Kevin Standlee: Fandom Is My Way of Life

I brought back a small number of souvenirs with me from Wales. I couldn't bring much; my bags were overloaded as it is. Anything I got would have to be light weight and small.

( Bears and Dragons )

Now, almost everyone with whom I have described my trip were unclear on where this "Wales" place is, and not surprisingly, think of that entire landmass called Great Britain as "England." However, almost everyone I met in the UK, if they've heard of Nevada at all, are unlikely to have heard of Reno (I never bother with Fernley; even most Nevadans don't know where it is), and assume that it must be near Las Vegas. When I tell them that is roughly like saying the Glasgow is near London, they were astonished.

(Incidentally, that's not an arbitrary comparison. Per Google Maps, London-Glasgow is 419 miles/674 km and Las Vegas-Reno is 428 miles/688 km.)

Just like lots of Americans have never even heard of Wales, a fair number of people in the UK wouldn't have been able to spot Nevada on a map. Most Americans have heard of England, and I didn't find anyone in the UK who hadn't heard of California, but the rest was a toss up.

This morning I found that I could sign in to the Best Western hotel website. The problem I was having yesterday appears to have been a transient problem with my VPN software. (I'm using my work computer because the personal machine is broken, and the Day Jobbe requires running that VPN for security.) I found a room in the SureStay Reno Airport for less than $120/night plus tax and I booked it.

I took my final COVID test today: all clear. Not that I've had any symptoms, but I saw no reason to take any of the tests I brought with me home.

Having put in extra hours this week, I clocked out after the "morning" meeting (1530 BST) and packed up the computers. I'd packed my luggage this morning. It's a good thing I have that extra checked bag, because not only is my main bag running 22.1 kg, but the smaller bag (my WFC 2021 duffle) is stuffed full as well. How I managed to pick up so much more stuff during this trip, I do not know.

( Train Time )

We're spending tonight at the Cardiff Hilton (a pretty nice room) and will have a look around Cardiff tomorrow before taking the train (probably the same kind of equipment as we rode today) down to London.

Now that the photos have uploaded, I can show the photos from Monday's trip to Swansea in this backdated entry.

( A Day Out in Swansea by Rail )

We headed back to the barn ourselves, threading our way through a heavy downpour after having had what I would consider pretty good weather (mostly overcast with some mist at times, but neither too hot nor too cold). I'd say we got lucky overall, as we never got caught out in the open.

As I said in my earlier post, we did not engage in rushing from point to point trying to check off everything possible. We looked at stuff and I did log more that 11,000 steps, but I was not trying to win any prizes. I got a bit of footage that may appear in a future RLMS and otherwise enjoyed myself without exhausting myself.

I finally have the photos online from yesterday, so here is a backdated entry with some highlights of our travels. There are lots more where these came from, so click through to see more.

( Wildlife Refuge, Hill Fort, Prehistoric Dolmen )

The light was fading as we left for the day, but we did get back before dark, just barely. No trains today, and we did fewer things than initially planned, but I'm very happy to have seen the things I did see. Not everything comes out in photos, but the memories will stay with me forever.

No train trip today, although I did take some train-related photos for use with writing about another trip later. Today we went to Carmarthen, where we started with a historic church.

( St. Peter's Carmarthen )

As interesting as the church is, that wasn't why we were here. We went by the church because it was the point where participants in a march were forming up.

( Parading through Carmarthen )

The weather today was just about perfect. No rain, but not too much sun or heat. I'm glad I wore sunscreen, given that I seem to get sunburned in the dark, I'm so sun-sensitive.

Later in the day, I had an excellent lunch at The Warren in Carmarthen. This award winning restaurant comes highly recommended.

We did some various types of shopping, socialized with others who participated in the events, and generally had a good time. It wasn't something I'd done before, but I'm glad that I attended and I was happy to be invited to participate. There are surely much bigger such Pride parades, but Carmarthen is smaller than Fernley, and I know that an event of this size in a town the size of Fernley would be significant. The town and the merchants seemed to out in force supporting this event, and I thought it was fun.

This morning I worked on Day Jobbe stuff for a couple of hours before heading to Carmarthen for a ride on the morning train of the Gwili Railway, which operates over a restored section of the former Carmarthen to Aberystwyth line. Photos and video below, and as usual, click through any of them for more.

( Trains in the Rain )

We headed back to base, where I had to get back to work at the Day Jobbe, including working later into the evening to make up for the time spent riding trains.

It was a very nice trip and I once again was glad I got to ride another train here in Wales.

Our plans for today were rained out, but the photos and video I took yesterday have finally all uploaded and I had enough time to label them, so here's the longer report of yesterday's trip out the Heart of Wales line. As always, you can click through any of these photos to see the rest of them, in particular today the 70 items in the Heart of Wales album.

( Lovely Day for a Walk )

I had a fine day out hiking around, and I'm glad I got to see this piece of Wales.

Today I was able to get out for a nice 30 minute walk in the morning before starting Day Jobbe work around Noon.

( A Walk in the Park )

Meanwhile, Lisa had to bail out of the AirBnB in Munich. The description as we read it looked like it was a small studio apartment with an en suite toilet, but it turned out to be a bedroom in someone's house. That was not what we signed up for. For the moment, we've managed to move Lisa to a Holiday Inn near where her friend Chris is staying. That's only a short-term fix and we hunt around for a new base of operations. I was able to cancel part of the original AirBnB reservation, although we're out the cost of the first 30 days. Also, any alternative accommodation will be more expensive. Annoyingly in the short term, there is no way for Lisa to make calls from the hotel to call me, even with her telephone credit card, because the hotel's telephone system only allows you to call their front desk. And while the hotel room has Ethernet ports, they are not hot. Lisa's computer does not have have Wi-Fi, nor does she want it, and her internet telephone requires a wired connection. The hotel says they don't know about wired connections and only do Wi-Fi. Chris and I can call her because we know the hotel's phone number and her room number, but she can't call us.

It was a lovely, luxurious thing to sleep eight entire hours and not have to rush away to a Business Meeting or anything else, for that matter. As the hotel was on points, breakfast was not included, so after getting cleaned up we walked next door to Starbucks, had a breakfast with no time pressure, then went back to the hotel and set off for the second half of the drive from Glasgow. Along the way, we had a couple of things to see.

I have taken many photos, but have not cataloged them. I am too tired to do so, as we spent the day driving. We will see if I ever get back to being able to document any of these photos.

( To the Trains (and the Castle) )

Our weather luck, which had been excellent yesterday and into today, went away, and as we set off on the second half of our drive, the rain started to fall, sometimes very heavily at times, as we drove the twisty A483.

We have an additional expedition set up for this weekend about which I will write later, but now I need to get unpacked and settled into my home away from home for the next three weeks.

This trip completes my "home nations" checklist, as I've never been in Wales before today, but have been previously in England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland.

Meanwhile, Lisa and Chris traveled today from York to Portsmouth. According to Chris, yesterday they were able to use their first class Eurail pass to get brunch on board the train from Edinburgh to York, so I hope the trains they took today also had good first class accomodation. As I understand it, they will be in Portsmouth most of tomorrow before taking an overnight ferry to Ouistreham (for Caen). I won't be documenting all of their travels, but I arranged most of the hotel stays between Glasgow and Munich, so I know where they are planning to be, and if it's an IHG property, I get notified when the points for the stays post to my account.