Last Days Abroad

On the weekend, we went to Gartocharn convention.  It was very rainy and wet and quite cold but we just bundled up under blankets and 4 layers of sweaters.  Monday around lunch a wicked wind storm blew up.  Most were sitting in their cars waiting for the afternoon meeting to start when people starting running by.  We went to check it out and the dining tent had blown down!!!  Everyone helped to get things out of the wind and rain that was starting.  With no place to feed people and because of the danger being among so many trees, the rest of convention was cancelled so we caught a ride back to the Norman's while Wayne stayed over to help with clean up on Tuesday.

Since we had an extra day on Tuesday, we decided to take a drive to Caldbeck and then on to Keswick in The Lake District.  It was very beautiful.

We took a walk by the river in Caldbeck.  There was a wool store by an old windmill that was very neat.  Most of the yarn in there is from the local sheep.  No pictures allowed in the shop for some reason.

We went to Keswick directly from Caldbeck using our GPS and boy did it take us down some narrow roads through farmer's fields!  We learned later that the road went through the commons.

Here's how narrow the road was!

Sheep (and cows) right next to the side of the road.

Eventually we got back to more major roads and found Keswick.

Near the parking lot, we saw all these old cars.

Tuesday night we went out with Wayne, Beth, and Ormond (and later Jane) to Penrith.  Ormond was willing to take some anniversary pictures of us around some castle ruins.  We'll save the goods for another time, but here's part of the crew.

And since Ormond was behind the camera the entire night, here's a shot of the men on Wednesday night.

Wednesday during the day we didn't go anywhere.  In the wind storm, a couple trees fell over and knocked down the phone line so Leif spent the morning outside with a chainsaw while I wrote a blog entry and then we went into town in the afternoon for internet to post it.

Thursday, our last day of the trip, we went to York.  They have the National Train Museum there.

Some ancient trains.

The biggest locomotive we've ever seen!

This is a life size model of the high speed train and channel tunnel we went through to go to Paris.

York is a walled city and you can walk on the wall.

View from the wall.

One of the entrances into the city.

View from the wall of the Cathedral.

While we were somewhere along the length of the wall, it started to absolutely pour and then it even hailed for a bit.  We tried to take cover underneath some tree branches but it wasn't long before we were very wet.

The wall from the street.

Thursday night we went to Beth's brother and wife's house for some table tennis and chocolate fondu.

This post finds us at Manchester Airport waiting for our flight which was delayed 2.5 hours.  There's lots of good food to buy, some more shops to explore, and internet!  So it could be much worse.

See you all soon!!!