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September 4, 2015
We tried to get the Journal posted for this morning, but jet lag caught up with us and we're sleeping instead! It will probably be this afternoon before I get this done. Don't give up on me - it WILL be done today!
August 28, 2015
IT'S FRIDAY, MY FAVORITE DAY!!
We are in the back stretch of our amazing vacation with just a couple of weeks before we head for home.
This week we were biding our time, meandering through Scotland and England. After Dalwhinney, we headed south to Falkirk, where we spent a couple of nights at a hotel. We were there because Dave wanted to see the Falkirk Wheel. It's an amazing piece of engineering that transports boats from one canal to another. A boat will float into the wheel from the canal at the bottom while another enters the wheel from another canal 100 feet higher at the top. When they're all ready, they put the wheel in motion and - like a giant Ferris Wheel - they are rotated to the opposite end. It's really something to see!
From the wheel, we drove to Sterling to see the Castle. We had stopped at Sterling Castle when we were here 30 years ago, and since we wanted to see at least one castle on this trip - and it was in the neighborhood - we came back and spent a couple of hours there. It was an interesting trip into history.
We ended that day by circling back to Falkirk to visit a brand new attraction - a 100-foot tall sculpture of two horses called the The Kelpies. They were placed there to celebrate horse power in Scotland's history. The exhibit sits astride a new extension to the Forth & Clyde canal, so it was an interesting stop for several reasons.
The next morning, we checked out of the hotel and headed back into England and York. York is one of my favorite places that I remembered from my last trip to the UK. It is a city that is surrounded by an ancient wall built by the Romans. The most popular part of the city is a street called "The Shambles" where the buildings on each side of the street practically touch other. We walked part of the ancient wall and relaxed in the town square listening to the York Minster chimes strike noon. Before the afternoon was over, we took a tour of the York Railway Museum. All of this was walking distance from our B&B. Speaking of that, the B&B was one of the worst ones I had ever been in. Usually, Dave is famous for finding our worst places to stay but this one was all my fault. I had booked it online - sight unseen - and I should have read the reviews before I booked it. We were so excited about finding a B&B within walking distance that I didn't check it out. The "room" was 8x14 with a king size bed taking most of the space with a bathroom the size of a closet. It smelled musty and moldy and there was no ventilation to speak of. Unfortunately, it was raining so we spent a lot of time in that "room". Also, the price of the breakfast was not included in the "Bed and Breakfast" and they had raised the price an extra 20 pounds from what was quoted on the internet. I was more than glad to move on to our next destination.
Since we had an extra day after spending the weekend in York, on Monday we drove to Stratford-Upon-Avon. This was another favorite spot that I remembered from my last trip. Our B&B this time was very nice and our hosts were very hospitable. Again, we were faced with another rainy day so we ended up in the oldest pub in Stratford, a 400 year old place called The Old Thatch Tavern. We also took a look at Shakespeare's birthplace and walked around looking at all the shops.
On Tuesday, we were headed for London, but since we were nearby, we took the 45 minute drive to the Cotswolds. There are some of the most picturesque homes in England. They remind me of some of Thomas Kincade's paintings. We drove through two of our favorite places in the Cotswolds, Upper and Lower Slaughter. They are so picturesque. We didn't stay long as we had to be in London that afternoon to turn in the car and we had a 2 hour drive ahead of us. We took a shortcut to the motorway and had to go along one more extremely narrow lane to get to the main road. Dave was not thrilled.
With help of our GPS, we made it to the car rental agency which was located in the center of London and once again we found ourselves on foot. We hailed a cab and had him take us to the Marble Arch Inn to spend our last night in London. For dinner that evening, we ended up in a Lebanese restaurant. The part of London where we were staying is mostly Middle Eastern and so we got the feeling that we were in an entirely different country. The food was great and we learned to eat unleavened bread with our meal. There were women everywhere with veils covering their hair and even some with Burkas. I often wonder how they ate with all that material covering their faces.
Wednesday morning, we hailed a cab and headed for Paddington Station to catch our train to Exeter where we are spending the last week of our trip with my sister and brother-in-law, Jeanne and Bob. The journey on the train was relaxing and we spent our 2-hour trip reading and watching the countryside go by. It was no time at all that we were in Exeter and Bob and Jeanne were at the station to greet us. It was raining hard when we left London but by the time we arrived in Exeter, the sun was shining. That was a good sign. One of the first things I did was to help harvest Jeanne's bumper crop of apples. We had a great apple desert for dinner that night!
After a good night's sleep, Jeanne and I went shopping and I had made an appointment to get a much-needed hair cut. I was a little apprehensive about getting my hair cut by a complete stranger but she did a great job and I felt ten pounds lighter. Later, Jeanne and I met Barb, a friend who also lives in the area and we had a nice visit over tea and scones.
Later than same evening, Bob and Jeanne took us to a pizza restaurant on the River Exe which was very nice. We hadn't had pizza since we had left home.
Today, we are planning on taking the Round Robin Tour, which will take us on a steam train, a boat and a bus to loop around the Dartmouth area.
