King of the Castle

Hi Kids,
     To the right is a map of the United Kingdom (sometimes called Great Britain) -- ask your teacher to show you where it is on the world map.  Miss Elaine's daughter Zoe lives way down toward the left corner of the map.  Can you see the small green arrow?  That is pointing to Penzance in the county of Cornwall in England.
      The little yellow lump on the left is the country of Wales.  It's not very large -- less than half the size of Massachusetts and about the size of the Oklahoma panhandle plus the two contiguous (I love that word -- it means "next to" something) counties.
      Miss Zoe, Miss Elaine, Mr. Jack and I drove to Wales.  Actually, Miss Zoe did all the driving.  In the U.K (short for United Kingdom) everybody drives on the left side of the road, which is very confusing for people used to driving on the right.
     Wales may be a small country but it is packed with fantastic scenery, things to do and CASTLES.  There are 641 castles in Wales.  They are very old. I don't think anybody lives in them any more -- at least not in the ones we visited!

Can you see me in the picture above?  I look very small in front of the huge gateway into the Cardiff Castle grounds.  The castle is surrounded by a huge wall.

This is part of the wall.  There are cool animals on top of it.  I like this proud lion.  Beside him is the Clock Tower.  There is a lot of space within the castle walls.  The actual castle is very small.

     This is the real castle.  It is very old.  Originally there was a Roman fort on the site.  Later some people called Normans invaded Britain and built a wooden castle here but it didn't last and they replaced it with this stone one about 800 years ago.  The castle has been repaired so you can walk into some of the rooms but no one could live here.  About 150 years ago a very rich man bought the castle property.  There was a medieval (about 500 years old) house built into the wall on one side.

 He it restored and decorated like he thought a medieval castle would have looked.  Below is the banqueting hall -- much bigger than a regular dining room.

     The fanciest room in his house is called the Arab Room because he thought an Arabian palace might look like this.  The ceiling is covered with real gold.

     Zoe's favorite thing was seeing the falconry exhibit.  She got to hold this four-pound eagle owl named Hector.  Miss Elaine wanted to take my picture with him but I didn't want to get too close.  Do you see those talons?

          Below is a picture of Castle Coch.  It was almost a total ruin until the family that bought Cardiff Castle bought it and fixed it up.  It is one of many castles built by King Edward I of England.  He wanted to control the people in the area so he built castles all across the land and stationed his soldiers there to keep order.

     Cerreg Cennen Castle is another of Edward I's castles.  As you can see, no one has restored it.  The hilltop location gave the soldiers a good view of any approaching enemies.  Long before Edward got here, the Romans had built a fort on this site for the same reason.

 

The day we visited, it was drizzly and chilly.  My fur was getting damp and Miss Elaine was cold and didn't want to climb that big hill so Miss Zoe took the camera and took pictures while the rest of us stayed inside and drank hot tea!

The largest castle we saw was in the northern part of the country at Caernarfon.  It's not the biggest castle in Wales but probably the most important and has been named a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  It was here in1282 that the son of Edward I was born -- the first English Prince of Wales.  

     The castle's location by the River Seiont gave the King easy access to the sea.  Here's a view from inside the castle.

     This is another of Edward's castles, Beaumaris, on the island of Anglesey.  It, too, had easy access to the ocean.  This is me by the moat.

     A little over a hundred years after it was built, it was captured and held by Welsh soldiers of Owain Glyndwr, who held it for two years before the English recaptured it.  Owain Gwyndwr was the most important leader for the independence of Wales and he is still a hero there today.  He's kind of their George Washington, except Wales is still a part of the United Kingdom instead of an independent nation.

     In olden days there was a heavy wooden grill that could be lowered over the entrance.  The castle was also protected by murder holes where soldiers inside could pour boiling oil down on anyone trying to break in.  Arrow slits were built so that archers could shoot out but it would be very difficult for anyone to shoot in.
   
Conwy Castle was the last castle we visited -- we only have 635 more to go!  Here is a drawing of the castle:

     By now, Miss Elaine and I were a little tired of castles.  We went inside but didn't spend much time there.  I did pose with a large wooden sculpture called "The Guard".  Can you see me on his lap?

     The castle is built into a wall which surrounds the whole city.  This is part of the wall near where many of King Edward's most important helpers worked.  Do you see those little boxy-looking pieces that stick out of the wall?  Those are toilets the king built for his men.  Plumbing was very different in those days -- just a bench with a hole in it.  Watch out below!

     After we toured the castle, we went to dinner.  When we came out, it had rained and the sun was coming out.  The sun was going down but just hit the top of the castle.  Don't you think this is pretty?

Love,
Fuzzy

Old News

Hi Kids,
This is me above the banks of the Paluxy River in Dinosaur Valley State Park in Texas.  This is what it looks like now.  One hundred and eleven million years ago, this area looked very different.
Most of the area was covered by a shallow sea.  This part was on the shore -- a kind of squishy, muddy, sandy place.

The animals who lived here were very different from the ones we see today.  This was called the Cretaceous Period. 

One great big dinosaur who lived here was called Pleurocoelus (ploor-oh-see-lus).  He was a herbivore -- that means he ate plants.  He was about 50 feet long -- he couldn't have fit in your schoolroom!  Another dinosaur who lived around here was a carnivore -- he ate meat.  He looked a lot like T. Rex.  He was an Acrocanthosaurus (ak-row-can-tho-sore-us).  When these dinosaurs walked on the soft ground, they left foot prints.  This three-toed print is from the Acrocanthosaurus.

You can see his toes.  I didn't take a picture of the Pleurocoelus tracks because they just looked like big, round holes.  His feet were more like elephant feet -- made to carry heavy weight.
The mud eventually turned to rock and so the prints can still be seen today.  This is a picture of the river and river bank.  There are a lot of prints in the rock.

Here is a painting of what those two dinosaurs looked like. 

If that Acrocanthosaurus is planning on making a sandwich out of the Pleurocoelus, he's going to need a BIG loaf of bread!  I'm glad I didn't see these guys on my visit!

Love,
Fuzzy

Touring Truro

Hi Kids,
There are lots of cool places to visit in England.  Miss Elaine's daughter Zoe lives in Cornwall in the far southwest of the country.  Did Mrs. Bezdek help you find it on the map?  Zoe lives in the town of Penzance.  One day we visited the city of Truro, the largest town in the county.
Lots of things in England are the same as here but it's fun looking at the differences.  This horse-drawn coach carries tourists but there are modern cars here, too.  And you can see a bus in the background.

In most towns, the streets are very narrow because they were built when people rode horseback.  Buildings were built along the streets so they couldn't be widened.  This picture was taken in October.  The weather was still quite nice and you can see beautiful flowers blooming.  Although it can get very chilly in Cornwall, it doesn't snow there very often and, in towns along the coast, there are even palm trees growing.

The cathedral is the most impressive building in Truro.  It looks old but it is just a little over a hundred years old.  The inside is very beautiful.

Although there are cemeteries in England just like ones here, sometimes important people were buried inside churches.  Statues on top of tombs are called effigies.  I'll probably show you more of these in future posts.

Even though the cathedral is in the middle of the city, the tiny bit of land around it has been beautifully landscaped.  Aren't these begonias pretty?

 Here's something we saw in several towns -- people dressed as statues.  They stand very still but if you wait long enough, you can see a blink or a twitch.  Do you see the helmet on the ground?  He hopes people will throw money into it.  I don't think he will make much money but he really does look like a toy soldier!

This is Mr. Jack.  He really didn't want to stand by this sign but Miss Elaine thought it was funny -- so he did it.  

Miss Elaine and I will be sending you more pictures from our trips.  Have a great day!
Love,
Fuzzy

T. Bear and Friends

 Hi Kids,
Since I still don't know what you've named me, I'm just going by T. for now.  This is me right after I got off the airplane and took a train into Paddington Station.  Do you know the story of Paddington Bear?  I'll bet Mrs. Bezdek would read it to you!  Here is a statue of Paddington.  And in the train station there's a whole shop full of Paddington Bears!

 We had a long flight to get here to England.  First we had to fly from Oklahoma City to Dallas and wait for another plane to fly us to London.  Then we had to take a train from the airport to the train station where we
caught another train which took us to Penzance.  Penzance is in Cornwall, the part of England that is the farthest west -- the train ride was almost as long as our plane ride!  I was really tired of sitting.

Some famous musicians wrote an operetta -- a musical play -- called "The Pirates of Penzance."  Miss Elaine and I saw these pirate bears in a shop window.

 In England an apartment is called a flat.  This was the view from our bedroom window.  The weather was really nice so we could keep the window open day and night. 

The stores in England have most of the same things we have here -- but not everything.  Miss Elaine's daughter Miss Zoe lives in Penzance.  She has an American friend who lives in a town nearby.  Her friend's name is Miss Peabody.  She loves Fritos, but you they don't have Fritos in England so we brought her some.  

 This is Miss Peabody on the left and Miss Zoe on the right.  Miss Peabody was very happy to get the Fritos.  She said she hadn't tasted Fritos for two years!  They do have potato chips in England -- they call them crisps.  And they call French fries chips! 

This is me with a bunch of Cornish bears.  I like England.  They love bears!

Your friend,
T. Bear

Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries

Hi Kids,
This is Evergreen Beach Lodge in Ephraim (pronounced ee-frum), Wisconsin.  It's in Door County.  Do you have a United States map in your room?  Can you find Wisconsin?  Do you see that kind of little pinkie finger sticking out into Lake Michigan?  That's Door County.  this is the hotel where Miss Elaine and I stayed -- it's over 100 years old.  Here is a view of Lake Michigan from our hotel room.

Miss Elaine and I were here to learn all about Montmorency (mont-more-EN-see) cherries.  Door County is the fourth largest producer of these bright red, tart cherries in the United States.

This is me sitting in a cherry tree.  The average cherry tree has about 7000 cherries on it.  That's enough for 28 cherry pies. 

We ate cherries right off the tree and we had cherries fixed lots of different ways.

We had cherry lemonade.















We had cherries and pecans on French toast.

We even had cherries on steak!
One of the coolest things we did was take a cooking class.  The school was called The Savory Spoon.  Do you know what savory means?  Can you look it up in the dictionary?  Janice Thomas owns the cooking school and she was glad I came to class!

We did a lot of the cooking.  We divided into groups.  Miss Elaine and I worked on the salad.  The dessert group made crepes (kreps) filled with cherries.  Crepes are thin French pancakes.  That group put cherries in the middle of each crepe, then folded them over.  Miss Janice put them in a pan on the stove and poured sauce over them.  Then she set the sauce on fire!  That's called flambeeing (flam-bay-ing), another French word.  As you can see, it was pretty scary.  Miss Elaine and I will not be trying this at home!

We did do more than just eat -- or cook.  This is my friend Nicole.  You can see she's dressed warmly.  Wisconsin is much farther north than Oklahoma.  Even though it was summer, the nights and early mornings were quite cool.  I was glad I had my fur coat!

There are lots of interesting towns in Door County.  This picture was taken in the town of Sister Bay.  There's a restaurant there with grass growing on the roof.  Can you tell how they mow it?  Those are goats!  Every morning, they put the goats up on the roof and they bring them down at night.  It's not a very good picture of the goats -- but it's awfully good of me, don't you think?

Have you ever seen anyone ride a Segway?  They have two wheels and a motor.  You make them go by leaning forward and you stand straight when you want them to stop.  It's a little scary but Miss Elaine and I had a really good time riding one.  We rode by lots of cherry trees and into the woods and to the top of this hill where we could see Lake Michigan in the background.

I loved my trip to Wisconsin.  I hope to have lots of travels this year to tell you about!

Your friend,
T. Bear

Catching Up