for Judy, I am guessing some kind of coot but pretty cool feet whatever he is.

Today we wandered down the road to the British Museum, keeping in mind that the English have been plundering the world for hundreds of years this museum has some 8 million items on their books. I suppose the fact that some of the things were rescued from rubbish heaps and road building materials can help you get used to the fact that they drug them all home to show to the world.

And lo and behold they had an exhibition on the horse, what a coincidence we like horses. It was mainly about the development of the Arabian horse and subsequently the Thoroughbred and was called from Arabia to Royal Ascot. Pretty interesting exhibit but not a lot of photo ops.

On the way back we stopped at our now all time favourite Italian restaurant “Bar Remo” for a spot of lunch/dinner, once again a great meal. We are becoming regulars in this little out of the way spot and the owner showed his gratitude for our business by buying a drink for us after dinner. We saw these two guys working away in the kitchen getting our meals ready as the door swung open.

Great cooks they are if a little rough looking. And tonight we took another stroll around Hyde Park and enjoyed the Kensington Gardens on our way home.

Zooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooom!

That about describes the speed of life here in London. From the traffic to the tube everything is zooming by at breakneck speed. Today we took a run down towards the Tower of London and got on one of the riverboats there and headed back up towards Westminister, the parliament buildings.

It was pouring rain but that didn’t stop the few hundred school kids from enjoying the trip with us. Seems like they are all on tour from various parts of the world. These fellows are patrolling the river already preparing for the Olympics soon to come.

And as we cruised up the Thames who was out to wave hello at us but Liz and the kids.

Darn I have to learn how to use this new camera it seems to take years off of folks every once in a while, but I can never get it to do it to me. 

Once we got done with that we hopped back on our old friend the Big Bus and headed over to the Apollo Theatre to see about tickets for the show “Wicked”. More on that in a few days. Then it was off to Piccadilly Circus and a meander up the wandering road to see if we could find an evening gown for Brenda. Well maybe not an evening gown but maybe something a little dressier for few time we are going to the THEAAAAATRE over the next week or so.

And as she wandered through the shops I hung around outside and watched the goings on on Regent Street.

But after braving the crowds and fighting her way in and out of a few stores she thought maybe she could dress up her jeans and give the locals a new fashion look. Suits me fine as all I have is my jeans, hat and boots and a few bright coloured shirts. So it was off to what is rapidly becoming our favourite restaurant in London “Bar Remo”. We have been here twice now and the food is fabulous, fast, hot, and oh so good. The service is beyond compare and after just two visits they are treating us like old friends. Tonight Brenda had a Pizza and I had the Fusilli Provinciale, both excellent and served piping hot.

This evening we are off to see “Chicago the Musical” at the Garrett Theatre. The show was great, it is the longest running American musical in history here in London. I am not sure if the reason is the music, the acting, or the physical fitness of the cast. We both really enjoyed the evening. While we waited for show time we took a stroll down to Trafalgar Square. This is right across from Canada House that was shown in yesterdays journal and who says cowboys aren’t common in England. They even have statues of them here.

A lot of our travel here in London is done on the subway, Underground or Tube it is called, Those trains seem to go everywhere and do it fast. We bought a weeks pass and find if pretty handy, seems like there is always a Tube station just around the corner and once you figure out where you are and where you need to be it will whisk you at breakneck speed to your destination.

No the picture isn’t out of focus the dang train is just moving so fast the camera can’t catch it.

Big Bus Tour

Today we decided to let the driver do the work and we would just sit around and watch the scenery roll by. For the life of me I can’t imagine getting my RV up and down these streets all by myself let alone with a crowd like an Escapees rally just finished and the campground was being evacuated. Their are 20,000 taxi’s charging around London and probably hundreds of double decker buses and they were all in our way today. Nevertheless that was the drivers problem and we just rode along in the open air coach and listened to the tour guide tell us what we were seeing. We hopped off down in the West End Theatre district and grabbed ourselves a late lunch. Place call Byron Hamburgers and they did make a good burger.

We went in and out of the City of London and past a few of these dragons that guard all the entrances into that city.

And of course like loyal Canadians we stopped by Canada House although not for one of the famous donuts at the “Beaver Club” that used to be served there during the Second World War.

I didn’t get any pictures, shame, but we also went by the headquarters of the world’s largest company and a huge sponsor of our trip, Shell. It is surprising to me how many folks are here and it seems like English is far from the most common language being spoken on the streets. But it just might be the places we are going are full of tourists and they are coming from around the world to enjoy the sights and sounds of London.

The shot below is of the Tower Bridge, the bridge that the rumours say McCullough actually thought he was buying to move to Lake Havasu but it is still here, McCullough denies that there is any truth to the stories. The ship just in front of it to the right is the HMS Belfast the light cruiser that fired the first shots on D-Day.

And no trip to London would be complete without a picture of Big Ben, and just for the record I am not sure why it is not straight but they tell me that a tunnel was built under the street in front of it and the tower actually is a half metre off of vertical at the tallest part. Either that or my camera was crooked, just to drive Al nuts.

Brenda thought she better throw in this picture just to answer some comments we got yesterday.

Shopping, Shopping, Shopping

We started off the morning with a stroll through Hyde Park and past the Serpentine (Pond) where there are some bleachers set up for some the Triathalon and Marathon swimming events for the Olympics.

If those guys get out of that water without duck lice I will be a monkey’s uncle. Come to think of it I saw this picture on Facebook the other day and I might already be a monkey’s uncle.

Although we saw hoof tracks along our walk this morning , and one horse we saw through the gate into Buckingham Palace’s Mews (stable and carriage house), this was the only sign we saw that horses are still around town here.

But  if you are going to ride around here you better have a steady mount as the traffic is incredible. Everyone going every which way at breakneck speeds and all on the wrong side of the road. So rather than driving we are either walking or taking the Tube around town. Not sure Brenda likes the tube much better than the traffic but at least we don’t have to worry about parking it.

It is deep underground here and goes like Jack the Bear so it doesn’t take long to get anywhere. The photo above was taken this morning but the one below was taken at rush hour and this was the lineup to get INTO the station.

Now remember that the actual train is up to 100 feet underground and there are hallways and platforms and escalators to get down there so when they are backed up onto the street it must be a madhouse down below. So we kept walking and looking for a place to eat. We stumbled onto this Italian place and the food was excellent, the waiters were actually Italian and the price was reasonable. We might be back.

Now for the title I thought Brenda might like to hit a few of the high spots when it comes to shopping here in London so I took her over to Harrods for a spree. I guess she figured out that when the prices are attached to the products in small envelopes she might not want them. Lucky for me and my credit cards.

So we headed back out for a visit with another fellow whose wife was inside shopping.

But although we brought a transformer along to run her hair curling stuff it heated it all up so hot this morning that you could use it to boil water, so we did need to venture out and find a new curling iron this evening. Seems like we weren’t alone in needing to do a little shopping.

An interesting place London, but holy smokes are there a lot of people around. Sure makes Dogpound North look like a small town. And all those umbrella’s are swinging around right at my eye level so I have to keep dodging and blocking as we go down the street. Sorry about those folks who got blocked into traffic.

Jolly Good

Well the time had come to bid adieu to Dogpound North and climb on a British Airways flight to London. The flight was good, the food was great and the fact that the seat layed right flat made sleeping most of the way here a bonus. It is pretty near a 9 hour flight by the time you figure boarding and getting off into the equation. Not to mention that there was an hour long wait in Immigration at Heathrow in London. But nevertheless we made it with only a few snags along the way. And none of those worth commenting on.

Once you get to the airport it is a quick train ride downtown and our hotel is only about four blocks from the train station. We jumped in a cab for that short ride as it was raining cats and dogs and I think the driver was so stunned to see an old cowboy in his rear view he ran into the back of another cab at the door to our hotel. No one hurt so we were checked in soon.

Our room is pretty small and the bathroom is smaller than our RV’s facilities but we are not here for the room anyway. Once we got settled into the room and freshened up we headed over to Hyde Park, it is right across the street, and went for a walk. This park is the home to Kensington Palace the home of Will and Kate a couple of Liz’s kids that we are over here visiting. Although we walked by today we couldn’t tell if anyone was home so didn’t bother stopping in. After the long travel day we weren’t really fit company anyway. 

As we walked Brenda came upon this giant rhubarb plant, now can you imagine how much rhubarb crisp that could make.

Above is one of the spots along the serpentine, this park at one time was Henry the VIII’s hunting grounds and it isn’t hard to imagine a little bit of hunting going on there. Now below are some fellows playing cricket and although I watched them for a while and then once we got back to the hotel watched some on TV I have no idea how you win or lose or even just play this game. Although there seemed to be a lot of celebrating going on in both games I was at a loss to figure out for what.

Not sure what it is that makes people want to feed the birds bread, I am sure that is not on their natural diet but they seem to throng around anyone who has a crumb or two to give them. Now watching those pigeons got us to thinking about dinner so we stopped in the hotel and had the deep fried pigeon for dinner.

Very good, if a little breadey. Well really it was Fish and Chips and it was quite good.

Riding at Bates Bar J

Today was another great day in the West Country of Alberta. Over the years one or the other of my nieces or nephews and even a granddaughter have attended Bates Bar J a kids camp out west of Dogpound North. Caron my oldest niece graduated from camper to counsellor and then wrangler while she was growing up. It is a beautiful spot at the Junction of Grease Creek and the Little Red Deer River and through Caron’s long tenure there we have been able to access the place for a few rides of our own.

Today was another of those days.

It was a hot one here on the Northern Ranges, and the river crossings were pretty welcome. We got up into the high 80’s here and us northerners start to melt once the thermometer goes that high. Caron was riding her new mare Quiz today and she was out of the barn on her first trail ride as a four year old and she took everything in stride like an old hand.

In the shot above you can see the Rockies peeping over the horizon up the valley but down in the meadow below is the Bates mare band and their foals enjoying a hot summer day.This is beautiful country and there are great vista’s every way you look.

When we got back to the trailer who did we find but another niece Remi clamouring for a ride on Quiz. She is staying for the week with her friend Abby and will have many days of great riding to remember.

Sadly this old ranch/camp is for sale and this year which is their 51st in business will probably be their last unless someone with the same game plan happens to buy it. However land in these parts is pretty expensive and it not likely to be used for the same program. Whoever gets it will have a beautiful spot to come home to in the summers.

About Time

I guess it is about time that I got the journal caught up with what is happening here down the road from Dogpound. We got home from our trip up to the Buffalo Creek Ranch and our short visit with the James Gang over near Alliance, Alberta. Got the RV all washed up and then slid it back into the shed. We won’t be using it till later in the summer so it might as well be under cover just in case some of the hail that occasionally beats us senseless makes an appearance.

Lacey and Clayton are heading out to BC with the girls for a family reunion so we were not going to see Miss Ella on her birthday, but her dog Leo was planning a campout here at Dogpound North so a couple of days before they left Lace brought Ella, Alle and Leo on down here for a visit. It was great to see all three girls before they headed off.

Now I have said this before Miss Ella will share her little sister with other folks but it is only under close supervision. Nevertheless it was good to see the girls and their Mom.

And although we have been home for 3 months now circumstances have kept us from heading out to the Yaha Tinda. Either weather or other family obligations just seemed to take precedence. But we finally made up our mind that even though we couldn’t take time to spend a few days out there we were going for a day ride anyway. We got everything ready yesterday so all we had to do was load the horses and head west this morning.

I am not sure Blue and Willow were as excited as we were but even though they have had a pretty soft spring they were good to go on the hill out there today. An old friend and his new wife along with a friend of hers from Texas were meeting us out there.

That’s Ol WR on the left and his wife Tracey, her friend Rhonda and of course Brenda on Willow on the far right.

As it had been a while since we had given our ponies a good workout and we were only there for the day we took a trail we call the High Trail, but I think everyone else calls it Poplar Bluff. Guess they don’t know where the low trail is. It has some great vista’s but is not to technical.

And it was not to late to enjoy the spring flowers here on the Northern Ranges.

We probably couldn’t have asked for a better day weather wise though, it was in the low 20’s (low 70’sF) and just enough breeze so the bugs were not around. Not many days in this country you think about leaving camp in your shirt sleeves but today was one of them, but I did tie my slicker to my saddle, things can change quick out there.