July Recap

I'm a bit behind on my blogging, so here's a quick recap of July adventures.


Spooner was here for a couple of days -- days that had to be the hottest and muggiest on record. To beat the heat, we drove up to North Adams to Mass MoCA. It's sort of a tradition that we go every summer that Spooner is stateside. There was the usual range of exhibitions -- some really cool, some creepy, and some that just left us scratching our heads. More photos here.

ScribeGirl also blew into town on part of a whirlwind roadtrip to New England (optimistically thinking it would be cooler here -- if just marginally so -- than in North Carolina). We drove up to Turners Falls, an old industrial village with a canal and factories dating from the 19th century. Blue skies, puffy white clouds, a bit of a breeze, and industrial decay -- all perfect ingredients for a photo ramble. We picked up a map at the Great Falls Discover Center and followed the historic walking tour. Photos here.

Pub Quiz!

I'm so excited I can hardly contain myself! I just read that Londonist is having a pub quiz on the evening of my arrival day in London. I've been wanting to do a pub quiz since I first learned about them, and I'm totally in awe of the stellar performance of my mates at the last quiz that Londonist sponsored. This one will be at the Time and Space bar in the Royal Institution -- a place I've been wanting to see. The entry fee of something like 2 quid per person will be donated to a charity.

I put a post about the event on the discussion board of Guess Where London this morning, and we've got six or seven people already who want to be on the team(s). Now, I'll have to spend the next two months brushing up on London trivia if I have any hope of a respectable showing (I've got time, as I usually spend August plotting my Open House plan of attack, but I'll be missing Open House this year.) Time for me to dust off Eccentric London and to go through all the cards in my What Happened Here? deck. Although the prizes will no doubt be fab (if they are anything like the last prizes, which included several Time Out London photo books and a tea towel), I'm really in it for the fun and for spending time with my mates. Really.

Meanwhile, my Liverpool research is progressing nicely. I've found us some really cheap train tickets (£11 singles), and have booked us into a purpose-built apartment type hotel at Liverpool One. I've been reading Walks Through History: Liverpool, and Real Liverpool just arrived in the mail today. We'll be there for only 48 hours, so I have to figure out how to pack the most stuff into that limited time. It's sure to be brilliant.