Royal Bath & West Show, More About Uranus, and Spectacular Views.

Hello everyone, it is your main man Zach Parrott on the blog today.  So today was the Royal Bath & West Show tour. My expectations were pretty met when I was told it was just a huge county fair. So the sights of vendors filling the street trying to sell you their junk and thousands of places to get food. When I walked in through the yellow gates, I recognized the scent of manure and the sound of sheep, hogs, and cows in the distance. So it was pretty much just like home. The first thing our tour guide showed us were the sheep tents, so of course me being the sheep guy I was excited. They had your typical breeds that I was familiar with, like Hampshires, Shropshires, Dorsets, Southdowns, and Suffolks. However, the Texas was a new breed to me. These sheep looked like a stubby bulldogs with a longer body and hooves. One thing I learned is that some of the breeders dye the wool of their sheep so that they can tell which animal belongs to which breeder if animals got mixed together. Next were the hogs. We got to watch the 2-5 year old showmanship hog show. In the UK instead of whips or canes, showmen use two boards to control the direction of where they want the hog to walk which seemed to make things more difficult. Luckily the little ones had help from an adult when they were showing these animals that weighed 10X more than them. After that we went to see the cattle barns. The one thing that stuck out in that barn was their was a breed call a Blue Limousine. This thing was the Mike Tyson of cattle breeds. It had muscles popping out of it’s muscles. A picture of the beast will be at the bottom of the blog. I’m pretty sure this specimen had rhino in it’s family tree. After that we walked toward the horses and got a glimpse of how huge the horse shows are in the UK. They had, I believe four rings specifically for horse showing. Once our tour was over we had free time to roam the fairgrounds wherever we wanted. I walked with Caleb Haines and Paige Schaffter. We walked around the trade show, and laughed at all the weird Knick knacks and stuff vendors were selling. We grabbed a bite to eat, and I had a lamb burger. We ate and watched some live music. We saw horse shoeing, honey collecting, a falconer show, and the most impressive Terrier Racing, where they took tiny dogs and had them chase a rabbit dummy. The fair was really cool and had a lot of similarities to fairs in Ohio.

 

After the Royal Bath & West Show, we got to have free time in Bath. I noticed on the first day that Bath is a location where women can go shop for fancy clothes and shoes, while the the men stand around looking at the pretty architecture. That sounded loads of fun to the women, however Caleb and I had other plans. The ladies wanted to go see the Jane Austin Museum, so Caleb and I just started walking. I started googling sights and spots to see in Bath, and we saw just about everything on the list yesterday. I saw one intriguing spot on the list, that was the Herschel Museum of History. I remember as a kid being fascinated by the stars, so my imagination said let’s go check out some cool observatory stuff. We walked roughly 12 minutes until we made it to this little apartment building. I felt like I was just walking into somebodies house uninvited. We asked the old man at the counter who said this was the spot. We paid £6.50 for a 20 minute walk through the man who discovered Uranus’s house. There was a small dining room and a telescope on the second floor. There was also a basement, that had a creepy cave looking room that was all black so you could watch the 15 minute video of William Herschel and his wife on how they discovered the great planet of Uranus. It’s actually very impressive his process on discovering the planet, because he was a musician for starters, but the museum was soooo boring. Luckily Caleb asked the old man at the counter of the museum where’s the best place to overlook Bath, and he sent us to Alexandria Park which was a 45 minute walk which included 80 steps up a hill. Caleb and I made our treacherous journey to Alexandria Park, avoiding box care and buses. Once we started walking up the 80 steps, we promised each other not to turn around and peak a look. Once we made it to the top, the view was completely worth it. A picture will be posted at the end of the blog, but it’s a sight that can’t be described in a picture. Absolutely Breathtaking. Fortunately, if it wasn’t for the Old Man at the Uranus Museum we would’ve never found that park and the path back was right behind our hotel. So the walk back was a breeze and we made it back safe. Here are the pictures…..