Britain Family Vacation!

We fetched home our boy after semester number two! He got A's and B's except that he has one more final to take (because he slept through it), but a very kind professor let him take an incomplete and he's scheduled to take that final in June. Then it was Mother's Day morning... I got a sonnet again and, the pet sitter picked-up (and, spoiler alert, spent two weeks spoiling) the dogs, and then we flew to Britain!

Flat #1:Gray's London

Doesn't Cameron look snazzy is this jacket! We saw Andrew's 80+ year-old Minecraft friend in Felixtowe and I checked off the bucket-list-item of visiting the cliffs of Dover! I goofed on a date, so we also took a surprise trip to Cambridge instead of staying a second night in Grays... oops, a bit of drama around midnight when we thought they'd double booked the flat, but lots of lessons learned! 

Well, considering we'd arrived at 2:30am, it's not surprising that we got a late start but we had a delightful few-hours in Cambridge while Cameron slept in the car. We also had more than hour conversation during the drive north during which we revamped how we're going to plan vacations in the future... super loving and valuable process for handling mistakes!

Flat #2 (as far as planned and really staying): Yorkshire

So excited at my first sight of the Yorkshire moors and we had a glorious dinner at the local pub called the Wheatsheaf... we went back lots!

First day we spent in Whidby! What a fun little Yorkshire-coast town with lots of yummies to sample and little boat trip too. We went back to the Wheatsheaf for dinner again. Nom nom!

Second day, we explored lots of Yorkshire spots via the on-off-tickets on the North Yorkshire Moor Railway! So much fun! Pickering Castle was the one place we got rained on all vacation but it had stopped by the time Andrew set up his tripod. I loved visiting Goathead (Hogsmead) station and seeing the fields of yellow flowers (rapeseed). "The Secret Garden" does not exaggerate the beauty of the Yorkshire moor!

Flat #3 Wales:

Andrew wanted to drive via Liverpool as a super Beatles fan and the Beatles museum was one of Cameron's highlights of the vacation. The place we stayed in the countryside of Ross-on-Wye was so idyllic!

First day, Cameron delighted in tackling a quadizzila and then delighted in teasing me when I was trying to get a picture of him tackling the final layer. The mine we wanted to visit was closed so we mostly just saw countryside this first day.

Second day started with mellow morning games and enjoying our little courtyard (shared with some very happy bees). Then Raglan castle and then back to enjoying the area around our "flat", actually a converted barn.

Third day, Cardiff and home via Chepstow followed by so much fun with a games evening. A neighbor did knock on the door and let us know we had a flat tire... so we wound up spending much more time hanging out in that glorious location the next morning!

Flat #4 London

When we got on the road, we headed toward to Chew Magna, original home of Andrew's ancestor, Thomas Minor, who came to Connecticut in 1629 and founded several towns. During our drive the company switched the flat we were renting but we had an address by the time we finished returning the rental car and took an Uber across London, quite the experience. The whole trip, I was really glad I wasn't driving!

First day, British museum plus tea! Baker's Street and an amazing church and park on the way back. Such a full day! It was so exciting to walk into that church and hear these seven people practicing for a show that evening... heavenly moment! (That evening we found this incredible tapas restaurant right by our flat (and we returned there our final evening.) A bonus while enjoying heavenly wine and nibbles was that ComicCon was going on within a block of our flat and the people watching was seriously fun!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9WylrnW8h8

Second day, sky-tram then boat to Tower of London, then walking all over the place including St. Paul's and Covent Gardens!

Third day, we started with a visit to the Dr. Who hidden museum and then walking along the south bank and visually visiting everything from the Globe to the London Eye to Buckingham Palace.

Homeward bound... that's the south border of Britain from the plane! We got home around 2:30am London time but 7:30pm local time. We're re-acclimating after such a wonderful adventure!