Wales-Voted-Unanimously-As the Best Part of the Trip!-by JR

J.R. has received the mic. Okay, well, My mom wants to write about our trip to the UK for everyone. So.... here it goes. 

I was really excited about our trip from the beginning but I was really sad I couldn't go back to the states for the summer and be in Utah again. Luckily, that didn't take any of the fun out of our trip.  Though we were tired we managed to make our way to each destination without too many problems ( minus losing Bryce on the bus,  almost getting arrested,  trespassing into castles, and crashing wedding parties. Obviously minor problems.) Wales was easily the best place. We were even there during the Eurocup excitement where Wales was doing well. Arnold and June let us borrow there home which was easily the best place we stayed. Definitely better than the one room, one bathroom we had for five days in London...Just saying. I'm going to pick my top three favorites of this trip. 

3. 3rd on our list of amazingly awesome things that happened on our trip comes from Ireland. The Irish accent is pretty awesome (and maybe a little fun to mess with. Sorry to all Irish) We found a really nice Irishman in one of the museums in Ireland. During the trip I told my dad what it sounded like when the Irish say 33 and other words that start with TH. My dad couldn't resist asking this guy to say 33. This was not the first time our Irish friend had been asked to say this. I could tell from the face he gave my dad. He was a good sport and said "tirty tree". The Irish are still the coolest people.

2. I kind of had a tie here but they are almost the same so that's ok. While in England and Ireland we found shows we wanted to see. In England we went to Henry V by Shakespeare. In ninth grade I took an honors english class where we read Romeo and Juliet but we got a No Fear Shakespeare book that translates from Shakespeare to english.  (There is a big difference. Shakespearian and English are like Arabic a Spanish, I swear.) We got the same sort of book for this play. I had the book through the entire play and I probably wouldn't have understood it otherwise. When we asked Tyler and Bryce what it was about they had no idea. In Ireland, we went to Riverdance. It was basically Irish dancing. The best part included two groups competing against each other to see who was better. 

1. Drum roll please... Number one took place in Wales. Two of Arnold and June's grandchildren liked to go jumping into water from high places. They took us up the hills of Wales to a trailhead that leads to some beautiful waterfalls. Some of the pools on the river are deep enough to jump into. Sounds like a fun right? But... nothing is perfect. The water was about 1 degree above freezing. Still, we were able to borrow wet suits and made the water feel 2 degrees above freezing! (Sarcasm cough, cough) Plus, well, I thought of another favorite thing. The Giants Causeway in Northern Ireland which is not Ireland (FYI). There were lots of cool rocks that looked like building blocks of giants. There were plenty of boulders to climb and the view with the ocean was amazing. 

Everywhere in the UK there was lots of greenery. Like, I Haven’t seen that much green for at least a year. In Wales, it was no different. We went straight to the Jones’s house so that we could get settled into our knew living space. 

The next day we received an amazing full english/welsh breakfast. We ate lots and lots of food and just chilled some more until after lunch when we finally left the comforts of our home in Wales. First we tried to go to the coal mines but for reasons unknown it was closed. We could have just trespassed and walked in like we did in the castle but instead, we decided that we had done enough trespassing for one trip and went to a national park. It turned out to be a great idea. Most of our pictures come from there. We walked through some fields until we found a view point and then took a lot of pictures. (trust me you’ll see.) After we went home and got a delicious meal. 

The next day we woke up and were ready and a little not ready for what we were about to do. We made an “american breakfast” for our Welsh friends. What that is supposed to mean I’m not sure. I mean, honestly, that is  usually just cereal or toast for a lot of us. But we made a classic from the Benson family side.:Eggs Goldenrod. After we were led up the hills of the welsh country side where we jumped off waterfalls. I  already explained this part above so I don’t need to now.

 Later, we went to another castle with a museum inside of it about well... I’m  not really sure. Stuff... I guess. It was really random. It was like a whole bunch of stuff from a lot of different places pooled into one museum. We then left for Scotland. On our drive there we passed a national park mountains/hills on both sides of us. dozens of small little waterfalls poured across the rocky surfaces. The mountains were full of lush greenery. Ya know, I think that I’m explaining the same thing over and over again. It was so green. Yep that mountain was green, the hill was green, the tree was green. The building was green. I think that I won’t explain the color of the landscape anymore just assume it was green okay? Anyway after that we were in Scotland so thats not my place to talk about. Overall, Wales was the best, most totally awesome place we went to.

 This was the first church building in England. In order to unlock the door we had to take some church trivia that gave us the code to unlock the  door (see below) 

 The inside of the church building. There are some green hymn books so it might still be in use. 

 My mom set the camera on timer and she ran through the church isles to get in with the family. Naughty, naughty. Running in church is bad. 

 This book has the names of people that have visited the church sight. We found some people we knew! Kay from Murray!!

 Our fam in front of the church building. 

 Rylee struggling with her seat belt. She isn’t used to them yet. 

 Well, We are the totally awesomest trespassing, wedding party crashers. We just kind of walked into a castle we saw. Sadly, it was reserved for a wedding which was going on right outside the castle.  The door was open and their were cars on the side so we just walked right in. Nobody noticed us for about 10 minutes. We were just walking around enjoying the castle staff when we find that it’s reserved for a wedding party for a couple from Hawaii. Who woulda known? Luckily they were really nice about it, but we were just glad to get out of there. 

The nice road to the castle. 

 A random Cricket game going on.

 A little cottage we found near the castle we trespassed onto. Check out the roof!

 Castle gates. The sign to the right of the opening says CLOSED. My dad chose to ignore that sign and keep driving. It was obviously open. 

 Sunset pics are my favorite this one was especially epic.

 Sheep sheep and more sheep. Baaaaaaa

 The sign for the big pit. Unfortunately it was closed.

 Here starts our pictures of our hike through a Wales national park. We enjoyed posing all along this trail. There are a ton of picture so I’m only captioning this pic. 

 Mary Poppins, I mean Merry Benson's

 Now we are moving into the pictures of the hike and jumping off water falls. 

 I fit into the full body water suit the best so i got it. Everyone else froze to death. 

 I made my first jump into the 2 degree above freezing water. The next picture is about 3 seconds after I frantically swam to the shore after feeling the extreme cold. 

 Dad didn’t get a wet suit. What a trooper.

 My first jump off the rope swing. It was pretty awesome. 

 The one hugging Rylee is one of the boys that brought us to the area. Redd

 Here is the other boy that brought us. Levi

 Mom is to afraid to go in past her ankles so she pretends she is just taking care of kids. Just kidding...Kind of.

 Mom womaned up and jumped. 

 Bringing the lost sheep back to the flock. You know I think I’ve heard a couple gospel stories like that. 

 This castle is a school and a museum. It has really nice park next to it. 

 Pictures while we were on the road. 

 We tried to stretch all the way around this giant tree. As you can see I did most of the work. 

Grass/dirt art next to the castle.