It is Wednesday afternoon. Sara and I are in Café Active above the Cotswolds Rock Bottom shop, it’s basically a little coffee shop above an outdoor store. They’ve got ISDN dial up which isn’t broadband, but it’s a little better than regular dial. Sara is checking email and doing a little fragment of work she has to do every Wednesday.
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She showed up in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /><st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Oxford</st1:City></st1:place> right on time. We pushed her bags into the car then wandered the city for a little. She had forgotten to bring a hat and found a nice one in a boutique. We bought sandwiches and a dressed baked potato for a picnic and ate it in a churchyard off a quiet square. <st1:City w:st="on">Oxford</st1:City> is a very pretty city, and after the north of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">England</st1:place></st1:country-region> and the rural southwest, it was a surprise to be somewhere so busy and so full of young people.
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The drive up to <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Wales</st1:place></st1:country-region> was uneventful. We caught each other up on what we’d been doing the last four weeks. By far, this was the longest we’d been apart since we met, so it was a lively talk. Sara told me there were nice views from the car when the highway was above the ground around, I was mostly riveted to the road. We zipped along motorways for most of the trip until the highway turned into rural road about 30 miles from our destination. From there, it was something like backroads <st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">West Virginia</st1:place></st1:State> driving except the roads were narrower and most of the other drivers more courteous.
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We got into Betws-y-Coed late in the afternoon. Our host at the Courthouse Inn, Mark Henlly, showed us around the place and gave us particulars about when breakfast was and where they had tourist info. He and his wife Jill are both very well suited to the hospitality business and have been as helpful with information as they have been careful of our comfort. The building was in fact a courthouse until sometime in the middle of the 20th century. The rooms are all named for functions that were performed there. We’re in the fingerprint room. It’s a good sized room and we get the neighbor’s well tended garden as our view. We’ve been very comfortable.
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Mark and Jill had also given us restaurant recommendations in the village. After unpacking and settling in, we went for a walk that took us first across the nearby River Conwy then around the fringe of a golf course. We did some window shopping, mostly comforting ourselves with the reflection that we didn’t need anything. Had dinner in the grill room of the <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Royal Oak</st1:place></st1:City> – lambs liver just for the adventure which wound up being pretty good.
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No measured walking on Sunday, but I’m sure I ran up at least 5 miles between wandering Oxford and our orientation walk around Betsy, as we’ve heard people abbreviate the name of the village.
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