Honeymoon Journal

Went to Cheddar Gorge, and got there before it opened. The Cheddar caves were cool, doubly so since I'd never been in one before. We also saw the Cheddar Man, a 4000-year-old skeleton found in the caves and DNA-traced to a living relative in the area. We walked up the 296 granite stairs of Jacob's Ladder to the top of the gorge, then climbed a few dozen more to the lookout tower at the crest; what a workout! We saw a second cave and a cheesy (in Cheddar, even!) save-the-crystal adventure for kids, then stopped a bit at the cheese factory - which was at the center of a craft complex that included lace, pottery, and candle-making demonstrations.

I made a small pot (which didn't quite survive the trip back, and resembles an old Roman ruin itself), and we watched the chandler for about half an hour. Naturally, we sampled some of the cheese. I'd expected that this would take the whole day, but we were done around 2. Still feeling energetic, we headed out to Bath and canoed along the lovely River Avon for two hours, dodging huge motorized ferries (and waving to them, of course). As fun as it was, I didn't like the industrial feel and the noisy confusion of Bath (especially driving downtown), and so talked Tom into driving back to our B&B.