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Here's a place to appeal to the kid in us.

May 24, 1999

We knew we had to visit this legendary place, but it's not what we expected. 'Forest' is a misnomer when talking about Sherwood, it's really just an ancient nature preserve, only in ancient times 'preserve' meant "keep all the good hunting for the king."

While the forest contains a good many old oak trees like this one to the right, it also has vast stretches of meadow land. Then we realized that trees are actually somewhat rare in England (hence all the buildings being made of brick and stone). So the area of trees that makes up Sherwood, while not thick like we'd expect a 'forest' to be in the USA, is actually rather impressive by local standards.

Here's an oak they believe to be 800 years old. It's called the Major Oak, and while it really couldn't have been used by Robin to hide from the Sheriff of Nottingham (cause it would have been a tiny squirt of an oak at that time) the foresters are very keen to keep it alive. It has been propped up from below and strung up from above. Every day someone makes the rounds to make sure it's OK.

We were fortunate the day we were there to run into the real Robin Hood. He was recently returned to his natural home on the occasion of his fourth birthday. Using the alias of Sam, he is seen here with 'His Friend,' a time traveler who only appears to be a modern British bobby but is actually Robin's secret agent in the Sheriff's guard.

After we walked a the forest a bit, we decided to stretch.

Must have been a sight for the Little Green Man (a fairy sprite we learned about who is the go between for humans and fairies and who dwells in the wood).

After our forest calisthenics, we had to leave the forest. There was an opportunity to take away priceless souvenirs, but our inner children had grown too old to enjoy them anymore.

Join us as we travel to York, a time capsule in the north of England.

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