Great Britain 2024 - Part Nine - Ending Our Trip In London

Day Twenty - 01 October

Winston Churchill.

We left Glasgow and took our next to last two train trips.  Over the last twenty days we spent one day and two hours riding twenty trains 1,389 miles (2,236 km) across Britain.  These last trains, the longest segment ridden, would take us to the start of our trip, London.

It was raining when we arrived and we took a taxi to our hotel located on the edge of Hyde Park.  If the weather had cooperated a walk in the park would have been nice but the weather and our busy schedule would prevent us from exploring this large park. To be honest, as it was near the end of our travels in Britain, I was too tired to do much wandering.

Day Twenty-One - 02 October

Westminster Abbey.

We took the tube to Westminster station and met our walking tour guide near the statue of Winston Churchill.  From the start you could see the Elizabeth Tower with its famous Big Ben bells.

First stop in the walking tour was Westminster Abbey.  A lot of history has taken place here and many famous British subjects are buried here.  Unfortunately the crowd of tourists were often standing on graves that you wished to photograph.  Still we saw the resting places of Isaac Newton, Stephen Hawking, and Michael Faraday.  While I gawked at the scientists the Wife gawked at the authors and poets.

From there we walked to Buckingham Palace to witness the changing of the guard.  Along with the regular soldiers there was a large contingent of Gurkha soldiers in their distinctive uniforms as well.

Buckingham Palace from the mall.

We walked to Trafalgar square where we stopped for lunch at the Admiralty pub.

After lunch we walked toward the river Thames passing number 10 Downing Street along the way.  At the Thames we got on a boat and cruised up the river.  Unfortunately the weather, which had been fairly dry most of the morning so far decided to get a bit wetter so we went inside the boat and admired the buildings through windows.  From the ship we saw the Shard, the Globe Theater, and other landmarks you could see on the way to tower bridge.

Tower Bridge over the Thames.

At Tower Bridge we got off the boat and toured the Tower of London.  We met the legendary ravens and saw the crown jewels and learned of the history of the tower and the beefeaters who guard it.

One of the Tower of London Ravens striking a pose.

The walking tour ended here and we walked to the nearest tube station and headed back to our hotel.  It had been a busy day full of walking and history.

Day Twenty-Two - 03 October

Today we were on our own and the weather cooperated with us.  We started with a tube ride and a short walk to the Globe Theater.  We toured the reconstruction of the famous theater where Shakespeare's plays were - and still are - performed.  

Inside the Globe Theater.

From there we walked to a place to eat suggested by one of the wife's students.  The place was a food court with several vendors offering everything you would want to eat.  We ate at the Black Pig.  Finding a place to sit was challenging (an understatement) but we finally found a seat at a picnic table.  We didn't have any drinks and the lines to places selling drinks were long.  The Wife enjoyed her sandwich.  I did not enjoy it as much.  Too messy and spicy for my taste.  This was probably the only meal in Britain that I did not enjoy (or didn't finish).

The London Eye.

We walked along the Thames to the London Eye.  We were early so we had some drinks at a chips shop near the eye.  We had skip-the-lines tickets but we didn't realize you needed an app to use them so we found a place to sit at the Wife sloooowly downloaded the app.  We were a bit early so we had time and we managed to get on the eye on time.  The view of london from the eye was pretty awesome.

The Parliament building and the Elizabeth Tower (home of the Big Ben bells) seen from the Eye.

We were tired from all the walking and touring so we made our way back to the tube and headed back to the hotel.

Day Twenty-Three - 04 October

We  checked out and took an Uber to the train station where we took our last train, the twenty-first - this one an express train to Heathrow Airport.  The rest of the way went fairly smoothly.  It was a long day but it was nice to be home.

The Wife and I really enjoyed this trip.  Meeting with friends was a delight.  Not worrying about a language barrier was comforting.  transportation, while there were a few hiccups, was easy to figure out.  It felt different from our 'normal' trips which are in more exotic locations.  This trip was about history and everywhere felt familiar and definitely not exotic.  This is probably how our future trips to Europe will be like.  We still have a few exotic locals to visit but that is for another day, another trip, and another post.

Pictures can be found in my 2024-09 Great Britain Google Photos album.

Great Britain 2024 - Part Eight - Glasgow, Scotland

Day Eighteen - 29 September

We went to the Edinburgh train station the 'correct' way which was a heck of a lot easier.  Naturally going down the steps was easier than up.  We caught a train to Glasgow which was crowded (standing room only) but fortunately it was only thirty to forty minutes long.

The train station in Glasgow was literally next door to our hotel so we simply walked next door and checked into our room.  The hotel was on George Square the central square of the city.  The square is full of statues and a cenotaph at one end commemorating World War I veterans.

The Cenotaph.

We had some lunch in a crowded pub and visited the Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA).  Now, if you know the Wife and I, museums aren't much our thing but we had time to kill and the museum was free so we said what the heck. 

The Duke and his crown.

In the front of the museum is a statue of the Duke of Wellington on a horse.  On his head is an orange traffic cone.  The cone has been removed many times and it is returned soon after.  As a matter of fact we saw quite a few statues in Glasgow and Edinburgh with cones on their heads.

We took the elevator to the top floor and worked our way down.  The Wife and I noted that most of the exhibits were more about the GoMA building and its history more than it was about modern art.  

This evening we went to the Metropolitan Cathedral of Saint Andrew for Mass.  Afterwards we had difficulty finding a place to eat.  Our first choice was closed due to kitchen issues.  Their suggested alternative was too crowded and rowdy.  We ended up in the same pub where we'd had lunch even though it was crowded too.

Day Nineteen - 30 September

We ate breakfast in our hotel.  They had a nice enough spread but their pancake machine was out of order - a tragedy.

Saint Mungo mural.

We booked a short walking tour this morning.  It was drizzling as we waited for our guide in George Park.  At one end of the park they were filming some show - looked like a period piece.

Our guide showed up and explained the slave trader connection with the buildings surrounding the square.  She pointed out the unicorn on one building - the official animal of Scotland.  The Unicorn is said to be the only animal who could beat a lin in a fight (The British animal is the lion so lots of snark there) we walked through the city seeing religious inspired modern murals, the Glasgow Cathedral (with a view of the Glasgow Necropolis), and various old buildings demonstrating the history of the city.  We even saw the Doctor's TARDIS.  If we'd had time touring the Necropolis might have been interesting - next time.

The Glasgow Cathedral.

We ate at the 'rowdy' pub we'd passed over the night before.   We stopped at a grocery store on the way back so we could just eat/snack that night in our hotel room.

When we arrived in Glasgow we really didn't have a long list, or any list at all really, so we wondered what we would do with our two days here.  After our walking tour I think we could have spent another day (or at least had spent the time we had a little better).  Glasgow wasn't as interesting as Edinburg but there is still a lot of stuff to see if you know where to look.

Tomorrow we would be heading to our last destination, London.

Pictures can be found in my 2024-09 Great Britain Google Photos album.

Great Britain 2024 - Part Seven - Edinburgh, Scotland

Day Fifteen - 26 September

It was raining when our friends dropped us off at the Berwick-upon-Tweed train station.  We walked in about five minutes to eight and were on a train to Edinburgh by 8:00am.  Just over thirty minutes later we were in Edinburgh.  The hotel was not far from the train station but, for those not familiar, Edinburgh is a multilevel city.  The train station was on the lower level and the hotel on the Royal Mile was on the upper.  Google maps was ... confused.  We walked around in the rain looking for the stairs up to the upper level.  I eventually found a long staircase that took us up - it was not the right one.  It got us up but it was not the nearest to our hotel.  I eventually got my bearings and we reached our hotel.  My roundabout way of getting to our hotel added a couple blocks to our wet walk.

The Holyroodhouse.

We decided to walk to the Holyroodhouse, the royal residences when the royal family visit Edinburgh.  The walk wasn't long and mostly downhill but it was raining and windy and the short distance felt much longer.  We got an audio guide and walked through the opulent home and the attached Abbey while we learned about Mary Queen of Scots.  On the way back we took an Uber to avoid the rain and the uphill.

The Uber dropped us off at the Malt Shovel Inn where we were going to have lunch.  It wasn't open yet so we explored Cockburn street with it's restaurants and shops.  We bought some souvenirs and sweatshirts (as the weather was a bit colder in Edinburgh than my clothes selection could handle).  We returned to the Malt Shovel and had lunch.  This is where the Wife started her haggis tour.  She would have haggis nearly every meal, in one form or another, for the rest of our stay in Scotland.

We spent the rest of the day staying out of the rain venturing out only for food.

Day Sixteen - 27 September

Dean Village.

After breakfast we headed out to meet up with our walking tour guide.  The rain had stopped and today would be perfect for a six to seven hour walking tour.  The tour took us past the Sir Walter Scott monument, Dean Village (an old style neighborhood), a restored Georgian-style home, the home of the Scottish First Minister, a park with memorials and views of Edinburgh Castle, the Royal Scottish Academy gallery, and broke for lunch on Cockburn Street.  We ate at a pub before we rejoined our walking tour group.

Edinburgh Castle.

After lunch we walked through a close (a narrow ally/stairway) to the Royal Mile.  We visited Saint Giles Cathedral (we learned about the history of Edinburgh and the Scottish/English conflicts), Greyfriars Cemetery (we learned about Bobby and grave robbing), our guide touched on the Harry Potter connections to Edinburgh, we visited the Grassmarket and Victoria street, and entered Edinburgh Castle.  Our guide took us around the castle before saying goodbye and letting us spend our own time exploring the castle grounds, enjoying the views, and visiting the Scottish crown jewels.

It was a very busy day full of history.

Day Seventeen - 28 September

Our last day in Edinburgh was light activity-wise.  We had an Underground Vaults tour in the morning.  It was a late addition as most of these tours had a ghost tour angle that we really didn't care for but we had the time so ...  The tour wasn't that bad.  The vaults were originally used for restaurant/pub storage.  They eventually were occupied by the poor, workers, or students.  There were ghost stories naturally but, in general, the tour was interesting.

View of the city from Edinburgh Castle.

In the afternoon we went to Saint Mary's Cathedral. The Wife purchased a large icon that she thought would fit in her bag (it didn't) and would have to carry the rest of the way.

We stopped for lunch at the Conan Doyle Pub close to Sir Conan Doyle's birthplace.

I liked Edinburgh.  There was a lot of history and the multilevel nature of the city gave it interest.  It was odd crossing a bridge and looking down to see another house lined street running underneath.  We spent three days there but you could spend a week or more exploring this interesting city.

Next ... on to Glasgow.

Pictures can be found in my 2024-09 Great Britain Google Photos album.

Great Britain 2024 - Part Six - The Holy Island

Day Thirteen - 24 September

We taxied to the Oxford train station.  When we couldn't find our train on the schedule we asked a station employee who told us "that train hasn't run all week."  He provided an alternate train route that would get us to Berwick-upon-Tweed an hour after our original scheduled arrival.  Our arrival time was important as we were going to the Holy Island of Lindisfarne.

The Holy Island of Lindisfarne is only accessible by a causeway that submerges during high tide.  You have to make sure you arrive at low tide so you can get across (apparently people get stuck on the causeway during high tide often).  I used an online booking site to reserve a taxi from Berwick-upon-Tweed to the Holy Island.  A couple trains later and we arrived in Berwick-upon-Tweed.  We waited past the time for the taxi until I gave up and called the taxi company directly.  They had no record of our reservation and had never heard of the online taxi booking site - crap.  They sent over a taxi and we headed for the Holy Island.  I figured the online site was a scam so, as we drove, I tried to see if I could cancel the charge to our credit card.  The charge was still pending so I couldn't contest it yet but, twenty minutes later, a credit appeared in our account.  I was relieved to see the site was not a scam and they had refunded my charge without being prompted.  Whew.

Our hotel on the Holy Island.

We arrived at our hotel (the taxi cost one half the charge from the taxi booking site - whew again).  I left our bags with the Wife at the hotel and I walked a couple blocks to another hotel to claim our key.  When I got back to the Wife our friends, N_k and J_n, who drove up to join us for a couple days, were there.

The only industry/businesses on the island are pubs, a few small hotels, fishing, and tourism - no grocery stores or other businesses you find in most towns.  Everyone had to leave the island to get things (or have things delivered).  This made the town feel cozy and old.  It had a magical atmosphere at times, especially when all the day tourists had gone.

The remains of the Lindisfarne Abbey (right) and the church of Saint Mary the Virgin (left)
from a nearby ridge. 

There are basically three things you can see/do on the Holy Island.  The first of these is visiting the abbey and Saint Mary the Virgin church.  The Lindisfarne Abbey was established in AD 634 and was the location of the first significant Viking raid on Britain.  It is sometimes considered the beginning of the Viking Age.  This Abbey, once led by Saint Cuthbert, has become the end point of a pilgrimage.  St. Cuthbert's Way is a 62.5 miles (100 km) pilgrim route from Melrose to the Holy Island.  We saw several people with backpacks walking the streets of the town often with big smiles on their tired faces.  It reminded me of the Camino including getting a certificate when you finish.

We visited the abbey and church before climbing up a short ridge where you had a great view of the abbey complex, the north sea, and the Lindisfarne castle.

This evening we ate as a small pub with good food.

Day Fourteen - 25 September

The second thing to see/do on the Holy Island is bird watching.  The entire island is part of the National Trust and there are trails and bird sanctuaries throughout the island.

The bay at low tide.

We got up and had breakfast at our hotel before going out to walk the island's trails.  The weather that had been rainy, drizzly, and overcast the past few days was absolutely gorgeous this day.  The sun shone through fluffy clouds and not a drop of rain in sight.  We walked along the north sea coast to a blind where we watched waterfowl swimming on a marshy pond.

The grassy hike along the island coast.

After completing a loop we headed out to the third thing you can see/do on the Holy Island.  We visited the rather impressive Lindisfarne Castle.  The 16th century castle rests on the highest point of the Holy Island.  You walk along the harbor to get to the castle.  Along the way I touched the North Sea for the first time.  We toured the castle that was renovated in 1901 by a magazine publisher who bought it.  It changed hands a few times before the National Trust took it over.  It was pretty cool and offered views of the harbor the castle once protected.

We visited the castle gardens - once vegetable gardens - and admired the late summer flowers and the buzzing bees.

We had lunch in a cafe before we split with our friends.  The Wife and I went back to the Abbey to visit the museum and go into the abbey ruins.

The Lindisfarne Castle as seen from the Abbey grounds.

We met back up with our friends for dinner.  The food was excellent again.  When we left the pub the streets were deserted.  It was high tide and all the visitors, except for the few with rooms on the island, had gone home for the day.  The past couple days had been a delight.  It was a short but relaxing respite from the go-go touring we'd had over the past couple of weeks.  Good company, good weather, and a place with a lot of history and nature - just what I needed.

We decided to get up early enough the next morning to beat the end of the next low tide.  This would give our friends a five or six hour head start on their drive home and we would take an earlier train to our next destination: nearby Scotland.

Pictures can be found in my 2024-09 Great Britain Google Photos album.

Great Britain 2024 - Part Five - A Rainy Interlude

Day Eleven - 22 September

We'd hoped to get out of Wrexham early but there were no good train connections to our next destination, Stratford-upon-Avon, until noon.  This would get us in too late for the afternoon walking tours.

Holy Trinity church where Shakespeare is buried.

We arrived and took a taxi to our hotel.  Our travel agent which made most of the hotel reservations on this trip put us in a beautiful hotel on an old estate but it was way out in the boonies.  It cost us over $30 to taxi to it from Stratford-upon-Avon.  It was so remote we really couldn't do anything outside our hotel this evening.  It was still raining so walking around the estate was out as well.

Day Twelve - 23 September

Shakespeare.

We checked out of our country hotel and found a place in central Stratford where we could drop our luggage (thank you Stasher.com).  The place was just a four minute walk from where the morning walking tours started.  It was raining/drizzling but it really didn't slow us down.  Our tour (just us and a guide) walked us around historic Stratford-upon-Avon near where Shakespeare was born and educated.  We visited the church where he is buried and walked by the city theaters.  At the church, the old man collecting entrance fees to see Shakespeare's tomb asked where we were from and started talking about Carter Lake which is not far from where we live - small world.  At the end of the tour we ate at a cafe in one of the theaters and exited through the gift shop naturally.

We picked up our bags and took an Uber to the train station.  From there we took a couple trains to Oxford.  Like in Stratford-upon-Avon our hotel was out of the way in an old estate.  It was too late to do anything and it was pouring rain - we had to haul our bags through the rain to a second building (with many stairs).  We ate dinner in the hotel and decided that any tour of Oxford was out of the question.  We just didn't have the time.  Next time.

The next day we would be heading to a place many have not heard of and it turned out to be a magical place.  We would also be meeting with our friends from Stubbington again which made it all the better.

Pictures can be found in my 2024-09 Great Britain Google Photos album.

Great Britain 2024 - Part Three - Champing

Day Seven (cont.) - 18 September

We arrived in Rochester and taxied to our hotel the Ship and Trades in nearby Chatham.  The fifteen room hotel sits on the waterfront with views of the marina.  The rooms are above a pub with outdoor seating.  It was a very nice setting.  We spent time outside eating, drinking, and, after talking to the front desk staff about transportation options, arranging our transportation for the next couple of days - Rochester/Chatham have Uber.

The view out our window at the Ship and Trades.

Day Eight - 19 September

Rochester Cathedral.

We ordered an Uber and went to the Rochester Cathedral.  In the cathedral we were met by a docent who was half history scholar and half comedian.  He was hilarious.  (To get the idea about the caliber of his humour: He pointed at something across the room and asked "Do you know what this is?"  When we said we didn't know he said "It's my finger." - non-stop dad jokes)  We walked around the church and went down to have lunch in the crypt ... yes there was a snack bar in the cathedral crypt.

We walked from the cathedral to Rochester castle located on a hill overlooking the cathedral and city.  The castle is hollow, the wooden floors between levels long gone.  We climbed the stairs to each level until we reached the top.  We admired the view before returning down the stairs and exited through the gift shop.

We took a taxi back to the Ship and Trades where we checked out and had some drinks at the pub.  An Uber picked us up and took us to the nearby town of Cooling.  We'd expected it to be a long drive out in the country but, while it felt like it was out in the middle of nowhere, it turned out to be a fifteen minute Uber drive.  We were dropped off at the Saint James church where we would be spending the night.  In the graveyard surrounding the church there is a cluster of children's graves.  This church and these graves were one of the inspirations for Charles Dickens' "Great Expectations".

Inside the Rochester castle.

This night we would be champing - CHurch cAMPING.  There are around twenty-four retired churches no longer being used.  The churches are maintained/renovated by the Churches Conservation Trust.  They pay for the maintenance by renting them out for the night.  It is a popular cycling tour from church to church.

I expected someone to meet us but we were alone when we arrived.  There was an outhouse next to the church entrance.  We used the code from an email to open the outhouse and another code to retrieve the church key from a lockbox inside.  We put our bags in the church next to the camp cots we would sleep on, locked the door with the key (the key was big enough to be a deadly weapon), and walked the block or so to the village pub - the Horseshoe and Castle.

Saint James Church, Cooling, Kent, UK.

We made a reservation for dinner and went outside with drinks while we waited for our time.  We chatted with a local couple about traveling and champing until it was time to go inside for dinner.  The food was pretty good and the place had a nice lived in feeling.

We returned to the church and explored it.  The walls of the vestry were covered in shells, the symbol of Saint James (and on the Camino).  There was an organ but it could not be played.  We locked ourselves in and we went to bed expecting it to be cold overnight and it was chilly but we brought what we needed to keep warm (our sleeping bag liners and warm clothes).  I slept surprisingly well.

The next morning our Uber came and picked us up and dropped us at the train station.  Are you ready for some Futball?!?

Pictures can be found in my 2024-09 Great Britain Google Photos album.

Great Britain 2024 - Part Two - Another Friend, Cliffs, and A Bit Of English Literature

Day Five - 16 September

Our friends N_k and J_n dropped us off at the train station not far from their home and we headed east to Brighton.  We took a cab from the train station to our harbor front hotel where the Social Democratic party was holding some sort of get together.

We walked to a restaurant where we met with another friend who we'd met on the Camino in 2023.  E_a was one of the first people we met  at the start of our Camino but, since she had a deadline, ended up walking a bit faster than us and, unlike the Wife and I, had finished the whole thing.  That's a good thing for her since she didn't miss her boyfriend's proposal in front of the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela.  Still, in the few days from our first albergue we'd stayed at to just before Puente La Reina, we still managed to overlap our stages with hers and a friendship was formed.  That's what it's like on the Camino - friendships form quickly.

We had a great lunch and reminisced about the Camino.  E_a told us she felt like her Camino wasn't finished.  This is interesting since mine felt incomplete after my first one too.  I told her about how I'd felt and how my second Camino had finally brought some closure to me.  We invited her (and her now fiance) to join us next year when the Wife and I went back to continue out Camino.  She said she would consider it.

The Brighton Royal Pavilion.

After lunch E_a walked us to the Royal Pavilion.  As we approached we were joined by E_a's fiance who had managed to get out of a meeting in time to say hello.  He seemed keen on the Camino idea.

We visited the opulent Pavilion which was built for George IV when he was only a prince.  It was opulent like many of the royal residences we would visit around Britain.

Day Six - 17 September

We left Brighton on the train and headed for Dover.  Our original plan was to stop along the way in Canterbury to visit the cathedral but we couldn't figure out what to do with our luggage (it was heavy with three weeks worth of clothes).  911 has put a damper on lockers in train stations and the like.  Instead we went straight to Dover.

The white cliffs of Dover.

After checking into our hotel we took a taxi to the Cliffs of Dover national trust (the national trust is the UK equivalent of the national park service in the US).  We walked along the cliffs and got some nice views from a few viewpoints.  You could take boats out to get better views of the cliffs but their season ended in August and were no longer available.

Back at the gift shop I tried to call a taxi but my phone thought I was in France and I couldn't understand the error message I was getting.  Fortunately the person at the gift shop counter helped us by making the call for us.

Day Seven - 18 September

There was only one place else in Dover to see - the Dover Castle.  After considering our options we decided to take another crack at Canterbury first.  We left our bags at the hotel and took the train to Canterbury.

Inside the Canterbury Cathedral.

It was a short train ride and a short walk to the cathedral from the train station.  We took a tour of the cathedral and its gardens.  Unfortunately there was a graduation ceremony in the nave of the cathedral so we couldn't go in that part.  As compensation the tour opened up a couple places normally closed to visitors.

The Dover castle ... maybe next time.

We trained back to Dover and, after very little thought, decided to skip the castle and take an earlier train to our next destination.  We ate lunch at the hotel, called a taxi (Dover is a major cruise ship port so the wait for taxis was significant), and headed back to the train station.

Our next destination was Rochester.  Not far from there we would be doing something relatively strange.  We would be Champing.

Pictures can be found in my 2024-09 Great Britain Google Photos album.

Great Britain 2024 - Part One- Getting There And Visiting With Friends

We took a Lyft to the airport and caught our afternoon flight, via Denver, to London.  We were going to be picked up by friends so we picked flights that would get us there shortly after noon.  Our friends N_k and J_n, who we met on our Amazon Cruise in 2016, picked us up at Heathrow and took us to their home in Stubbington.  We would be spending a few days with them as they showed us around their part of southern England.

Days Zero and One - 11 and 12 September

I'm not sure about the Wife but I didn't sleep much on the flight despite it being a red eye from Denver to London.  I was a bit tired but uplifted a bit by the adrenaline that often comes with traveling to a new part of the world.  Not much was planned for this first partial day and I was grateful for that.  We mostly talked and caught up on things.  We got some needed movement in with a short trip to our host's favorite beach where the conversations continued while we stretched our legs.

Spinnaker Tower.

We had a home cooked meal and chatted until my adrenaline finally faded and I excused myself and went to bed early.

Day Two - 13 September

After a lazy morning we drove/ferried to Portsmouth where we walked around the harbor and explored the history of the city.  We saw Spinnaker Tower, walked along the Portsmouth city wall along Hotwalls Beach to the Round Tower, and ate lunch at a pub overlooking the harbour.

That evening we were joined by the host's daughter for another excellent home cooked meal and more interesting conversation.

Day Three - 14 September

We left Stubbington and we drove to Stonehenge.  We got there as it was opening.  The weather was crisp but the skies were blue with fluffy clouds.  Perfect weather.  We ate a snack at the visitor's center and then walked across the cow pastures to see the famous megalithic stones.  Despite all the people it was easy to get good pictures as we walked around the structure.  It was pretty cool.

Stonehenge ... the stone points toward the solstice.

We took a bus back to the visitor's center, did some shopping as we exited through the gift shop, and drove to our next destination, Bath.

Our hosts had picked a nice hotel in a good location.  Everything was within walking distance.  By coincidence there was a Jane Austen festival going on - an annual affair in Bath.  As we walked through the street women and men (mostly women) in period costume were roaming the streets.  There were so many you could forget it was 2024 at times.

Pulteney Bridge.

We visited the Bath Abbey, admired the architecture of the Circus and Pulteney Bridge, and had a pint or two (diet coke for me) at a pub (or two).

Day Four - 15 September

We toured the namesake of Bath, the Roman Baths.  It was an interesting part of British history.  I always forget the Romans were once there.  They don't allow you to even touch the water in the pools.  This was due to deadly bacteria that once killed a girl back when they allowed swimming in the baths.

The Roman baths.

We returned to Stubbington.  The drive to Stonehenge and Bath gave us a good idea of the British countryside.  It's nice to see things other than cities.  We had our last excellent home cooked meal in Britain.  Visiting with friends was the best way to begin our Great Britain travels.  It was a nice  way to ease into it.

Tomorrow we would be leaving on a train to our next destination.  This would be the first of twenty trains we would take around Britain.  Onward to Brighton and points east.

Pictures can be found in my 2024-09 Great Britain Google Photos album.

Key West Roadtrip 2023 - Day Twelve - The Lorraine Motel

UPDATED 02-04-2023

The Lorraine Motel where MLK Jr. was assassinated.

We finished the civil rights portion of our travels in Memphis, Tennessee at the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel.  We normally go through museums quickly but this one was very well done and we spent nearly two hours making our way from slavery to the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

The museum, located next to the Lorraine Motel where MLK Jr. was killed, gives the place more meaning.  As you work your way through the museum, knowing what is coming at the end, gives more importance to all the exhibits.

True then and true now.

The Wife was coming down with something so on the way out of Memphis we stopped at a drugstore for pain relievers and cough drops.  Hopefully a hot shower and a good night's sleep will get her through this.

The relatively short drive to St. Louis, Missouri was uneventful except for the fact the temperature dropped as we went further north.  At one point we had freezing mist on our windshield.  Fortunately for us it looks like the approaching freezing rain will stay south of St.Louis and shouldn't slow us down tomorrow.

Tomorrow we visit the Gateway Arch before driving home.  Tomorrow night we will be in our own beds.

Photos can be found in my 2023-01 Key West Roadtrip Google Photos album.

Key West 2023 Roadtrip - Days Nine, Ten, And Eleven - NASA, Manatees, And Civil Rights

UPDATED 02-04-2023

Day Nine

We had some breakfast and headed to the Kennedy Space Center.  We arrived right before the parking lot opened and thirty minutes before the gates opened.  We ended up being first in line.  They opened the gates and we walked to the bus tour terminal.  We were following advice the Wife had read suggesting it was best to do the Bus and the Apollo/Saturn V exhibit along the route first before it got crowded.  The advice turned out to be right.

The Saturn V rocket with the insignia of the moon missions.

I'd visited the Kennedy Space Center when I was seven or eight and a lot had changed since I was there.  The command center for the Apollo moon program was now a visitor's center with a Saturn V rocket and displays about the moon landings.  They lead you from one introductory film to another until you exit into the main display room and the Saturn V rocket is revealed.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket being transported for reuse.

We got back on the bus and headed back to the main visitor's center.  Our trip back was interrupted briefly when a truck pulling a refurbished Falcon 9 rocket crossed the road.  I was surprised the refurbished rocket, that was being reused, still had carbon scoring from prior missions.

The Space Shuttle Atlantis.

Back at the visitor's center we did the Atlantis exhibit which covered the entire Space Shuttle program.  The exhibit was set up like the Apollo one - a movie opening to reveal the Space Shuttle Atlantis hanging in front of you.  The shuttle is a lot smaller than you think.  The exhibits include simulations of working in a zero-G environment, a model of the space station you can climb through (the Wife did ... I didn't), and a 'reentry' slide (the Wife did ... I didn't).  There was also a section about the astronauts lost during the Challenger and Columbia disasters.  The last thing we both did was a Space Shuttle launch simulator that was interesting and felt surprisingly real.

We ate some lunch and hit a few smaller exhibits about Mars and commercial space partners.  We finished with an attempted shopping spree in the "Largest Space Store".  I say attempted because nearly every shirt I liked was not available in my size.  We still managed to leave with three shirts and several magnets.

The rest of the day we drove back to the Wife's cousin's place for the night.  Google Maps tried to steer us away from congestion but just managed to add an extra hour to our travels.  The algorithm does weird things sometimes.  We filled up the car with family heirlooms to take back home to distribute to others in her family.  

Day Ten

A manatee and friends.

We left Tampa and headed an hour up the coast to Crystal River, Florida where we swam with the manatees.  First of all, it was cold that day with temps in the fifties.  We donned wetsuits and took a pontoon boat cruise through the Crystal River National Wildlife Refuge.  Manatees need fresh water and there are five fresh water springs that feed into the refuge.

We found one early and we all got in the water.  It turns out it was warmer in the water than on the boat.  I got some good pictures of the feeding manatee and large fish in the area.  The manatees are huge.  Almost hippopotamus size fully grown.  I won't post pictures until I get home and have a chance to process the pictures on my camera.

We got back in the boat and froze out patootees off.  I developed the most severe case of the shakes I've ever experienced.  We did get some relief when we poured cups of hot water inside our wetsuits.

Momma and baby manatees ... they stay together for almost five years.

We moved to another spring and there were manatees everywhere so we got back in.  We saw a mother and baby along with others of all sizes.  We were making our way back towards the boat when a manatee swam under the Wife, turned over on its back, and grabbed the Wife with his fins.  They to cuddle her.  The Wife held still and stared down into the face of the manatee.  It probably was just trying to warm up.  It eventually let her go and swam away.  You can say the Wife got her money's worth on that tour.

A memorial to the victims of
water cannons made more
poignant by rain water running
down her face and chin.

We returned to a hot shower and dry clothes.  We left Crystal River and drove just over seven hours to just south of Birmingham, Alabama.  As we drove north several muscles in my neck, shoulders, and back started stiffening up and hurting.  I suspect it was a result of the shivering and cold water.  

Day Eleven

It was raining off and on this day when we drove into Birmingham to take a civil rights tour of the city.  We met with the guide and one other  tour member and had an interesting combination of walking and driving tour of the civil rights history of Birmingham.  The area was in iron country and back during the civil rights struggles the Klan had access to dynamite.  The result was fifty - sixty bombings against civil rights leaders giving Birmingham the nickname of Bombingham.

We learned about the children marches and the four children killed when a church was dynamited.  The twisting of the laws by white supremacist Bull Connor.  All this was with the backdrop of the dilapidated, run down city streets.  The poverty reeked.

History is important to learn no matter how painful it is.  It cannot be buried by bigotry for long.  It will always come back even stronger.

After the tour we drove towards Memphis, Tennessee in the pouring rain.  We were grateful that the hard rain held off until the end of our tour.  We stopped for the night just outside the city.

Tomorrow we drive into Memphis to visit their civil rights museum and the Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated.   We are hoping the upheaval caused by the recent killings by police there doesn't hamper our plans.

Photos can be found in my 2023-01 Key West Roadtrip Google Photos album.

Key West Roadtrip 2023 - Day Six - Key West (Part One)

UPDATED 02-04-2023

We got up early and drove to Stock Island which is right outside Key West. Here we got in our two person kayak and joined our guide and fellow kayakers on a tour of the mangrove forest. This turned out to be pretty cool. We kayaked through natural trails through the forests that build islands over the centuries, provide habitat to numerous wildlife, and protect the islands from hurricanes. We saw tree crabs, cassiopeia jellyfish that live upside down on the bottom of the shallows, sea hares which are shell-less snails about six inches or more in size, starfish, and nurse sharks. I will add some pictures of some of these creatures when I get home and can process my camera pictures.

Kayaking through the mangroves.

Southernmost point.

After the kayak we drove into Key West proper and tried to find a parking spot.  The first parking lot was full but, to our surprise, I managed to find a spot near the southernmost part of the continental United States.  We stopped at the Southernmost Point Bar for some lunch before exploring the town.  While we ate under the umbrella it poured rain.  Fortunately it was nearly over by the time we finished lunch.

First stop here was the Southernmost Point Marker.  Not much to see here really except a large painted marker.  Still cool though.  So far we have been at the most southern, western, and the most central part of the United States on our travels.

Next we walked to the Hemingway house and learned about the writer, his life, and his wives.  We saw the famous Hemingway cats - there are now fifty-seven of them - who are famous for having extra toes.  One cat we saw had one extra toe on the front paws and two extra toes on the back paws.

Where Hemingway did a lot of his writing.

Our next stop, not on our itinerary, was a lighthouse across the street from the Hemingway house. From the top of the eighty-eight steps you could see all of Key West and it was an interesting vantage point.  (I may be sore tomorrow not only from the kayak rowing but also from the stair climbing.)

Robert the Doll.

The Tennessee Williams exhibit that was on our itinerary was not open so it got skipped.

We returned to our car and drove to the Fort East Martello museum home of Robert the Creepy Doll. This museum actually was fun. We usually don't like museums but this was an eclectic mix of all sorts of random stuff including Robert who was, in fact, a very creepy doll.  The scary music right out of a bad horror movie set the atmosphere perfectly.  We also saw junk art and a few iguanas sunning themselves on the fort grounds.

We ended the day with a relaxing sit on out back porch watching the sun go down over Duck Key.

Tomorrow we return to Key West for some beach sitting and, perhaps, a few more stops in town.

Photos can be found in my 2023-01 Key West Roadtrip Google Photos album.

Sunset over Duck Key.

Key West Roadtrip 2023 - Days Three, Four, And Five - Mobile, Family, And Getting To The Keys.

UPDATED 02-04-2023

Day Three

Mobile - Home of
Mardi-Gras

On day three we had a scheduled tour of the African-American Heritage Trail.   The tour, led by an excellent and knowledgeable guide, took us through the history of the Clotilda - the last slave ship to bring slaves from Africa - through the formation of Africatown by the descendants of the slaves.  The Clotilda was sent on a bet.  A rich landowner in Mobile bet that he could bring slaves from africa (at the time, while slavery was legal, the importation of african slaves was illegal on penalty of death) and get away with it.  So the last slaves brought to America from Africa were brought here on a bet.  *sigh*  The landowners family is one of the prominent families in Mobile today so they got away with it. *sigh*

The tour took us to places where once stood successful African-American businesses that were destroyed and turned into parking lots and vacant lots in the name of 'urban renewal'.  We learned a lot of history on this tour and it was all heartbreaking.

Outside the welcome center, where we started the tour, was Mardi-Gras square.  Mardi-Gras in Mobile, Alabama pre-dates the one in New Orleans.  The Christmas trees in the square and welcome center had been redecorated in the purple, yellow, and green of Mardi-Gras.

We left Mobile around noon in the rain and drove to Tampa, Florida to visit with the Wife's aunt and cousins.  That drive felt like it took forever.  This was likely because a lot of it was either in the rain or in the dark ... or both.

Day Four

Day four was spent with family at Mass and eating lunch at a great tapas bar/restaurant.  Most of the day was spent chatting about all sorts of things which is what we do when family gets together.

We walked around the block, bought lemonade from some girls' lemonade stand (we overpaid on purpose), and ended the day with a homemade chili dinner.

It was nice having a day where the Wife or I didn't have to drive.

Day Five

Day five was a travel day.  We drove from Tampa to Long Key in the Florida Keys.  The drive wasn't that bad until the last hour.  A bus had stalled on a bridge between keys.  The traffic was backed up ten to twelve miles and what should have taken us less than twenty minutes took over an hour.

The view from our back patio.  We share it with a few other rooms and at least one pelican.

Our hotel, the Edgewater Lodge is awesome.  The Wife picked a good one.  Our room backs to Gulf waters and we have a shared patio along the waterline.

The day ended with a steak, mac'n'cheese, and asparagus dinner at the Florida Boy Bar and Grill.  It was one of the best steaks I've had in a long time.

Tomorrow we kayak in a mangrove forest and explore Key West.  I forgot my SD card adapter so pictures I take with my waterproof camera will not be posted until I get home.  Sorry.  Silly me.

Photos can be found in my 2023-01 Key West Roadtrip Google Photos album.