Atherton Family Notes

We started out trip a day earlier than first expected. Ken had taken Friday off because he thought that was when the ferry left. It was really Saturday but we decided to use it as an opportunity to stay the night in Caen, explore the town, and not have to rush out the door the following morning.

Caen is a beautiful city with a breathtaking Abbaye Aux Hommes (abbey of men). It was our first sight as we came into the city. We found a parking space under the castle and walked to the Tourist Office to find a hotel for the night. Along the way we managed a little window shopping where we drooled over large chocolate chip cookies in a window. I could not resist and bought 4 of them. What’s that? No, I never learn but thanks for asking! The kids were a gooey chocolate mess within minutes of that first bite.

A few steps later I drooled a bit more, this time in a window of a jewelry shop. There, sitting in the window was a ring that I had once seen in a German magazine and fell in love with. I told Ken that I HAD to go try it on even though our middle child was begging to go to the potty. Nothing could get in my way of checking out that ring. Five minutes later I walked out with that ring. Less than one full day into our vacation and I already had a great souvenir. (Calm down, don’t freak! It is just a fashion ring and did not cost very much at all!)

The hotel we stayed at was nothing to write home about (so I won’t). Let’s just say that the room was 55 Euro for the night and I am positive I would not have paid a penny more for it! The bonus was that it was in the downtown area and we were close to the ferry.

We wanted to walk back to the Abby to get a good look at it. (well, Ken and I did. The kids would have preferred to jump across the beds in the hotel room for the rest of the night!) The walk there was painful and excruciating!!! The kids stopped at every rock, tree, and hole in the ground that they could find. It was like leading deaf and blind dogs around who wanted to smell and pee on every tree they passed. (ok, sounds like a bad analogy but you were not there!)

Once there, we found ourselves surrounded by perfectly landscaped gardens and exquisite architecture. Ken and I stood in a quiet awe. Meanwhile, the kids only found interest in the dirt and rocks of the gardens. All three of them dug in and piled rocks. There was no keeping them out of it. After all, those rocks HAD to be more interesting than the area around them! They were covered head to toe in dirt and I am not exaggerating! Celia had so much dirt smeared over her face that you would swear she had bathed in dirt.

We heard constant complaining all the way back to the hotel about how hot and tired they were. Sadie was the only one not complaining but that was because she was having the time of her life exploring every rock along the way. You would have thought she was panning for gold. We were 5 hours into our vacation and it felt like 5 days! Ken and I joked about getting a second stroller, strapping all 3 of the kids down and go!

20 minutes later, when we were still trying to walk back to our hotel room (which would have only been 5 minutes if we were alone) Ken and I wondered how we were going to see any of the English countryside at this rate of pace. We decided the stroller sounded like a brilliant plan. Carrefour, here we come! (Carrefour is France’s answer to Walmart)

Time will tell if every penny of that stroller was a penny well spent. Somehow I am guessing it will be and then some. We officially start our journey to England tomorrow on a noon ferry. I am packed, ready, and excited about our adventure.

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Let me not keep you in suspense any longer than need be… I LOVE ENGLAND!

But I am getting ahead of myself. Let’s back up to the beginning of the day. I will not bore you with the small details of the morning. It is the same old stuff. We woke, dressed, packed, and drove to the area to catch the ferry, yadda, yadda, yadda…. We were among the first to arrive and there were not many other cars there. Then again, we were about 2 hours early. We waited, and waited, and waited to board. In the meantime, the parking area began to fill with cars. I was a bit worried and puzzled on how they were going to get all these cars onto that ferry. As one of the last to board (yeah, does not pay to get there early. First to arrive, last to board) we saw just how they were able to fit all those cars on. There were cars parked everywhere in all sorts of fashions. We did realize that we were now situated in the main aisle near the exit ramp. Woo-hoo!!

I am not sure what I was expecting as far as the ferry ride. Maybe some hard plastic chairs, lots of dirt for the kids to play in, bad smells coming from the toilet areas, you get the picture. I was very pleasantly surprised by how nice it was. Ken had enough foresight to book us with club chairs instead of the regular seating. This allowed us to have access to a cloth covered and cushioned, bench seat with a table, free drinks (served by a waiter), and an assortment of free crackers, fruit, and chocolate. Way to go Ken! The dreaded ferry ride I had envisioned had turned out to be quite pleasant and fun.

Now let’s get to the good part. I think Ken had real fear about whether or not he would be able to adjust to driving on the opposite side of the road but he handled it like a pro. It was fairly easy because the first road we found ourselves on was a divided highway. It seemed no different than any other highway in the world.

Not having armed ourselves with a map, we just decided to drive and picked a direction. After a good distance, we thought it might be time to find a UK map. For those of you following our route, this was Salisbury. We found a map however; we never found our way back to the highway. We were now driving along small country roads between the towns. We passed through many areas that were quaint as could be. Who needs to travel on the stinking highway? This was way more interesting! After studying our map, we noticed that our travels off the highway would take us within 10 miles of Stonehenge. WOW! How could you pass that up? So we made the slight detour and headed off track a bit. Like we were not already off the original track!

Along about Tidworth we realized that I was not being a good navigator and was doing way too much sightseeing and not enough sign reading. We were about 5 miles north of our turn. Ken turned around. Dang it, we were this close to Stonehenge; we were going to see it! What we did not count on was paid parking. We had not even one red pence to our name. It was like we just came off a boat or something…oh, wait… We did! We saw Stonehenge from a short distance and were able to get video footage of it. Ken drove by real slow and I aimed the camera. Well, that was good enough to satisfy me. After all, it’s just a bunch of rocks. (GASP! Can you hear the screams of all the historians around the world?)

Back on the road again, we got seriously lost in Swindon. All we wanted was to find a grocery store so we could grab something for dinner. We never did find one and upon seeing a Burger king, we gave up and ate dinner there.

The rest of the route to the hotel was all highway and we checked in at about 8pm. Ken and I sat down, planned out our day trips for the next few days, and hit the sack!

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Caen is the home city of William the Conqueror, and most of the major medieval structures in the city exit because of him. William, of course, was the victor at the battle of Hastings in 1066 and a lot of the historic and tourist sites in the city glorify this period of Norman power.

As a contrast, it is interesting to note that Caen was the site of major fighting during WWII and also the sites of many Nazi atrocities because of a notorious prison in the city. The reign of the conqueror (who was quite cruel in his way) is remembered much differently than the time of the occupation and liberation.

While we saw many of the sites related to William, but we did not have time to explore that WWII part of Caen’s history. I hope to get back there someday to do this: the city has what I understand to be an impressive war memorial and museum.

We did see one place where the two stories met: the church of St. Etienne-le-Vieux. The church was founded by William and ruined during the war in 1944. It stands today as a reminder of the destruction that Caen endured during this time.

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So for this post you will need to grab a pen and a piece of paper. Go ahead, I will wait! You will want to count how many times the words “beautiful, lovely, breathtaking, and quaint” appear in this message. Trust me, you will see them a lot and will probably get sick of them. I would even venture a guess that we will reach double digits.

Not that it is any big surprise but, I STILL LOVE ENGLAND! Our first goal of the day was to find a bank machine. We thought going into downtown would be an easy task and a sure bet on finding a bank machine. After 20 minutes of driving around, and round, and round, I told Ken just to get going towards Stratford on Avon and surely one would be found along the way. As we sat at a light, Ken realized he was in the wrong lane and switched to the right. The older man in an old, bright red, pickup truck rolled his window down and asked if we knew where we were going. “Kinda sorta“ was Ken’s response. After hearing where we were headed, he informed us that we could in fact get to Stratford via the original way were we facing. He told us that it was a lovely drive and went through some beautiful towns. Not wanting to turn away local advice, we went for it. We had not even reached the outskirts of town when we ran into a small convenience store where they happened to also have a bank machine. YEAH! We now had money. (And milk for Sadie, which made her very happy!)

We drove through some breathtaking scenery and adorable towns. All of them seemed so quaint and lovely due to the fact they were all built from Cotswold stone. Even new construction was built out of this stone and therefore by first glance you could not tell what was new and what was old. The road ran along rolling hills as beautiful as those in Germany. Fields of crops were squared off and resembled a patchwork quilt.

Stratford was as quaint as I could have ever imagined. Flower boxes and gardens were at your every turn, the houses had rose bushes growing underneath windows already covered in flowers from the hanging baskets, and there was even a scattering of half timber houses that gave the town an old rustic feel. Every old building in town tried to clam some bit of fame by associating it’s self with William Shakespeare who was born and lived a good portion of his life here. We saw the house Shakespeare was born and raised in and took a turn through the souvenir shop next to it. The house was rather beautiful and someone took care to plant many flowers in the gardens around it.

One of the first things we saw on our walk was a local craftsman who was crafting picture frames out of wire. He would bend the wire to spell out the name and then added a flower he had made previously. He finished it by bending the kickstand for the whole frame. We bought one for each of our daughters.

We took the walking tour around town which led us to the church that Shakespeare and his family were buried in. We also found a house that was a beautiful shade of pale pink with white gingerbread trim. Now I know some of you are saying to yourself “beautiful shade and pink” do not belong in the same sentence with “house”, but Carissa, Celia and I were quite impressed with the house. We thought it would make a lovely model for a doll house!

As we turned to head on, the other side of the street droned a quaint, old, half timbered house overgrown with ivy and surrounded by flowers. It had the old lead glass pained windows. Simply breathtaking and I could not stop myself from taking pictures of it. This was the house of Shakespeare’s son in law who was also a doctor.

We ended our trip to Stratford by walking along the canal. It was such a sight to see! Hordes of people were relaxing along its banks and rowing boats down it. There were grassy areas with quaint park benches and streetlamps that old and young sat among, talking, laughing, and napping. I wanted to stay and soak it all in but alas; we had other places to visit today.

On the agenda was Oxford with a museum housing a piece by Michelangelo and a search through the many book stores. The hands of fate were not in our midst though. The museum was closed due to a festival that ran that very day through the 7th (the day we leave this area) and the stores were all closing up. Still, armed with 2 strollers and getting our money’s worth on it, we toured around the town. The buildings were old and beautiful, very stately feeling.

Feeling our feet begin to ache we grabbed dinner and went for the car. The drive back was interesting. At several points we pulled of on an exit to explore the sights they claimed existed there. Not sure we ever found one that we were looking for. We did land in a small town that housed a beautiful church and a quaint stream with Cotswold stone bridge running over the top of it. We found the town quite by accident and I think the name of the town was Northleach but I can not be certain. We stopped to peek into the windows of a doll house shop and a music box shop. The lanes were so tight that only one car could pass at a time and we often pulled to the side to let another car pass. The towns in this area reek of charm and age. I simply love it all!

And for those of you counting…. I believe 15 was the magic number of annoying words you read over and over again.

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Today’s agenda was to head to Cheddar Gorge and Bath. I had expected to spend only an hour or so in Cheddar but, I had not anticipated so much of the things that were there. The area had the same feel as Gatlinburg, Tennessee. The gorge rose above us on either side and was just narrow enough to carve a road out of. Some of the curves were hard to maneuver around but we took them slow and checked out the scenery. The town of Cheddar is of coarse were the famous cheese is named from but only one place still makes their cheese there. We toured the factory. (if that is what you want to call it) It was more like a small shop with a few cheese vats. There was not much to see and we were in and out in record time. I was however impressed with the fact that they take in 2,000 liters of milk each day to make their cheese. Ken purchased a few varieties of the cheese and even picked up some great relish to put on crackers. The one I can’t wait to crack open when we get home is the caramelized onion one. I know, you are saying “EEWWWW” right now as I did before trying it, but really… it is very good.

We checked out the shopping and walked up and down the one road in Cheddar. There are caves that you can go into to explore but having 3 kids and not able to take our handy strollers in, we opted out. In one of the caves there, they have the oldest complete skeleton and I am sure if Carissa would have seen it, she would have obsessed about it for weeks, maybe months afterwards! We saved ourselves the headache. Instead, we trapped the kids in the car while we took the scenic route out of the gorge towards Bath.

Bath was dirty and did not in any way reflect its name unless you say it NEEDED a Bath! The buildings themselves were very nice and interesting but the ground needed a good rainstorm to wash the streets clean. We first visited the church (what a surprise) and then we headed to the Roman Baths. One of the big claims to fame for this town was the Roman baths that took place here centuries ago. We found them very expensive to visit and chose to buy a book on them instead.

After ditching the history lesson and the good learning tool, we chose to SHOP! You would think it has been years since Ken and I have seen the inside of a book store! We spent several hours in two different book stores. We picked out a couple books for all of us including the kids. I have recently discovered a British author if children’s books that I rather enjoy. Her name is Julia Donaldson. I found a couple more books by her and latched onto those.

We did leave time at the end of the day to head back to Bristol where, on the way to Cheddar, we spotted a Wal-mart! There again, we spent hours shopping. What did we come to England for you ask? Apparently to shop and at Wal-mart no less! We were so excited to find Poptarts, Campell’s soup , and mint or orange flavored Kit-Kats. Among those finds, we also found very odd flavors of potato chips. Ken could not resist the yogurt and mint ones. No, that is all in ONE bag, not two different flavors! He said he had his eye on the beef stew flavored ones but could not find a small bag of those. Thank goodness for small miracles! Seems the British have a leg up on the varieties of chips. But if we keep shopping like this, we will be fat and poor in no time.

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Day 5

Monday, September 20, 2004 10:58 AM

From: Sandi

Our plan for today was to hit Stow-on-the-Wold but we did not make it there as quick as we thought we would. We found an interesting spot on the map that boasted of a miniature village, models, and a toy and car museum called Burton–on-the-Water. We found them and so much more. What was supposed to be a short stop turned into a whole morning of fun. The town has a canal that runs through it and is overloaded with stone bridges arching over the top. Along both sides were areas to pop a squat and picnic. We did just that! We had thought ahead and purchased packaged lunches for the family and sat among the trees and stream to eat them. It was a wonderful lunch! Seems there were lots of people out today with the same idea.

We took pictures of each of the girls that I am hoping turn out and Carissa even tried to take a picture of Ken and I. (Pretty sure this one was a bust.)

We found a train shop that Ken poked around in for a bit and then it was my turn. Just around the corner was a doll house shop. My heart was leaping at the thought of owning one of my very own. Oh wait… I mean of the kids owning one. Yeah, that’s what I meant to say. My head was aching at the thought of putting it all together. After all, I have a hard enough time decorating my real house! My pocketbook had a heart attack at the very calculation of the cost of such an item! The kids were begging for me to buy them one (really! They were!) The only thing we left with was the big wish book. Maybe we have Christmas gift ideas for the next century!

We took a small spin through the miniature village. All the houses were made of Cotswold stone and it was a replica of village of Burton right down to the bridges, post office, and train shop that we visited. And to top off the fun we ran the kids through a maze. It was a blast! We were given a card and had to spot clues on stones placed into the grounds. There were 14 total and the message when you read the clues was” place your hands on the monkeys and step on the caterpillar and wait.” In the center of the maze was a building where you found a frog encased in glass. When you found the monkeys and caterpillar and touched them, the frog opened its mouth to reveal a jeweled dragonfly. It was a great activity to wear the kids out.

I could have spent the rest of the day here but Ken had plans to see a cathedral in Coventry. The cathedral was a sister church to one he had visited in Berlin. Both were bombed out in WWII and had newer, modern churches built next to the old. It was a weird sight to see the old and new all combined together. The new has a very modern art style and is sparse. It had glass etchings of angels on the front which looked more emaciated than welcoming and helpful. * In the end, though, the theme of the church is God’s ultimate triumph over the suffering and death caused by war. Inside, the focus of the church’s interior is a gigantic painting of Jesus in a style which bridges the medieval and the modern. (Yeah, you are right. Ken ended up writing the description of the church from the * on.)

Everything seemed to be closing up so we headed back to the hotel. The hotel had a place called Brewsters in it. Inside it had what was called the “fun factory” where you can sign your kids in and they can play in the huge play area while you enjoy your meal in peace. The kids had been begging to go and we thought tonight was a good time. They had a blast. When we got back to the room and started to get the kids ready for bed, we discovered that Carissa’s tooth was hanging on by a thread. I grabbed the video camera and told Ken to go for it. Carissa threw a huge fit and began crying up a storm. Ken got hold of it and barely even tugged before it came out in his hand. When he announced that it was over, Carissa did not even believe him. We had to take her to the mirror and show her the tooth was missing. Now we have to figure out if the tooth fairy comes to England and what the exchange rate is.

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Today I woke to the sound of a loud beeping noise. I thought it was my alarm and the kids were late for school. I began to panic then seconds later realized where I was and the beeping was that of construction equipment. The hotel we are staying at is fairly new and the businesses attached to it are still being finished up. In another month or so the KFC will be up and running. It has been somewhat warm here and we have been sleeping with the windows open. Well, nothing like waking at 7am to the sounds of commotion.

We packed up and headed out for the next destination in Wales. It was a rather light day and not much to tell. The town of Tenby was recommended to us by a friend of mine (who we will meet in person tomorrow) and it lived up to its recommendation. It is a seaside resort town filled to the max with hotels and B&Bs. Shops were everywhere and sold a variety of items. One of the most unique things we purchased was a few carved wooden spoons. In Wales there is an old custom for a man to make a wooden spoon for his bride. The different symbols carved into it represent different things. A heart means love, Diamond means prosperity, Ribbon means eternal love, and an anchor means stability. I made Ken pick one out for me. Yes, I said “made” and told him he better be thankful I did not make him carve one for me. He chose one that has a heart, ribbon and 2 love birds on it.

By this time the kids could not hold in their excitement for the beach any longer. We kept taunting them with peeks of the water and sand at several corners. I dressed them in white sundresses and posed them for several pictures. Sadie did not cooperate very well when I tried to get some by the water. She was terrified and screamed bloody murder. Carissa and Celia had a great time playing in the water and despite my words of wisdom about not getting too wet; they were soaked and covered in sand. This is just one more reminder to me why I do not want to spend a week on the beach this winter.

I am now typing this under the night sky, sipping on a tall drink, at our next B&B while the kids are playing in yard filled with toys. Ken is sitting next to me reading the trashy newspapers and we are listening to the cheers for the English vs. Polish football game coming from the pub. Wish we had more nights like this!

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I hope that is right! Frankly I am losing track of the days and everything is running together. Guess that is the problem with long vacations.

I truly believe I had the worst shower of my life this morning. The water or I should say, the trickle, turned from scalding to freezing every few seconds. I know we have all had showers like this and can all remember but this really was the worst one I have ever seen! Not a good start to the morning. Today was the day I was to meet an internet friend from the expat board, for the first time so it had to be done. I was a bit worried about how breakfast would go after the not so pleasant accommodations, but it turned out to be a wonderful meal.

At 9:30 we hit the road. By my calculations, we should have been in St. David’s church by 11ish and be back on the road by noon. Sadie fell asleep moments before we reached St. David’s so I opted to sit in the car with her while Ken explored the church. He was the one who really likes to see churches anyway. St. David’s is the largest cathedral in Wales and the smallest city in Britain. (I think I got that right. Maybe it is the other way around.) A bit of information here: For an area to be considered a city, it has to have a cathedral. For a church to become a cathedral, it has to possess some form of a relic. For this reason, it makes St. David quite interesting. Ken would be able to tell you more about how David became a saint and even the history of his parents who were also saints. But that would assume that you even cared to hear the story. It is interesting and I recommend asking him or looking it up.

The next phase of my plan was to travel to our next hotel and maybe stop off at Portmeirion. My calculations figured to put us arriving around 4 pm. Well, the lesson to learn here is never depend too much on my calculations. We arrived only moments before our 6PM dinner reservations. We followed several tractors moving at snails pace and pulled over way to many times to take pictures and find restrooms. Then came the fatal error. Ken and I turned down a road to get an amazing photograph. Things kept getting prettier and we were having a hard time finding a place to turn around. We discovered the road eventually came out where we wanted to be (Cricieth) so we decided to follow the scenic path. The path took much longer than anticipated but was well worth it. It was breathtaking to see the mountains on one side and the ocean on the other. The mountain bases were covered with dry stone walls laid out in all directions and giving boundaries for the thousands of lambs roaming and grazing there. I have personally never seen so many lambs before.

We checked into our beautiful guesthouse and I fell in love with it instantly. Everything is soft, pretty, and flowers abound everywhere, inside and out. Our dinner was at a restaurant called Poachers and is owned by a lady I know from the internet named Jill. Her husband has been a chef for several years now and even came from parents who were both chefs. Let me be the one to tell you… that man can cook! He does all the meals himself and only has the help of one lady for the salads and desserts. We had a wonderful meal and the kids even behaved. I guess the bribes paid off! I had roasted lamb with gravy and mint sauce. Ken had pork and apple meatballs in gravy. Both were excellent and I am wondering how much sweet talk I would have to do to the chef and his wife to get the recipes. I was just so happy to have a wonderful cooked meal as opposed to fast food and lunch meats. We have reservations there again tomorrow night and I already am having a hard time figuring out what I will eat! Now dessert on the other hand I already know! It will be the very same thing I had tonight! It was an apple, walnut, caramel cake served warm. It was rich, moist, and melted in my mouth. I will have sweet dreams of it tonight.

After dinner we walked along the beach with my internet buddy and her two kids. It is so fun to meet people I feel I have known for years but have never seen. We will spend more time with her tomorrow morning after our breakfast and then head out for a bit of sightseeing. We still have yet to decide where we will head for the day. Guess it will all depend on the weather.

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The weather today just plain sucked! It turned a bit cold and rainy. I knew that the UK was having some rainy and cold weather but so far we had been having great weather and I was hoping our luck would hold out. We were not sure what the plans for the day were, the things we had once chosen were now in conflict with other things we found that looked interesting. It was looking like a laid back kind of day.

I am amazed at the friendliness of folks in Welsh B&Bs. Every morning you are greeted with a rush of “good mornings” and “how was your night?” Everyone smiles and you find them sitting around in the lounge talking with each other. You find yourself drawn in too. I had a wonderful chat with several people staying in the hotel. We talked of plans for the day, places we lived, and even of our families.

I had a wonderful nights sleep in the new hotel, a good breakfast with great coffee (none of that harsh French roast), and more good coffee sitting with my friend Jill and her family again. They invited us over and we spent a good hour talking and getting travel advice while the kids played and had a grand time. We met her husband who is very kind and I must admit has a fantastic accent! I loved listening to him talk.

We decided the slate mines sounded like the best option. It was indoors and we would be out of the rain. (Not like a deep, cold, wet, cave was any better!) The mines were interesting and the kids enjoyed wearing hard hats and riding the train all the way down. Carissa was a little scared when the lights went out for the story to begin but got over it fairly quickly. For the life of me, I could not figure out why they were digging for the slate. Every mountain we drove by had piles and piles of slate on top them. (Ummm… hello there people!) There was hardly any greenery around and it somewhat looked like large piles of trash dumps for a lack of better description. The area was not much to look at and the rainy weather fit right in with the feel. I did not find a good piece of slate to purchase so we headed for another shop a few miles away. There I found a fantastic slate door stop hand carved and listed as slate from 300-500 million years old. (Impressive ain’t it?)

The next stop was to find some fun for the kids. Their memories are short and they forget fast how much fun they had. So every few days we have to do something entirely for them. We found a brochure for a place called Piggery pottery where kids paint their own pottery. This was right up our alley and fit right in with the relaxing laid back day we were having. I had planned on Carissa and Celia painting and I thought I might try my hand at the pottery wheel. I was very excited (probably more than the girls) and was deeply disappointed that the wheel was closed up. I sat back and watched all THREE girls painted a face mask. Carissa and Celia painted a blue cat while Sadie painted a brown monkey. I was met by fierce disapproval from Sadie as I tried to help her paint. She saw her sisters doing it themselves and she had to do the same. There are times I feel like I am stifling my kids’ creative progress. I had such an urge to jump in and help them paint it correctly. I had to walk away at times and put my creative juices in my back pocket, sit on them, squash them around for a bit, and just plain demolish them. We took the completed blue cat masks to the counter where the lady proceeded to help them add glue and glitter. In the end, I have to admit, the masks turned out very cute. We bought 3 more plain ones that I am sure my kids will never lay one ounce of paint onto them. Instead, I will have a blast painting them the way I wanted to paint the others. (Bad mommy, bad mommy, bad mommy!)

We arrived back at our hotel in time to take a quick break before heading to dinner again. Once again, I was truly impressed with the meal. Ken and I both had the Welsh Black fillet with red wine sauce, black pepper, grilled onions, and garlic butter. MMMMMM….!! I tried my hardest but simply could not resist the apple, walnut, caramel cake. It was too good the first time and the very thought of living my life without ever eating it again was to much to bear. (Yes, it was THAT good!!) Jill ended up not letting us pay for dinner and gave it to us all on the house. How nice was that?!

We spent some time with Jill and her kids again where the kids started getting very wild. With no naps and up early, this was a dangerous situation. We all said our good-byes and left. It was fantastic to meet her and her family. I wish I could have stayed there for longer (and so did the girls) but alas, we had a vacation to get back to.

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We are officially leaving Wales today. Carissa is crying her eyes out because she wanted to play with the kids again. She just does not get the concept of a vacation yet. She is somehow under the impression that a vacation is a relaxing fun experience where you can sit back and do the things you want to do as a kid. Oh where, oh where did she ever get that impression? Certainly not from her parents! To Ken and I, vacations are go, see, and drive everywhere!

The town of Conwy (funny that welsh spelling eh?) was recommended to us and since we were driving right by it on our travels to York, we decided to pop into it for a quick stop. The castle was extremely impressive and the bridge leading to it was an equally majestic sight. We did not go into the castle, we just were not interested. I guess we visited one too many of them in Germany.

Instead we walked the city and purchased a map that told of tales of the past. Seems this was a town filled with ghosts and their legends have stayed behind just as their presence have. We read of ghost sightings, stories, and even of the tales behind how odd tombstones came to be. The church yard and cemetery were straight out of a ghost story. The church was very old and run down and the graveyard that circled the church even creeped me out. The tombstones were tilted and falling down. Several of the graves were built above ground and you could see where bricks had replaced fallen ones. Ivy grew over them and made its way into the cracks opening the tops like they were helping the ghosts to escape. We even saw the oldest house in Conwy which was built around 1300. It was a fantastic and odd town.

There is not much to tell of the rest of the day. It consisted of us driving out of Wales and back into Britain to the other side. York was a lot further away than I had first thought and we ended up with several breaks. One of those breaks was a big shopping district. Ken had been looking in ads all week for computer stores and feeling a bit restless. When we spotted the large center, he was sure he would find a computer store and had to stop. I chose to spend my time out of the car in a drug store purchasing my much loved and missed Mabeline make-up.

Back on the road again to finish up the journey did not produce anything to write home about. We found dinner and the hotel with relative ease that surprised Ken and I. The hard part was trying to figure out how we were going to fit 3 days worth of sightseeing into one short afternoon!!

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Local Tags: carissa, castle, celia, conwy, england, France, ghost story, graveyard, ken, sadie, sandi, vacation, wales, york

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