Favorite Fotos: countryside out the windows

Sorry to have neglected the blog the last couple of days, but they were the last ones with all my kiddos at home. Sally had to get back to work today, but Hal and Carey are still around. They went off to work at a neighborhood coffee shop this morning, though, so I have some time to blog now.

I tried several times, on several different trips, to take pictures outside the train, car, or plane windows, with very little success. But I did come up with a few shots that, I hope, will give a little flavor of the lovely English (and Scottish and Welsh) countryside. Everything was so green! and looked so much like it does in movies both actual and those that play in your head when you're reading.

The picture at the top of the post is out of the Oxford Tube bus window on my first trip to that lovely city. This was in September, before fall colors were in evidence. Could you possibly mistake this view for anywhere but England?! Another picture taken on that sunny day is this one, taken a bit earlier in the journey....


.... and this one, a bit further on:


Notice the good view of the hedge of trees in this shot. Here is a more panoramic view of hedge-y countryside, this one taken from the little Flybe jet we took to Inverness. The countryside we're circling is that around Gatwick.


I was fortunate enough to take two trips to Scotland during my time in the UK. Here's a shot from the train window during my earlier journey, in September to Edinburgh. I don't think we were in Scotland yet when this was taken, but unfortunately I don't know what lovely town this is. It might have been Durham; I'd love to hear from someone who could let me know. This lack of info doesn't spoil the enjoyment of the photo, however, at least I hope not:


By the time the following shot was taken, however, I'm pretty sure we were in Scotland. Love those lighthouses!


Another very scenic trip I got to take was to Wales. This one was by car, which certainly added another element of adventure to the journey. On the right is a shot out the windshield as we crossed the Severn Estuary on the M-4. What an impressive bridge! No breath-holding possible for this transit!

We generally managed the driving pretty well, with Henry behind the wheel and me navigating, but some of the roads were very, very scary. Fortunately, however, not very crowded. Below is a shot of a typical minor Welsh road, in the rain. Note lack of shoulders, proximity of hedges (which hopefully would have been soft landings, had we needed to collide with them) and, above all, narrowness of road. At least you didn't have to worry about which side to drive on!


It was also rainy on our trip to Bath in October, but I was still enchanted enough by the view out of our bus window to try and take some photos. I'll close with this view of the lovely countryside near Bath. You can't complain too much about the rain when its result is such a "green and pleasant land!"


Looking through the photos to find these countryside views got me excited about more of my scenic shots, so I'll try and post collections of some of these in the next few days.