Home again, home again

I have been home long enough to sleep in my own bed, shower in my own bathroom, eat a bacon cheeseburger and have a margarita.  We’re back to having home field advantage for the rest of the summer.  I know how to get around, what foods I like, where to go and how the local currency works.  We came in for a relatively smooth landing at DFW, and Jeanne and Dave were there to greet us.  I am so glad all seven of us were together for the first part of the trip, just as I am glad Cas and I split off and did our own thing for the second part.  Both things were pretty great, but it is  just generally easier to find a restaurant with a table for two available.  

I’ve picked up the mail from my dad, checked in on my brothers and hugged on any and all available folks named Hinds in the Dallas area.  It’s good to be home.  But we’re already starting to plan and scheme.  Next summer will mark the ten-year point for this travel blog, which means it will be ten years from the day I sat down and blogged about my wedding in Fiji.  So a tenth wedding anniversary is about a year and a month away, give or take a few days.  Something for a tenth anniversary is in order.  Who knows.  We’re open to suggestion…  I have never been to Germany.  We were thinking of something in Eastern Europe.  Maybe we head to Quebec?  I hear there’s some really cool stuff to see in Japan.  South America was neat.  

But for the meantime, we have a ninth anniversary to celebrate, a Fourth of July to enjoy, and the remainder of our summer break to play with.  

So, until Heather and Cas ride again, I bid you adieu.  

Also, mind the gap.

Here are our photos: tinyurl.com/dunlap-pl

What’s a Bard?

When you pack up some fruit and cheese and a bottle of wine and head to the Samuel-Grand park in Dallas during the summer, it’s invariably to go see Shakespeare in the Park.  We’ll most certainly do that when we get back to our regularly scheduled Texas summer.  But before they begin the show, someone from the Shakespeare Dallas organization gets up and explains how a bard is a storyteller.  There’s a consistent call-and-response thing that has happened in every show I have attended.  He says something to the general effect of, “And Shakespeare is often called the Bard…”  The audience out on the lawn shouts back, “What’s a bard?”  So let me tell you what he would say next.  

A bard is a storyteller.  

Yesterday, we went to the hometown of the bard of all bards.  The grand-bard of them all.  The third child of a glove maker and a farmer’s daughter, William Shakespeare.  We went on the second of our scheduled day trips from London, this time, to Stratford-upon-Avon, the Cotswolds and Oxford.  Wow.  Stratford was very cool.  We only had enough time to tour the house where Shakespeare was born and raised, then we had to head to the next destination.  We actually grabbed a sandwich after the self-guided tour and ate it on the bus, as we didn’t want to kill time in a restaurant.  The next two stops were the ones that, if I were in charge of the tour company, I would cut out of the tour.  I would have the guide drive by, make a little commentary, and preserve the time for one of the other two locations.  We went through the Cotswolds.  What’s a Cotswolds?  Well, it’s not a bard.  I kid- it’s just a really pretty, picturesque part of England.  The houses are all made of the locally available materials, which means they’re all in a blonde-ish stone.  Frankly, I could have used more time either in Stratford or in Oxford.  

Ooh, and Oxford- we got there at 4:30 and everything closes at 5.  That’s one of the reasons I would have chopped out the Cotswolds from this tour.  There’s a great science museum that was closed, but if it were open, they somehow had Albert Einstein’s chalkboard where he used to do complicated equations.  There were innumerable libraries for the multitudes of universities, all of which looked cool from the outside, and none of which let us in after 4:45.  Behold, Cas trying to get into a door labeled Geometry and Arithmetic: 

Yeah- 30 more minutes in Stratford and another 45 or more in Oxford.  Regardless, we did hit up some really great spots.  There are lots of places that claim to be the oldest pub in England, and we went to one that, of those claimants, is still the third from the oldest. Nobody holds the official title, because no one can prove it.  Regardless, The Porch House was established in 947 AD.  It’s in a spot called Stow-on-the-Wold in the Cotswolds.  I got a pint of the trademark “warm” British beer, meaning it’s a cask beer where the draft is pulled from underground wine-cellar-temperature casks.  Had to try it.  Honestly, that was not my favorite, but it was pretty authentic.  

For a stop I would remove if I were the tour organizer, it was a nice perk.  Beyond that, we really enjoyed Oxford, and the trip back to London was pretty swift from there.  We had a dinner at a Thai restaurant.  In fact, when we mentioned where we planned to eat, the tour guide changed his drop-off plans.  Our dinner pick was right around the corner from the spot where his company parks their buses overnight.  We basically went back to the tour company’s mothership.  

All in all, the day was wonderful.  We did feel rushed in parts, but the things we did see were pretty great.  We stopped at a gift shop on our way back to the hotel and picked up our souvenir refrigerator magnet.  This one is a red, double-decker bus.  It’s a little token that could start either of us telling stories…. You know, like a bard.

Here are our photos: tinyurl.com/dunlap-pl

The modern and the not-so-modern

We’re on the road again.  Cas and I are back with our pals on The English Bus, having boarded back at our hotel after our French-seeming breakfast of quiche and a chocolate croissant.  Maybe its proximity to France that lets English bakeries do such a good job with French pastries.  

But as our journey to the Cotswolds, Oxford and Stratford upon Avon starts, I can get into the day we had yesterday.  It began with a few items left to check off of our London bucket list. First, we headed to the Globe Theatre.  The current Globe Theatre is apparently the third one of its kind, having been lovingly reconstructed by bard superfan Sam Wanamaker.  They still do plays at this theatre, and they still offer the standing-room seats that, in Shakespeare’s time, went to folks affectionately called the “groundlings.” 

It was a very cool tour, and our guide for that one was as charming as she was pleasant.  Just in case we were feeling a little too historic, though, the next stop on our journey was the Tate Modern, London’s own modern art museum. Man, there’s some really weird stuff in there.  No- for real.  An employee of the museum even said so, as did our tour guide just this morning.  Apparently, any Londoner you ask can assure you that the collection at the Tate Modern is “weird,”  I absolutely agree.  

We spent a little bit of time exploring the art that was free to view, opting not to engage in the ticketed attractions.  We didn’t intend to stay long enough to make tickets worthwhile- there was plenty of weird art to see for free.  We saw some work by Salvador Dali, a bit of Andy Warhol’s handiwork, and some decidedly stranger things. There was the inexplicable canvas with little beads glued on in piles, with each bead-pile crowned by a plastic eyeball from a toy doll.  That was properly strange.  We saw the enormous sculpture of the spider that had to be placed in a central space with a tall ceiling.  Of course, there were things that were slightly more traditional- paintings and such, but certainly, everything was modern. 

When we left there, it was time to find some really good Indian food.  Cas had a restaurant all picked out and a backup plan in case the place didn’t look good when we got there.  Everything was wonderful. We had samosas, a chicken dish and some very yummy garlic naan bread.  There were four people near us, one of whom was filming every single thing that happened.  He filmed as the waitress poured beer in a glass.  He filmed as a woman seated at the table scrolled on her phone.  He filmed as the food arrived.  Not knowing why, I decided they must be the stars of a reality show I was inventing in my head called “Three boring Brits go to restaurants.”   I’m sure my imaginary show will be cancelled after half a season and replaced with a baking show.  The waitress told us what the filming was all about after the table was cleared and the four people were filming their way down the street- I feel like it was maybe a beer commercial?   I honestly didn’t care enough to follow up.  We were just glad  they left and took their camera with them. 

Our final destination to check the last item off our London bucket list was Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese.  While there is great debate about which pub is the oldest, and I’m sure it will rage on long after we’re tucked into our bed in Dallas, the pub we visited was on a site that has housed a pub since 1538. We were in a building that went up in 1667, though if you walk down underground a but, you’ll find a bar inside a 13th century Carmelite Monastery.  I asked the manager, and he said there are something like 20 rooms in the pub, and though it wasn’t open for seating right then, he invited us to visit the room that Charles Dickens most liked to sit in- we even spotted his favorite seat.  We probably spent as much time at Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese as we did at the Tate Modern- and each spot was a museum of sorts, but unsurprisingly, the hospitality was better at the pub.  

After that, we were kid of over being in crowded spaces and jockeying for position on sidewalks, so we hopped into a tube station and made our way back to the hotel, by way of a grocery store where we could grab some snacks for today’s bus adventure. 

It’s our last full day in England today.  We’re leaving tomorrow afternoon, and through the miracle of time zones, we’ll arrive home the same day.  We’re about half an hour away from Stratford upon Avon right now, so we’ll get into that later.  

For now, here is a photo of me and Cas drinking pints of cider in a bar tucked into a 13th century Carmelite Monastery.  Because of course we did…

And here’s the photo album: tinyurl.com/dunlap-pl

Float on

It was Monday yesterday, and that must have been the reason our dinner cruise on the Thames wasn’t absolutely bursting at the seams with people.  There was a row of empty tables for two next to the row of tables where Cas and I were seated.  Don’t worry, though, the assembled clientele was still very, very loud.  There was one Frenchman in particular who could have communicated with the whole room without a microphone.  We got on and started with a glass of champagne, followed by a smoked salmon appetizer.  There was a tomato basil soup, then a nice roasted chicken in red wine sauce with potatoes and vegetables.  Tatties, but no neeps.  Whew.  

Desert was a tiramisu, then we were off.  We grabbed our wine glasses and headed up top to enjoy the open air, let the wind blow our hair back and take a few really great photos of the Tower Bridge, illuminated at night.  It was kind of cool, knowing where we had walked earlier in the day and sailing under it.  

The crew was pleasant and accommodating, the on-board entertainment was pretty good and the meal was very nice.  Unfortunately for me and Cas, we’ve got unrealistically high expectations about dining while floating on famous rivers, but that can’t be helped.  The dinner cruise on the Seine was certainly not something you can just book through Viator or Trip Advisor.  On the Thames, there was no Dom Perignon, no amuse bouche and no Michelin-starred chef preparing the chicken.  In spite of that, we did manage to have a good time.  

We’re off today for a trip to Shakespeare’s Globe, the Tate Modern and some Indian food, fingers crossed.  It’s another self-styled, choose your own adventure day, and we’re off in a big city to see what we can see.  I’ll fill you in on the details later.

Here’s our photo album: tinyurl.com/dunlap-pl

We came, we saw, we hopped back on

The thing about a hop-on-hop-off bus is that you usually know exactly what you’re signing up for.  You’ll typically get a pair of really crummy earbuds that won’t stay in your ears.  You’ll have to plug those into a thingamajig right in front of your seat, and it is almost always set to the English language.  It certainly was today.  We bought tickets and hopped on, getting a little background information while we traveled from the London Eye to the Tower Bridge.  That’s where we hopped off for a look at a very fancy bridge.  We got tickets for our self-guided bridge tour, walking up one tower, across a pedestrian part at the top and into the other tower.  It was a very cool bridge, and there was certainly a lot to learn about how it was constructed.  They had displays about the men who had to dive down in the river wearing elaborate gear to build the foundational parts of the bridge before the actual towers went up.  There were pieces that explained the functionality of the original steam engine that operated the drawbridge function.  It was all very interesting.  Of course, I lost Cas for a moment at an old map of London.  He had to stop and ask the employee about the map, and as it turns out, his instinct was spot on.  The map was apparently one of the first ones made to represent London as a version of its modern self.  

After we left the Tower Bridge, we made our way past the Tower of London to the dock where the included 30 minute trip on the Thames took off.  It was also quite informative, though this time, the information came courtesy of an actual human who talked about the various buildings, the many bridges we went under and the very river we were traveling on.  That was an interesting little mini-cruise, and for added fun, there was a waiter who brought out drinks.  Don’t mind if we do. It was actually a sunny day, and it was just a little warm with no shade trees around.  

When we got off the boat, we stopped for lunch.  It was a kind of self-styled tapas lunch, as we just selected three appetizers and made a nice meal of them.  We were a bit hungry, but we didn’t want to over-eat.  We have our dinner cruise on the Thames this evening.  

After our light lunch, we hopped back on a bus and took it all the way to Buckingham Palace, learning about Fleet Street, Cleopatra’s Needle, MI-5, The Shard- you name it, if it was part of the pre-recorded audio, we learned it.  And we’ll probably forget about 90% of it.  But hey, some retention is better than none.  We were on a mission, though, to see the unflappable palace guards in their red jackets and fuzzy hats.  Check and check.  They were pretty far away from us, but there they were, immobilized by duty and tradition, as any good palace guard should be.  At that point, we really lacked the time for the full tourist experience, mostly, because we were kind of sweaty, and we want to be clean and presentable for our fancy-ish dinner.  We hopped into an underground station, took one train to another and came back to our room.  It’s nice to cool down a little after the day we had.  It was wonderful, sure, but it was a little warm.  What am I taking about- a week from now, we’ll be back in Dallas and today’s London temps will seem like a dream.  I mean, the high was 80 today.  We were just moving around a lot in the sunshine.  Regardless, 80 or higher, you want to get a little dolled up for a fancy dinner, right?  I know I do.  I have the best date a girl could get on this or any body of water, so I had better get to it and comb my hair.  I’ll tell you all about the dinner cruise in the morning.  For now, here’s a really fun photo of us on the glass part of the walkway between the two towers of Tower Bridge.  The employee there assured us that each panel of glass could hold five tons, though he didn’t specify if that was metric or standard.  I think Cas and I would have been in the clear, either way.

Here, again, are our photos: tinyrul.com/dunlap-pl

Smashing! Brilliant! British as heck!

There were about a dozen times yesterday where Cas and I did something, and I thought, “This is so British!”  

Let’s pop ‘round to the pub for a pint and have a chat about it, shall we?  

Cas and I got up in the morning and headed to a spot that promised good brunch.  He ordered something called Red Eggs, which were basically scrambled eggs, spiced with a sauce that was red in color, and I ordered bubble and squeak.  It’s called that because of the sounds it makes while cooking.  There are sausages that fry up, causing the bubbling and/or squeaking of cabbage, potatoes or whatever vegetable you add.  This one was a brunch dish, so there was a fried egg crowning the whole affair.  It was a good way to start the day.  Full disclosure: We got a later than usual start because we had no commitment until the afternoon.  It was actually great to start with brunch rather than a rapid pastry and coffee in a paper cup while racing to the first bit of adventure.  Now, I don’t mind hustling, but yesterday was a nice change of pace.  

With the bubble and squeak out of the way, we made our way to Waterloo bridge.  That’s where we caught the red, double-decker bus.  Cas mapped out which local route would take us where we wanted to head next, so with that information, we hopped on a tall, red bus, climbed to the top and sat as it rolled over the Thames on a bridge named after a British military victory over the French.  

I know, right?  

When it was time to get off the bus, we were in the West End district.  We had tickets to a play at the Noel Coward Theatre.  We walked in and pre-ordered our intermission drinks- a very smart accommodation the theatre makes- then headed to our seats.  The play we saw was called The Comedy About Spies, and it was one of the funniest things either Cas or I had seen in ages.  I won’t give the plot away, but there are Americans, Brits, Russians and one self-important actor, all at a hotel at the height of the Cold War, and tremendous intrigue ensues.  When intermission came, we followed a column of people to the bar area, where our pre-ordered and pre-paid drinks were waiting.  I showed a receipt and said my name, and Bob’s your uncle, the nice attendant handed me two glasses of prosecco.  Lovely jubbly.  

The play was a matinee, and we did, in fact, get out in time to see some of the performance by the London Symphony Orchestra.  We were near the back because we walked in just as the performance was beginning.  Had we shown up hours earlier, we may have scored a seat, but we wandered in to standing room only.  It was fine, but I am not a tall woman.  Every time someone in front of me shifted or moved, though, I saw something different.  I scooched past the really tall guy to see the violin section.  I shifted over to one side of the lady with the rather large bun in her hair and saw a drummers banging away.  Someone decided to leave, and that’s when I saw cellos and basses.  I watched as all their arms moved in unison.  All those bows gliding across all those strings at the same moment.  The song took a turn for the more energetic.  The music became more rapid.  Just when that happened, I literally saw a bumblebee in front of me.  It was flitting around from one person’s head to the next, and none of the people seemed aware of its presence.  The erratic flight path and the frenetic music kind of belonged together.  We walked away after just one song, because standing at the way-back wasn’t great, but I was chuffed to bits that we wandered into the once-a-year free outdoor LSO performance.  

The next thing on our list was a bit of food.  We decided to pop ‘round to a pub for a pint or two, have a look at the menu and see if any of them might serve fish and chips.  Cas had a cider and I had a beer.  

We shared a fish and chips, and I even tried the mushy peas they seem to consistently place on these plates.  They did have the decency to put it in a little cup on the side, so as not to upset Cas.  That was kind.  The pub just looked right.  It was full of dark furniture and there was wood flooring.  There were taxidermied animals on the walls, and we sat next to a non-working fireplace where the mantle was dotted with old books, tchotchkes and a broken clock.  Fancy a pint?  I thought so.  

Cas had located an art display he wanted to check out after our pub adventure.  It was a very, very large room, open on a few sides for people to just walk in off the street, and the walls were covered in moving images.  Different artists designed different experiences for the visitors.  We walked in to a mountain scene on all sides, and it turned into several other scenes.  There was a massive Tetris game that allowed seven viewers at a time to participate.  There was a “shower of emojis” There were cartoonish things, things that looked like moving paintings- a few photorealistic items.  It was in constant flux.  We stood a while, sat a while, took it in a while, then decided to head back to our hotel via the tube.  

The public transportation in London has gotten easier, too, as you no longer need to purchase a ticket or anything like that.  You can use the Apple Pay or Google Pay or Samsung Pay feature on your phone.  If you have a credit card attached to your phone, you can just aim the phone at the payment card reader and you’re on.  You just paid the fare by waving a phone at it.  Makes you feel like a character in a sci-fi story.  

We picked up some Jaffa Cakes, which are basically little, flat rectangles of sponge cake topped with jam and dark chocolate, and we had a few of those when we returned to our room and called our dads.  And by a few, I mean the whole package.  Yeah, we can’t have Jaffa Cakes around- they disappear too fast.  

So it was the most British day we could conjure up.  Today, we plan to take a tourist bus around the city and see what there is to learn that way, then we’ll cap off the day with a dinner cruise on the Thames, which we booked back in Dallas.  Should be smashing!  

More to come…

And here are our photos: tinyurl.com/dunlap-pl

Perspective about age…

Seriously, don’t mess with a good thing. Yesterday morning, I stepped out to grab breakfast while Cas was wrapping up in the shower.  We have a pattern of behavior for trips that typically involves me showering first.  I got ready in the flashiest of flashes so I ran out to that amazing coffee shop and stepped back into our hotel room with two pastries and two coffees, returning to one appreciative husband.  When you find something that works, be it an order of morning operations or a good bakery that makes excellent coffee, stick with it.  

Yesterday was our trip out to Stonehenge, Bath and a *secret location* to be revealed later.  We stepped out onto the street in front of our hotel right at our scheduled pickup time, then we were off.  Cara was our guide today, and in addition to being born and raised in Bath, she is currently a Londoner with a bundle of energy and a lot of information.  Cas selected this tour and our upcoming one on Wednesday, and for them, he used a company called “The English Bus,” which appears to be a small company with very nice, well appointed vans, capable of transporting 16 passengers to different places while remaining relatively nimble in traffic.  We hopped in and found a pair of seats together, listened to Cara’s enthusiastic introduction (including her peppering of facts and information about things in London as we passed them) and headed to Stonehenge.  It’s a nearly two hour drive there, but something about the van trip let me and Cas nod off a while.  We had brought along iPads for doing crossword puzzles and reading ebooks, but falling asleep easily on different modes of transportation may be my best superpower.  I do believe Cas got a few chapters in, but I think he nodded off a bit, too.  We got to Stonehenge and were directed on how to board a shuttle from their visitors’ center to the stones themselves, then we were off.  We walked up, stood in front of the ancient arrangement of stones and took it in.  I don’t get it, and that doesn’t exactly put me in the minority.  Is it a tribute?  A relic left by prehistoric aliens?  A religious monument?  Or, as Cas surmised, a set of toy blocks left in mid-play by a giant, prehistoric, Druid toddler?  It was as majestic as it was inexplicable.  How?  And why?  The stones are enormous.  They are not native to the region, so someone deliberately chose those stones elsewhere and transported them to the English countryside, cut them to the shapes they are, and stacked them.  What in heaven’s name for?  Nobody will ever really know.  But they’re weird, and so, we make pilgrimages to stare and scratch our heads and puzzle over them.  We look at them because they are there.  Apparently, too, Cas and I look at them because they are big rocks.  We looked at Uluru days before our wedding.  The next year, we gazed up at the stones of Meteora.  We hiked to the top of Barn Bluff in Red Wing, Minnesota and peered to the bottom of the Grand Canyon.  We walked among the stone walls and doors of Machu Picchu.  We’ll go look at rocks.  Naturally occurring or arranged by man, logical or inexplicable, we’ll stand in the presence of unusual rocks and look on in wonder.  

When our Stonehenge visit wrapped up, we were off to see Bath.  There’s an Abbey there we needed to see, and it certainly lived up to our Abbey expectations.  Cas was trying to find out where the choir would be seated during a performance or a service, as a friend of his from work had sung there as a member of a visiting choir.  I spent a little time reading the walls and floors.  Nearly every surface that wasn’t stained glass or ceiling was covered in plaques noting the death of a loved one, placed as a remembrance.  The thing about these plaques was that the majority of them listed the age of the person at the time of his or her death.  I stood there, a reasonably healthy 50-year-old woman, realizing my evidently advanced age, according to the average lifespan that church was starting to help me calculate.  There were far too many stones placed for folks who didn’t make it as far as I have.  It gives you a little perspective.  

We went from the Bath Abbey to a local pub that was recommended as a spot that had great cider.  The English make lots and lots of hard cider.  I enjoy it, though I try not to regularly consume the amount of sugar that cider holds.  Fun fact- Cas and I met at a party held at the home of a mutual friend.  It was a BYOB situation, if I remember correctly.  If it wasn’t, I brought my own beverage anyway.  Seems like good manners to a teacher house party.  I brought cider.  I think it was Hornsby’s Cider.  No matter the brand.  When we had an hour to spend in Bath and sampling their local cider was an option, I couldn’t see why we would do any other thing.  

The secret location was Lacock.  It’s a tiny village.  Our guide told us that, in order for someplace to be considered a village, it had to have a church and a pub.  This spot fulfilled those requirements, for sure.  But it was a spot so full of historically perfect little buildings that there are actual rules from the British government dictating what modifications are allowed.  Spoiler alert- not many.  The outsides of the homes must be kept in the original style.  In fact, the buildings are so old and authentic looking, and the streets so narrow and ancient seeming that this village gets used in period movies.  Lots of Jane Austen stuff filmed in Lacock.  A few Harry Potter scenes show up there.  It is really beautiful, and while not as ancient as Stonehenge, it makes my American home feel like the bricks were mortared together yesterday.  

After our third and final port of call, we were headed back to London.  There was a slight hiccup as traffic slowed for an apparent situation where a bus rear-ended a car, which rear-ended another car, but police and an ambulance were there, and nobody seemed terribly hurt.  It did push our return to the hotel to about 8:30, which shoved our dinner plans to even later, and that made for some challenge.  Apparently, after 9 pm, the entire riverside of the Thames is a dance club.  I’m talking an uhn-tiss-uhn-tiss, neon-and-strobe, girls bouncing in spandex dance club.  In Bath Abbey, I felt like a miracle of modern medicine, living to the advanced age of 50.  In the environment of the riverfront after 9 pm, I felt like a relic from a bygone era.  It gave me some perspective about my age…. 

It had been a long day.  Cas and I decided- after several spots were louder and much livelier than we were at that point, that we’d do well to hit a grocery store and head back to the hotel.  Neither of us was terribly starved, as we’re good at packing snacks for day-long bus journeys, so that was sufficient.  Sometimes, it’s best to sit in a quiet place with your person and reflect on the amazing day you just had.  As we dined on what can best be described as self-styled, upscale lunchables, we enjoyed the relative peace and quiet that being on the fifth floor was affording us.  I am sure those twenty-somethings were having a great time, and I am sure I wanted nothing to do with it.  Unsurprisingly, it wasn’t hard to fall asleep after that day.

Today, we have theater tickets.  Sorry- when in Rome- it’s theatre not theater.  At home, I eschew the “re” spelling and opt for the American “er.”  Splitting hairs, I know.  But we had been to a performance in Addison, Texas of The Play That Goes Wrong for Zoey’s birthday.  There is a production in town right now by the same writers called The Comedy About Spies.  We’re off to see a matinee today, and if we make it out in time, there’s a free London Symphony Orchestra free outdoor concert in Traflagar Square.  We’ll feel so darn cultured by the end of the day today!  

But let me make sure to add my special note before Sunday gets rolling in earnest:  Happy Fathers’ Day!  It’s Dia De Los Dads.  I’m shouting out my dad, the one and only Mark Hinds.  He’s the steadiest person I know.  A North Star for the family whose reliable consistency is something we all count on when the world goes sideways.  And though he is currently sleeping as I type, I know Cas intends to call his dad, also named Cas, later today when the time zones are friendlier to such an activity.  It’s always nice to hear my top two favorite Cas Dunlaps checking in and catching up.  Shouts out, as well to Chad, who I am sure you remember from our Paris entries and my big brother Jeff, the dads who made us into Aunt Heather and Uncle Cas.  And with that, we have to get this day started.  I will let Cas sleep just a little more, but we’ve got culture to go and enjoy.  To the theatre!  

Photos: tinyurl.com/dunlap-pl