Bathroom Decor

Dee is always planning to go somewhere.

Now he can plan where he's going,

Even when he's going.

(Get it?)

Click here for a treasure map to cool maps!

Maps

Stanford's Map & Travel Shop

Stanford's in London
(located on Long Acre, close to Covent Garden)
is one of our favorite haunts.
It's the world's largest map and travel book store.

You can find a map to anywhere you want to go—
they're printed on shower curtains, lampshades . . .

. . . scarves and towels . . .

. . . and even the floor.

Three stories of travel books (including fiction arranged by the country the book takes place in) and big drawers of maps, plus tables to spread them out. Unique travel accessories, a section with awesome books for kids about travel, history, art—and a cafe with homemade custard tarts. I want to live there.

I love maps. My sixth grade classroom had the coolest set—ten different maps wrapped around the same cylinder with a different colored cord dangling from each one. I especially loved the one showing the route Magellan took to circumnavigate the world for the first time.

There were pictures of monsters in the ocean, because that's what the sailors expected to see (if they didn't fall off the edge of the earth first.) Isn't it incredible that people could draw maps before airplanes were invented? How could they get the right perspective?


Sailing or walking, they measured and recorded every step of the journey so they could find their way back. Other explorers charted a course based on the experiences of the first guy, and added their own observations.

Some folks strike out for places unknown, and never know if they've arrived. I got an email this weekend that said, "I was content being unhappy until I started reading your blog. Now I want to live in your world! How do I get there?"

I've had a good map for my life's journey—I'd be lost without it. It's like an A to Zed, as the British say, and it's given me direction.

"I may not have gone where I intended to go,
but I ended up where I wanted to be."

Have you discovered how to get where you're going?

Audition for London Street Theater

Double-decker bus in London, England

"Straight on, a hundred meters . . . you can't miss it."

Covent Garden Station

Covent Garden is straight out of a movie set—
(if you can remember My Fair Lady and Oliver.)


Statues that come to life for tuppence . . .



(It takes a pound these days.)


Artwork, jewelry . . .


. . . antiques, books . . .


. . . quirky guys in sequins,


. . . and potatoes in their jackets.

This guy attracted an audience. He walked around on his ladder for a while and then started juggling—swords! Balancing on the rungs, he tossed three long knives in the air, catching them by their handles. (He clanked them on the ladder so we knew they were real.) The crowd cheered him on, and he started to strip! First his jacket, then his shirt, and then, with a flourish, his kilt!
Luckily he was not a true Scot—he had a little something under his kilt. A bright turquoise speedo.

Downstairs, this girl just started singing opera.
No introduction, no microphone, no accompaniment,
just confidence.


Jet-lag hit and our hotel was ready.
Down a short street, right around the corner, was our fabulous home for the week.

The Strand Palace Hotel is a 4-star hotel and though our room was small, it was lovely. It had a luxurious bed, big modern bathroom with a good shower, and a fabulous price for such a perfect location. $250 a night was a great deal, especially compared to the Savoy Hotel directly across the street, which was $600-$800 a night.

My advice for London on a budget: stay in a hoppin' neighborhood in the best hotel you can find under $300. The cheaper hotels ($150-$200) are usually (not always) a distance away from the action in town. The beds are hard, rooms and bathrooms small and old. The younger you are, the more these places (without lifts) will appeal. We now opt for creature comforts: elevators, extra pillows, a table or desk to write at and decent light bulbs. Some more tips:

Hotel restaurants are often highly expensive and, unless breakfast is included, it could cost as much as your room! Walk outside and in any direction you'll find a Pret a Manger within a block or two. They have fabulous breakfasts, fresh-squeezed juices, hot porridge, warm croissants, lots of butter and homemade jam, muffins, fruit, yogurt, etc. for $5-$8. Better food at cheaper cost. Pub grub (fish and chips or sausage and mash) is delicious for lunch or dinner and just as traditional as high tea someplace fancier.

Take the tube or the bus to save on taxi fare (cabs are an expensive option) and enjoy the street theater 24/7, everywhere you go.

You might be jigging for joy after a
chocolate waffle and I bet they'd let you join the group.

Avoid the juggling stripper, though.
Those swords could do serious damage if you are a true Scots man.
(Then you could sing the high soprano with the Opera girl.)

True high culture on the Streets of London!

Searching for Puritan Ancestors

When my great-grandpa Anthony Colby arrived in Salem, Massachussetts on April 8, 1630, nobody stamped his passport. He was undocumented. Did anybody keep track of folks in those days?

I went underground as a sleuth in London, England to find out.

Forty five minutes outside the city is a town called Kew.
I followed my leader down the road and arrived at . . .

The British National Archives.

Great-grandpa Colby wouldn't have been admitted. It took a passport and two forms of ID to get through the door. They took my photo at the entrance, and matched it to my face when I got to the desk inside, where they took my official photo.

Security was tighter than the airport. Bags, purses, coats, notebooks and pens had to be stowed in lockers. I carried my camera, magnifying glass, a loose piece of paper and a #2 graphite pencil (without an eraser) in a clear plastic bag to get my readers card.

The room reminded me of the DMV. There were several computers and I waited my turn, then took a short on-line course about how to handle old documents (which I skimmed) followed by a short on-line quiz (which I flunked.) I returned to the course, passed the quiz and qualified for a card, which unlocked the gates to each library room—where they searched my plastic bag each time I went in or out. It was starting to seem like a big deal.

I was glad I'd done my homework. This wasn't the LDS Family History Library: no sweet missionaries hovering around with smiles and helpful tips. These were serious historians who expected me to know preliminary facts, speaking with accents and vocabulary I could barely understand. After a little research I requested "a bundle."

There were 5,000 bundles of documents stored in damp, vermin-infested warehouses on London docks for hundreds of years. They were consolidated in one building in 1883 and moved to this new facility in 1997, but by then many had deteriorated or been eaten by rats. Just 1,450 survived, and one of them had my name on it.

Luckily, I'd just completed a course on how to unwrap my bundle.

I put on my white cotton gloves and examined the sheepskin binding.

It slowly dawned on me that I was looking at the actual record.

The pages were of vellum and parchment.

The writing was beautiful and undecipherable.

Several years worth of ship's records were bound together in the same book,
and I could read the dates and recognize a few words here and there.

And I discovered that yes, somebody was keeping track of folks in those days.
There was the record of Anthony's ship, the Confidence.

Pleased to meet you, Grandpa Colby.

Works in Progress

Big anniversary.
(Click for more)

Cousins Club Newsletter
(Click for more)


Planning a trip!
(Click for more)

More to come . . .

Our Heroes

Face Painting

Where were the superheroes? We needed saving. A year in England without income, not to mention root beer, heat, showers, Oreos, peanut butter . . . it was taking it's toll. We were broke, basically running out of everything. And we couldn't tell anyone our plight. (That's the problem with flaunting your self-confidence in the face of everyone's advice.)

By February Dee had finished his class work and was beginning his dissertation. He had to write a document of a few hundred pages, longhand, in our bedroom, next to the drafty window in order to have light. Forty watts doesn't cut it during a drab and dreary Yorkshire winter, where it gets dark at 3:30 in the afternoon. With the requisite cardi (cardigan sweater) over his sweater vest, he wrote in the frigid room wearing fingerless gloves. It was a scene out of Dr. Zhivago.

The hot air was leaking out of our balloon and we were starting to feel adrift. Remember all those meddlesome folks who thought we were nuts? What if they were right? Was it just the weather that was giving us cold feet? It wasn't like we had a plan. Dee was now capable of restoring stained glass windows in medieval cathedrals, and replicating mortar from the 13th century, but there wasn't much call for that in Salt Lake City. What had we been thinking? Starting over in a different country and culture was bold and daring. Starting over again a year later in front of everyone we knew could be total humiliation.

The Mohawk

It was a little late to re-think it. I read from my journal and we rehashed our old conversations, trying to recall the faith, hope and inspiration we had felt at the beginning. Dee started sending resumes, but doubt and worry crept in. Blessings kept coming, though. A couple of miracles buoyed us up.

One Sunday afternoon we were sitting on our bed in York, and the phone rang, which was extremely unusual. Nobody called us. I answered and it was one of our SLC neighbors. He was wondering how we were doing, and wanted to tell us what great neighbors we had always been. Blown away by his kind words, we talked for a while. Then he said he had sent us something in the mail and wondered if we'd received it. We thought back, mentally thumbing through our Christmas cards from three months before and said we didn't think so. "Watch for it," he said. How thoughtful, we thought. That call was just the encouragement we needed. What a great guy.

Gabi and Josh in phone box

Within a day or so we got his envelope. Inside was a check for $1,000!!! He had written a lovely letter saying he hoped this would come in handy, and that he admired our nerve. "Please spend it with the pleasure I got from sending it." Unbelievable!

A good friend from home wrote a few weeks later. "I've always loved your diamond ring. Would you consider selling it to me?" Who asks a question like that? It was so unexpected, yet perfectly timed! Mutual friends were coming to visit us, so she sent a check with them. I packaged my ring carefully in a tube of Smarties (M & M's) and they took it home to her. This infusion of cash saved our bacon—bought our bacon, actually.

We were still unsure of what we'd do once we got home. Out of the blue, Dee was contacted by a university professor who needed some research done for a book. He had heard from so-and-so, who had heard from so-and-so that we were in Yorkshire. What started as an interesting project ended up to be life changing.

Gadfield Elm Chapel

The research required us to travel a few times a week throughout the spring and summer. Following two hundred-year-old maps we went in search of ancient mills, barns, churches, houses and other ruins. We explored all over England and parts of Wales on twisting back roads, peering through hedgerows, and climbing through scrub. Most of these were day trips while the kids were in school; other times we took them along. Local histories and journals written during the period gave us our itinerary, and we followed paths described in the 1800's. The stories were fascinating and the people came alive to us.

Slowly it dawned on Dee that this was what he wanted to do: chronicle the lives of everyday folks, document how they rose to the challenges they faced, and place those events in historic perspective. Anticipation came rushing back.

Roofians from the neighborhood

That year in York was when our kids earned their hero status. Dee relates it to an experience he had at summer camp when he was in the ROTC:

His platoon was running in formation when Dee had an asthma attack. Unable to catch his breath, he started to lag behind, slowing the whole group. His arms were bent so the two guys on either side of him (who were both tall) lifted him from under his elbows, and carried him the rest of the way. Dee compares our kids to those two soldiers. They ran in formation, lifted us up and made sure we finished the run.

Cute new school clothes

It was an amazing family project. Without all the usual props—phones, malls, cars, sports, lessons, clothes, TV, friends—we became our own foundation. Other years before and after were filled with the paraphernalia of life, but that year set a new tone. We protected, sustained, comforted and fortified each other. We all gave up everything, and we discovered that we still had everything we needed. It was worth it.

The Heroes: Micah, Heidi, Amy, Gabi, Marta, Peter, Josh

York: August 1985-August 1986.

I'll be forever grateful for that year.