Winslow, England - yep that's my last name!

Courtyard behind our hotel

Okay so after quite a few days in a row of drive, camp, climb, pack up and repeat - we have finally become weary travelers.  Amy to the rescue - "Let's not go directly to London, let's go and enjoy a couple of sleepy days in the small town of Winslow, England." Perfect! I say.

 

 

The church in Winslow, England

So most likely my family isn't originally from Winslow, which unfortunately means I won't be crowned king of this little town or anything like that; but the people are quite friendly, the buildings are old and interesting and the last two days here have really hit the spot.  Actually, nobody seems particularly astonished that my last name is Winslow - they are much much much more concerned with my big bushy beard.  Most of the conversations in England so far have revolved around it and people seem to equate it with being homeless.  Which technically we are right now - but not in the smelly change-begging way. For example, the border control agent for the UK took about 20 seconds per car for everyone else but we got the 15 minute interview include a very succinct explanation that if we stayed longer than 6 monthes we would be deported to the USA. Also, be advised that in England, if you say that you are self-employed, they equate that with being unemployed.  While sometimes those definitions do cross paths... nevermind. We made it into the country and once in Winslow were warned by several parties that the bar called "The George" was a bit rough. So, naturally we went there. Which brings me back to beard conversations - I must have had enough bad-ass homeless guy cred to hang at The George because we had a great time. Drank and talked to the locals for hours - even had one very tattoed up feller regale us with stories of each of the jails he had been too in the US and other countries (must have been to at least 15 or 20 as far as I could tell). But he was friendly as any foreigner could hope for the local jailbird to be and had mostly been jailed for vagrancy (note he had no beard). He was mostly astonished that in most countries you will be hassled by the police if you get too drunk and pass out on a bench somewhere (this is apparently one of England's favorite pastimes).

Standing in the doorway to the bathroom in our hotelroom.

We are staying in the Bell hotel which is not the oldest building in Winslow but is still from the 15th century! The old wavy wood beams attest to it's age. Then there is this strange way of building here where they seem to have globbed many buildings onto the original. No attempt is made to hide these additions and the resulting rooflines are dizzying.  It's possible that these additions are built to buttress the original structure as many of the older buildings look like melting ice cream cones and might only be standing because of the support from the surrounding structures. Also, I think people used to be much smaller as I have to duck through every doorway.