Yeah… we saw the Queen of England. I can’t even tell you how exciting that was…

I know that isn’t a very good picture. I used better pictures in that first post I did telling you I was back home. And I have more pictures coming up that are better. But I didn’t want to waste any of them.

There I am, looking all excited that the Queen was going to be arriving soon. I had to blur out Mollie’s face… because that is the way my wife likes it. Security is always a concern… and speaking about security, you know who has a lot of it?

The Queen of England.

Okay, that lovely set of British Bobbies were there mostly to answer stupid questions from American tourists. But they did form the front line of defense.

I will be honest. When my wife said we were going to go watch the Queen’s official birthday celebration and the Trooping of the Color, I thought she was a little nuts. I thought we would be so far away that the Queen would be a little dot in the distance. I am here to admit that I was wrong. So wrong. But I will get to all that soon enough.

Look at that… the security was so tight that when one of the crack squirrels that live in my head popped out for a closer look, the Bobbies politely turned it away.

The excitement kept mounting as more and more regiments of the Household troops arrived. I wish I could explain the tradition of the Trooping of the Color. It goes way back. These are some of the oldest units in the British army and are technically under direct command of the Royal Family. There is a lot of history being played out here.

These men are dressed in the fancy dress uniforms, but all the units are serving military units, and these men were all in combat in Afghanistan before being rotated home.

I was so excited by my personal experience that day that I spent the rest of our time in England telling everybody I met that I had seen the Queen and the Royal Family. It seems that seeing the Queen to the British is a little like visiting the Statue of Liberty is to the people of New York City. Most of them haven’t yet. I guess they figure they will one of these days. They just haven’t gotten around to it yet.

Members of these famous units were also selling pamphlets that explain the traditions and ceremonies. They also explained all the symbolism of the fancy red dress uniform coats. That little symbol on that soldier’s collar and the way the buttons on the front are arranged tells you what Household Cavalry or Foot Guards unit he is part of… you really ought to Google all this stuff.

The main thing is that I was wrong, and my wife was right, and we saw the Queen from not to terribly far away, and we had an awesome time and it was a great life experience.