The United Kingdom

In September of 1991 there was a thermoelectric conference in Cardiff, Wales that I wanted to attend. Once again I really wanted to take my wife with me so we could take some time after the conference and travel around. The kids were older now so we decided that rather than farm them out to different people we would just hire a babysitter to come and stay with them. Conveniently, Michael Easter had met a British girl on his mission to England who had come to Rosemary and they were making plans to get married. We figured she would be interested in making a little extra money and maybe she could get a bit of insight into what she was getting into once she was married. Her first name was Tonya but I don't remember her last name. Her last name is now Easter. I will share some of Tonya's more exciting experiences at our home in a later entry, today I want to talk about my trip. It turned out be pivotal in the direction our lives would end up going. Of course we now had another new baby since Alex was only six months old but we had gone through this with Alycia and so it wasn't as hard for Lisa this time to "abandon" her baby and come with me to Europe. We landed in London and wanted to go see the Temple but it was closed for renovations. Wouldn't you know it? We spent a day or two in London seeing the usual stuff:
The Tower of London, Big Ben, Piccadilly Circus (that was a big disappointment), St Paul's cathedral, Tower Bridge and of course, perhaps the most exciting to me was the subway system. Pretty fascinating.

We then drove on down to Brighton both to see the sea but also because Tonya's mother lived there and we wanted to stop in and say hi. Brighton was a beautiful city built on the edge of a very big hill that drops down to the coast.

It was then on over to see Stone Henge. We stood there out in the middle of some farmers fields and said, "yes, that is pretty cool." I touched the stones just to be able to say that I did and then we left. I think we were there all of about half an hour. I'm glad we went and I would recommend that anyone who can go and see them but once you've seen it what more can you do?

Then it was on to Bath. Definitely my favorite place in all of Europe. It is just fascinating to me to see how the Romans with their limited technology created these places with under floor heating, the lead pipes that are still there and these pools that must have been beautiful in their day. I loved it.









These are supports that used to hold up the floor. Hot water and steam passed under the floor keeping it warm. Pretty smart for 2000 years ago.

From Bath we headed on into Cardiff in Wales.













The conference was held at the University of Cardiff and lasted four or five days. Everybody from the thermoelectric world goes to these conferences and I have presented many papers at them. We all know each other. Lisa and I actually stayed at the university dormitories. It was very strange. We were in this tiny little room with two single beds and a bathroom. It was cheap though and very convenient. One day I was sitting at a table with Jack Bass who worked for Hi-Z Technology in San Diego. Hi-Z specialized in Bismuth Telluride technology while Global specialized in Lead Telluride technology. The two technologies are very different and would compliment each other nicely. I made one of those comments were you are sort of joking but half serious and I said to Jack, "you need to come and work for Global, we could really use you." He laughed and said back to me, "I don't think so, you need to come and work at Hi-Z, we could really use you." I also laughed and we left it at that. The invitation stuck in my mind though and I dwelled on it for months. I eventually called Jack about it and I will shared that story later.

When we moved to Rosemary our next door neighbor was Rhetta Crapo. Her husband had built our house and then they later built a new house next door and sold the old house. She was a widow who had raised all of her kids and we became very good friends. She has a son who was a stake president in Victoria and one time she was visiting her son and she met Ralph Poleman. Ralph and his wife were from Merthyr Tydfil in Wales and he was called to be the mission president in Victoria. While on their mission Ralphs wife suddenly passed away. Ralph went home, buried his wife and then came back to finish his mission. Ralph was very good friends with Retta's son the stake president and through him he became very good friends with Retta. After Ralph was finished his mission he went back to Merthyr Tydfil and called Rhetta. Rhetta went to visit him, he came to visit her and then they got married.

Merthyr Tydfil




Rhetta packed up and moved to Merthyr Tydfil. When we learned that we were going to go to Wales Lisa contacted Rhetta to find out where in Wales she lived. That is when she learned that they lived in Merthyr Tydfil and that was a mere 30 miles north of Cardiff. Of course we stopped to visit them. What wonderful people they are. We loved Rhetta when she was a neighbor and we love Ralph just as much. He is a very enterprising man and very different than most Europeans that I know. In most European cities the houses are wall to wall, very narrow and usually two or three stories high. Ralph bought the center of a city block and the four sides of the block all have these wall to wall houses but he owns the entire center. He has a huge yard and a lovely detached brick house. The house had already been started when he bought it but apparently the guy couldn't afford to finish it. Ralph is a developer and he takes large tracts of land and plans out entire neighborhoods including the streets, sewer, drainage, parks and the works. He then builds houses on the lots and sells them. He is very successful.

They showed us around the city including the house where President David O McKay's mother was born.





They also took us to some caves that are in the area. We had a very enjoyable time with them. From Merthyr Tyfil we headed north to Scotland. By this time I was pretty used to driving on the wrong side of the road so I opened it up on those nice freeways. It was a little car and it sounded like the motor was redlining but in order to keep up with the other traffic I was going about 150 km/hr. For those of us here in the states that would be about 90 mph. I did pop it over 100 mph once in a while just to say I had done it. The weird thing is that all along the freeway they have signs clearly posting the speed limit as 100 km/hr. No one could plead ignorance. In Scotland we visited the old stomping grounds of Lisa's great grandparents. She knew them very well so it was pretty cool to see where they grew up. They lived in Kilsyth and we think we may have found the house they lived in. We spent a lot of time in the library and found that the family were weavers and they wove fabric in their house. We went to church in Glasgow and we also made an appearance in Falkirk. I think they lived in Falkirk for a while.

Just out of interest we made our way up to the Stirling Castle ruins because that was likely the Castle that ruled over Lisa's ancestors. It is also interesting to note that this whole area is the setting for the story portrayed in the movie Braveheart. It is highly likely that some of Lisa's ancestors were involved in that whole struggle. I loved the castle, it was a beautiful castle and a beautiful setting. From Kilsyth we headed into Edinburgh. You can't go to Scotland and not visit Edinburgh. The Edinburgh castle and the city were interesting but too commercialized for me. I enjoyed the small towns and the remote area's much more. From Edinburgh we headed south again to the white cliffs of Dover. We hoped on a ferry to go over to Belgium. In Belgium we visited Marleen and Robert Sassenus. Marleen was only sixteen when I found her on my mission. She eventually got baptized and then later married and had a little girl. Robert had served a mission to California. We went with them to the Beach. We got there early and Robert and I went out wind surfing. We spent most of the morning trying to figure out how to stay up on the board but never quite figured it out. When we came back to the beach I noticed that all of the women were topless. We were there early enough when I went out that there weren't many people and I didn't see anyone topless but there were plenty as we walked back. It was quite a sight and as we walked back to where Lisa and Marleen were I was quite worried that Marleen might be topless. That would be awkward. Luckily both Marleen and Lisa had their tops on so I relaxed. The next day we took a ferry back to England and headed for the airport. Our ferry back was a cool hydrofoil and was much faster than the ferry. I was hoping for the hover craft but it was just too much money. We had a wonderful time but we had been gone a long time and were anxious to return to our children. Little did we realize how much fun Tonya had been having in our absence.