A Trip up North

We returned Friday from one amazing, fast-paced, see everything in five days kind of trip. Here are just a very few of the highlights. I will get to Scotland, land of white, fluffy sheep and malt whiskey in a couple of days. That deserves its own entry.



Sammie at the Jorvik Viking Centre in York.






















The Shambles in York, the oldest medieval street in Europe.












From the top of the York Minster, a cathedral that took 275 years to build.









The winding staircase leading up to the top of the York Minster. Nearly 300 stairs! Talk about motion sickness.












The magnificent spires of York Minster.









The ruins of Fountains Abbey, an enormously wealthly sprawling place that engendered much anger against the Catholic church. Many felt the monks should not be living so lavishly, and that the church had become corrupt. Henry VIII was responsible for destroying some of it during the 1500s when he tried to make the Britons Anglicans, not Catholics.









Darren at Fountains Abbey.
















Fountains Abbey was the perfect place for Nathan to release all his energy. He and Leah scrambled all through the nooks and crannies of these ruins and it was a glorious English summer day, about 70 degrees, and we all thought it would the perfect place for a wedding reception, a very expensive wedding reception.