The City of York

After leaving Cambridge we headed to the ancient city of York. The city’s past includes occupations by barbarians (from Barbaria), Romans, Vikings, and the White Anglo-Saxon Protestants (from Protestantia). We entered the coordinates for St. Mary’s street in York and headed northeast. Again, the girls slept most of the way.

We arrived at the first of our bed-and-breakfast places. This one was called 23 St. Mary’s. We chose it because of a great rating by Rick Steves, god of American travel in Europe. And he was spot-on. The place was great. We were met by our hosts Chris & Julie Simpson. The place was spotless and very cozy. And you couldn’t find nicer people. We quickly settled in. I went downstairs to get my laptop running so the girls could check their myspace accounts. And I struck up a conversation with a wonderful couple from the Cotswolds. This is the best part of B&B’s. Getting to know real people and “sharing” a home with them is just the best. The B&B’s turned out to be our favorite accommodations just for that fact, plus the great breakfasts.

That evening we headed inside the city walls to find a place to eat and enjoy a pint. We found a very old tavern with sagging ceilings, plastered walls, and the faint smell of tinkle. Every eating establishment in the UK smells a bit like wee, especially the old places. But I digress. We enjoyed our meal and the girls, because of the lower drinking age, enjoyed a half pint of hard cider. We wandered around town a bit but because of the late hour most everything was closed. So back to the B&B we went.

We spent the rest of the evening talking with our new friends down in the living room. We talked about life and politics in America, the price of gas and what we eat in California. We talked about how they live and how we live. And they are always curious about the American West, as they put it. As we found out, the Britt’s love to travel to Las Vegas. I’m not sure why since America has so much more to offer than Las Vegas but they seem to be fascinated with the place. They often speak of the city, the Hoover Dam and the Grand Canyon. I think they get exposed to a lot of advertising from Las Vegas. But it seemed like any Britt we talked with that traveled to the UK had been to Las Vegas. Craziness.

It was off to bed and a good night’s sleep. Outside our window we could see York Minster lit up a few blocks away and we knew that the next day would be a good day. As it turned out, York became our favorite city.

Japanese Poop Water

Let me tell you about a travel hint I picked up from some the more famous travel sites like www.tripadvisor.com. Occasionally while researching this trip I would come across a comment about how wonderful Japanese Poop Water was for staying at B&B’s. What I learned was that if you place just two small drops of the poop water into the toilet before you do your business, the air would remain fresh no matter how bad the English food was the night before. Since I’ve been know to destroy the ambiance of an entire village on occasion on account of my leavings, I was curious. So I placed my order. In just a couple of weeks my Japanese Poop Water arrived. A few test runs confirmed what the critics were saying. They worked. I don’t know how but the drops worked. It smelled fresh as a daisy after my “sessions.”

This is important stuff because at many B&B’s you share a bathroom. Starting an international incident on account of one’s odors would be a bit embarrassing. Fortunately all of our B&B adventures had what they called En Suite bathrooms meaning they are attached to the room for your private use.

To find this wonderful product, just Google "Japanese Poop Water" and you'll find several places that sell this magic potion.

Check Out The New Photos

On the right side of this page you'll see a link that says, "Personal Photo Album." Check it out to find the latest photos of York and the comedic commentary that really brings it all to life (and keeps you from falling asleep). The banana and the bullet have nothing to do with York.

The San Francisco Treat

We live about an hour’s drive north of the Golden Gate Bridge. We seem to cross it semi-often as this is the only way into San Francisco from where we live. When we first moved here from Minnesota, I couldn’t help but think of those iconic images of the bridge, the TransAmerica building, cable cars, Alcatraz, Fisherman’s Warf and Rice-A-Roni.

Since we moved somewhere considered exotic by Minnesotan standards, we had a lot of visitors from the homeland our first few years here. It seemed like I was always picking folks up at SFO for a week-long visit. When I did, I usually played a little prank. I would purchase a box of Rice-A-Roni, the San Francisco treat, and give it to our guests upon their arrival at SFO. I would tell them that if you said, “Rice-A-Roni, the San Francisco treat,” they would give you a free box of Rice-A-Roni at the Golden Gate Bridge Toll Plaza. Funny thing was, everyone believed me, at least for a while.

My brother Andy visited us for a bit back when we first came here. In fact, he lived with us for a couple of months. During his stay, his former girlfriend visited us as well. Andy knew the joke so he brought her a box of Rice-A-Roni when he picked her up at SFO. She fell for the joke without knowing it was a joke. Somewhere in the back of her mind she stored that information.

Years past and I don’t do the joke very often because no one believes me anyway. Then, not so long ago, I got a phone call from Andy. He said he had a funny story to tell me. Andy and his girlfriend broke up several years ago. But recently she called him just to say hello. She told him that she recently visited San Francisco with a girlfriend and they had a wonderful time. However, she had some problems at the Golden Gate Bridge. They took a little day trip into Sonoma County Wine Country. On their way back to the city, they stopped at the bridge tollbooth.

After paying her toll she looked at the toll taker and said, “Rice-A-Roni, the San Francisco treat.”
“Excuse me?” the toll taker said.
“Rice-A-Roni, the San Francisco treat,” she repeated again.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked.
“Well don’t I get my free box of Rice-A-Roni?” she replied.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, lady,” he said.
“I was told that if I said, ‘Rice-A-Roni, the San Francisco treat,’ that I would get a free box of Rice-A-Roni.”

The man just laughed and in her embarrassment with her friend in the car, she quickly drove off, knowing she had been pranked. At least 5 years went by between the time she was first presented with a box of Rice-A-Roni, the San Francisco treat and the time she asked for her free box, using the special code phrase. It still makes me giggle.

Time to Punt

We arrived in Cambridge at about three in the afternoon. We made ourselves at home at the Holiday Inn and took a quick inventory of our room. The girls were nauseous and tired, but hungry. So it was our job to find some takeout food. We went to the front desk and got some written direction but they proved to be wrong. Thank God we brought the TomTom. So we decided to head toward the city center. Certainly we would find some international food there.

You see, at this point in our trip we had given up on English food. Several folks told us it was great and it did not deserve its bad rap. So, being nice folks, we kept trying. But with the exception of one pub in London, we found English food terrible. So we vowed to stay away from it if at all possible. We would focus our appetites on international cuisine.

Only a couple miles away from the Holiday Inn we found an Indian restaurant. We knew it was going to be good because it had a line. I parked illegally and left Sheri with the car. I went in and ordered, and waited. As I waited the kind folks kept me talking about life in the United States. They were fascinated with my American accent and that I was amazingly rich. They deduced this because I was from California. They were disappointed that I had not seen any movie stars but honored that I chose their restaurant. They even gave me some free cracker-bread stuff. We devoured their food once back at the hotel. The girl’s nausea had passed and they all went swimming. They came back with a story about swimming with the fattest lady they had ever seen. I guessed she displaced a lot of water. Because once she got out, they could touch their toes in the deep end.

The next day was going to be adventure because we had not planned on staying in Cambridge. Everywhere else I had researched our options. We were going to make this up. So we programmed our TomTom and headed off to the city centre. We parked in the largest parking garage I had ever seen. Then we began what turned out to be about a two mile walk. The girls really wanted to go shopping, again. I was going to find something interesting to do. So Sheri and I left the girls and would meet up with them later.

The first place we went was up the tower of a church across from King’s College. The minute we reached the top we were surrounded by our old friends, the Japanese tourists. Once again we were pushed out of the way, poked, and stepped on. I did manage to get a couple of photos from high above Cambridge. But their noise and rude behavior drove us back down. Sheri then decided that looking at more old things was not what she wanted to do at the moment. So she went off to find the girls. I, on the other hand, went to the King’s College Chapel, by myself.

Of course it was amazing and all that. But since I neither broke anything or saw anything funny, I’ll move on to the outside. There was a giant lawn inside a beautiful square. A sign on the lawn stated in plain English, “Stay off the grass.” But apparently a drunk student didn’t care about the sign. He got to the middle of the lawn and collapsed, exhausted from his trip. Once laying down he sang about his adventures.

I continued toward the back of the lawn and discovered what I would later learn were punts. A Punt is a flat-bottomed boat used to take a huge amount of money away from American tourists. I returned to our meeting spot a couple of hours later having seen amazing stuff. My girls all told me of cute shops and other such crap. I told them of cathedrals, chapels, beautiful rivers and bridges. They were only interested in college guys and the boats. Please see the photo album and look at the pictures of Cambridge for a look at the punting fun.

After our punting adventure we sought out dinner, once again avoiding English food. We settled on a nice Italian place and enjoyed some very delicious risotto. Then we walked three miles back to the giant parking garage through a park named “Jesus.” The night brought a delightful swim and peaceful slumber in an American-style bed. Nothing bad happened to us this day, No embarrassments or unintentional flatulence.

Buying Brazzieres

Today my wife calls me from work and says, “I need your help buying a couple of bras for my mother.” To which my immediate reply was, “I am not buying bras for my mother-in-law.”


Sheri: “Well, I don’t need you to buy them, I just need the phone number of the company.”
Scott: “Why don’t you Google it and find the number.”
Sheri: “I tried that but my work computer is blocking the words 'underwear' and ‘bra.’”
Scott thinks “Wow, an internet company that sells giant bras for mothers-in-law. I wonder that company is called?”
Scott asks: “What’s the name of the company?
Sheri: “A Fresh Pair.”
Scott: Nothing but laughter.

I tell this story at work and everyone cracks up. Then my assistant says, “That sounds like a name for a training bra company.” I reply, “Believe me, my mother-in-law is no longer in training.”