Cornwall, England – September 14 – 21, 2018 – Outbound

Our Cornwall journey began in Truro.  Cornwall is a county, as opposed to a city, with Truro being the county seat. That meant the Ambassadors were spread far and wide in the region.

The Cornwall club had a busy week scheduled for us. Saturday was spent at the EDEN Project, the world’s largest indoor rain forest. Inside the two biomes (domes) are plants that are collected from many of the world’s diverse climates and environments. The project is located in a reclaimed china clay pit. Later that day, some of us went through the town where the hit BBC program “Poldark” is recorded.  On other days, we visited St. Michael’s

Mount, toured the Cornwall county offices, where we had a presentation about the area, visited the beautiful Truro cathedral, spent an afternoon at the Shelterbox which is a world-wide charitable organization headquartered in Truro providing living necessities, like tents, blankets, cooking utensils and the like, to people in various parts of the world affected by natural calamities. We visited a farm built in the 1400s, which while, that itself was fascinating, is the site where many of the indoor scenes of the BBC TV show “Doc Martin” are recorded in the huge barns on the farm. Of course, we had to visit the seaside town of Port Issac where the outdoor scenes of the “Doc Martin” show are recorded.  A visit to a cider farm rounded out the week where we learned about the cider making process for the last 500 years or so. That day was topped off by a delightful lunch at the family owned and run Callestick Farm, THE Cornish Ice cream parlor. Shortly after our visit, Callestick Farm won an award for the best ice cream in England.

The welcome dinner was a Cornish Patsy making event, where many of our members made Cornish Patsies. By the way, that is pronounced PAT-sy. A highlight for dinner one night was a pizza party at Cornwall club members Jane and Andrew Parker’s farm and bed and breakfast place. They have their own outdoor pizza oven and pavilion where Andrew baked dozens of pizzas that were handmade by some of the Cornwall club members with assistance from our Bill Hogan. The farewell dinner was held in a recently built school for underprivileged children. The school had the latest computer equipment, outstanding performing arts facilities and the latest equipment for the classrooms. Our musical director, Larry Harvey, led the Ambassadors singing several very “American” songs.

We had a wonderful time visiting with the Cornwall club members and seeing their own part of the world. The Cornwall area is very beautiful and the people are just delightful.

–Jack Mullen, Journey Coordinator