I am home. and Stourhead Gardens.

I chased the sun yesterday, all the way back to the northwest. For the 22 hours I was traveling, the sun was up--from Dublin to Portland. Oh yeah, and in Chicago, and Denver too.

I promised pictures a long time ago, so now, pictures you shall have! I am trying to pick out my favorite ones so that you don't all hate me. and I have added pictures to the previous posts because i now have a computer that doesn't start counting down the seconds after a half hour. yay!

This was a long time ago, so don't get confused. We went to Stourhead gardens, which is a beautiful estate where the Victorian owners decided to go all neoclassical in their garden. Results:


For those of you who recognized the gazebo in the last picture, 20 points for you! That is where the famous proposal scene of the newest adaptation of Pride and Prejudice takes place! I waited there for my own Mr. Darcy, but he didn't come. I think the weather was too good. It should have been raining. Mr. Darcy can only propose in the rain I guess. Instead I got a beautiful view from the gazebo:

Fortunately, I was still able to do something sort of romantic in the gardens. There was a stone grotto that we went inside of and there was a little fountain with a stone nymph lying down, and Katy Anderson said in passing that it would be beautiful to give an offering to the nymph. I pulled out the purple flower she had put in my hair, handed her my camera, and slipped into the cold water.

It was actually a lot deeper than I thought it was,

but the flower was in her hand, and the offering was made.

and everyone ever afterward wondered where that purple flower in her hand came from. Until it rotted away.