2018 August Great Britain Day 10 and 11- Get me home!

As usual, the final night of any trip is a sleepless one especially when we are trying to get home from a foreign country.  I don't know how Denise sleeps.  But I struggle to fall to sleep and then when I wake up in the night (3 AM this time) I cannot go back to sleep.  I literally stared at the ceiling for a couple of hours.  At one point, I did grab my phone and began to research how to return the rental car.  I had called Hertz earlier the previous day to see if someone would be there and they said someone would. But that plagued my mind.  I also worried about getting home from Newark as getting seats here in Glasgow seemed good.  We even were pretty sure we would get business class as there were 5 Business Class and 7 Economy available and we were the only stand by's listed.

We left the hotel at 5:30 AM.  It was about a 20 minute drive to the airport.  Finding the rental car drop was pretty easy to do.  GPS's are wonderful.  However, determining how to get in the Hertz portion of the lot...not so obvious.  And was there a person there to receive your car?  Nope.  Anyway, we found the return spot, parked the car, went to the booth and found a pull out security drawer where it said to leave your car keys when they are not there.  So we did.  It felt a little uncomfortable to do that since I was returning it one day early and at a different location in the UK.  The clerk at Heathrow told me that I only had to contact them if I was extending my stay with the car.  I could drop it early and at any UK location.  The drop fee added on allowed me to do that.  But we'll see.  Hopefully they will email me my final bill.

Our flight to Newark...the only flight on United to the US from Glasgow was to leave at 9 AM.  We were at the airport, checked in and through security by 6:45 AM.  All good.  So I just researched other paths that we can take from Newark to try and get home....assuming we got seats out of Glasgow...which we did.  But, the 5 Business Class seats were purchased by someone in the last hours.  Seat count went from 12 open seats to 6.  Made us worry a bit.  But we're on our way home as I write this part of the blog.

Well, we arrived early at Newark. But it became obvious it was a zoo there.  We had booked ourselves on a flight to Houston. Upon arrival, I was 11 in the queue and Denise was like 19. Pretty rare that people get between us. But this was the beginning of a weird travel day. 

So we sit down and I start searching other routes not paying much attention in front of me. A Denver flight was 3 hours delayed but now boarding. It actually left with 4 seats open!  I should have caught that. Anyway our Houston flight started to board. I gave it no hope for us to get on. But because of so many Newark challenges, there were many disconnects. Anyway, Denise and I got on...the flight has and continues to be the flight that does not want to fly. 

After boarding, we were told that they needed to wait for the clouds to divide and provide the super highway out of here. After about 45 minutes, we finally backed out and got into the queue to depart.  After moving slowly towards the runway, our plane takes a right turn out of the line. The captain comes on and says they have him a different route. And that new route..well we don’t have enough gas. So back we go to a gate to get gassed up.  After about 30 minutes, I watch the gas pumping truck pull up. The driver sat there for about 20 minutes eating lunch. Finally he gasses us up.  We’re finally ready!  After another 45 minutes in the plane not flying,  the pilot finally comes on and says we can get off the plane.  Due to weather issues now in Houston, we cannot leave. So into the terminal we go. After about an hour or so, we hear another Houston flight get called for boarding. That flight was long gone when a gate agent comes out, after our plane had sat there an hour or more, and said the plane now needs to be ‘catered’...have food restocked on it.  What were they doing for the last hour or so!!!!  Please, at this point spare me the darn pretzels!  30 minutes or so later, we finally board. We all get on and suddenly some guy starts having chest pain.  That must have passed. We are now in a queue of planes waiting to take off. It is 6:44pm est. we were supposed to leave at 1:10 pm est!  5.5 hours of United playing with us. And to boot, I have economy seats and my legs are up around my ears!

Now I sit in Houston.  The good news is that our flight to SLC (at 6 PM Houston time) has been delayed 5 hours.  We arrived to IAH at 9:15 PM.  So, we are waiting to see if we can get on this flight before we try to get a hotel.  It actually looks pretty good that we will get seats.  

Well, I lied.  I'm now adding to this blog Sunday morning at 10:00 AM in Houston airport.  The plane to SLC last night arrived at about 10:45 PM with intentions to leave at 11 PM.  However, the gate agent soon came on and said that the cock pit crew had 'timed out'.  Their shift was complete.  She said that they needed to get another cock pit crew to fly the plane.  So we waited, and waited and waited.  They brought out snacks, drinks, blankets (because it was real cold).  People were getting really anxious having been at the airport all day trying to get to SLC.  At 1 AM in the morning, United Operations cancelled the flight with no intentions of flying the plane later in the morning.  So everyone had to go to Customer Service, get in line with hundreds of other disgusted customers to get a seat on some flight the next day.  And because there were seats on flights today at 7 PM and 10 PM...they would not put them on other airlines.  People were furious.  We were wondering what to do since non-revenue (stand by) people get no love by the airlines.  I struck up a conversation with a young guy who had a potty mouth.  He was to be in SLC to get a car and drive up to Idaho to meet family and friends for a fishing expedition on the Snake river.  He's going to miss a lot of that trip.  :-(  After the shock of this crazy flight, Denise and I headed towards baggage claim.  Denise started calling hotels since we were past midnight and could not book them online.  The first one we tried said they were full until Tuesday night.  The next one, the guy said he had a room but that we would need to get a taxi to get there.  We thought ok...but when Denise handed me the phone the guy had hung up.  The next hotel we chose was the Best Western JKK Inn and Suites.  They answered, said they had a KING Size bed suite for $80 and that they would have a shuttle to us in 15 minutes.  It worked like clock work.  We were in a very nice room by 1:45 AM.  It did not take long for me to be sound asleep.

At about 4:00 AM, my body told me I was still in Scotland and what was I doing sleeping?!?!  I tried to ignore it.  But my brain kicked into gear wondering how we might get home later.  So I got up quietly, grabbed my IPad and started looking at flights into SLC (from Denver, SFO, ORD and IAH).  Denver and SFO had very late flights that had tons of seats.  So if I could get us to one of those two airports, we would get home...at about 12:30 AM tomorrow morning.  That sounded horrible...but what do you do.  Now the question, how can I get to Denver or SFO?  Looking at direct flights from IAH, all flights showed oversold to those two locations.  We could surely list us for one of them and then hope disconnects occur and seats open.  But I was tired playing that roulette wheel.  So I started looking at flights to other airports where I could connect back to the hub airport (SFO or Denver).  I found one flight to Telluride\Montrose Colorado at noon that had 11 seats available.  It had a connecting flight at 5 PM back to Denver with 3 seats open.  Neither flight had stand by passengers listed.  But before I listed us on this path, I wondered about driving to Denver.  So I checked that out.  It turned out that driving to Denvver or Salt Lake City would take 6.5 hours to do.  We could do that...but would a one way car cost from Telluride?  So I quickly looked that up.  I could get a car for $90.  That beat the cost of buying two tickets on another airline (which I looked at and the cheapest was $1000 for both of us...and that was Frontier and Southwest).  So I reserved the car in Telluride, booked us on flights to Telluride\Denver\SLC and called it good.  I went back to bed to try and get some sleep.  Never happened...but it was a nice thought.

Denise started waking up around 7 AM.  I asked her if we should give one direct flight to SLC from IAH a shot.  She said yes.  So she quickly got up to shower and wash her hair since that had not been done for a while apparently.  I listed us on the IAH to SLC flights.  After I showered, I ran downstairs and partook of the free breakfast (yes, Julee, they had waffles).  Denise eventually came down.  She ate her breakfast and by 8:30 AM we were on a shuttle back to the airport.

It was interesting to be at the 10 AM SLC flight.  My friend was there again.  He paid $170 for a hotel room, he said.  But the airline did give him a $150 voucher for some reason.  I don't know.  But none of the revenue standbys got on and certainly us non-rev standby's did not.  So now I'm writing this waiting for our flight to Telluride.  We've made the decision that if we get there, we will rent the car and take the 6.5 hour drive taking the fate of arriving to SLC in our own hands.  Our journey still continues...maybe more to be added to the blog later!

What a day of flying....that put a lot of questions in my mind.  How did United not know that the cock pit crew was going to 'time out'?  Why didn't they have an alternative crew waiting?  Why did it take 2 HOURS to tell us and cancel that flight?  They knew the status of things when that plane arrived.  In Newark, why did they wait to 'cater' the plane after it had sat there for an hour plus!  Why wasn't the plane fully gassed up before taxing in Newark when the route was changed and we had to go back to the gate?  Yes, we had weather issues.  But boy, United operations seemed to be dropping the ball all over the place.  If I was a paying customer, social media would be getting an earful from me on how United handled all of our situations. 

Some summary thoughts on our Great Britain trip...

Driving in the UK is not so bad.  But you really need another set of eyes making sure you count the right number of pull outs from the round a abouts, watch all lanes of traffic and make sure you always drive on the left side of the road.  Denise is wonderful at doing this.  I know I scare her a few times each time we do this.

The food has been pretty good.  We ate a lot of Fish and Chips.  But I find that I don't get so hungry when I travel and only need to eat a nice breakfast, a snack and then a light dinner.  I wish that was the case in the US.

In the future, we need to investigate activities in towns we are going to be in.  I would not have come to Edinburgh during their Festival month nor would I have tried to be in Glasgow when the European Track and Field Championships are going on.  I guess I could have planned in advance and bought tickets to such...and that would have been fun.  But having not done that...way too many people to deal with.

I want to return to Scotland in June or thereabouts.  It is so green and beautiful.  I'd like to drive up into the Scottish highlands.  They say they are amazing to see.  And you can get from one coast to the other in about an hour.  Pretty interesting.

I'd like to return to Wales but spend more time on the southwestern coast line.  It looked pretty amazing.  So much we could have seen and experienced there.  We packed a lot in during this trip.  But there is so much more that we could have enjoyed.  Such is traveling I guess.

Pictures....

This picture describes our day....almost 24 hours of hotels and airports.

2018 August Great Britain Day 9 - Adios Edingburgh, Lomond Loch, Troon and Glasgow

This morning we got up at regular time and took our time actually.  We looked at our flights seat availability.  We made the decision to go out of Glasgow even though there is just one flight per day to the US on United.   As a result, we decided to jump in the car and head to a National Park and to a 'loch' (lake) called Lomond.   We had our eye on a 90 minute boat tour through the many islands in this 'loch'.  Interestingly enough, the large mountain at the end of the lake was called Ben Lomond.  The area was so green and beautiful.

We arrived at a little town called Luss in about an hour and 40 minutes. The drive was beautiful.   Upon arriving in this small village, we pulled into a parking lot, parked and went into a Tourist station only to find no one there sharing information.  It was more of a coffee shop and they were busy.  So we went back outside and down the parking lot to a trailer.  It turned out that is where they sold the boat tour tickets.  So we bought some for the 11:30 AM departure.  After getting the tickets, we kept walking further south to a line of people all waiting to get into the toilets.  There were many, many buses in the parking lot so you could tell this was some type of tourist trap.  Anyway, after paying 30 pence each to use their sacred toilets, we kept going south to the 'General Store'...which had a small cafe in it and a nick\nack store.  Denise spent some time there of course looking at stuff.  I stayed outside taking pictures.  At about 11:15, we headed down the road to the pier.

While waiting for the boat to show up, it began to rain.  Naturally we left our umbrellas in the car...go figure.  It was quite wet and very cold.  Fortunately the boat arrived on time and it was covered mostly.  So Denise pushed her way to the head of the line (because the rain droplets were starting to melt her) and we boarded getting our pick of the seats.

The tour was really nice.  Some people had camping gear and were headed to one of the islands to do some camping.  Others were going there for a day on the island and to picnic.   We just stayed on the boat and enjoyed the 45 minute trip back (it was 90 minutes round trip).

Upon returning to the pier, we took a different route to the parking lot.   As we came up from the beach to the parking lot, we started to notice parking machines for paying for parking.  At that point I started to get worried as we did not notice the need to pay for parking.  As we get to the car, I notice a big yellow thing on the windshield of the car.  And sure enough, we had a parking ticket.  I looked around to see if there were any signs nearby or any on the southern route we took earlier when buying tickets and using the bathroom.  There was nothing.  The ticket prices is 60 pounds or about $75!  But they are nice, if you pay it in two weeks, they cut it in half.  Wow...pretty expensive.  If I would’ve known to pay for the parking when I parked, I think it would’ve cost me maybe six or 7 pounds for the three hours that we are there.  Oh well, I'm going to try to fight it online.  We shall see.but if I pay this with in 24 days or something like that I can cut it in half. I can also petition them via the online system which I will certainly try.

After we got done with the loch we headed further south west to take a drive over to a town called Troon.  That drive took us about an hour and a half.  We arrived around 2:30 PM.  This port town sits on the Scottish west coast.  Turns out that they have a golf course here (that we passed) that hosts the British Open every 7 years.  Colin Montgomey, a well known Euro golfer lives in Troon.  Who knew!?  We parked in a lot next to the beach (free parking...made sure) and then walked along the beach there.  It was nice being by the Irish Sea and seeing the big island out in the distance (Isle of Arran).   Very picturesque.  After a bit there, we then headed to our favorite grocery store in Scotland...Morrison's.  I think it was the third time we've been in this grocery store during our travels.  We bought some snacks and some muffins for breakfast in the morning.  Since we listed ourselves for Business Class, I hope we won't need the muffins.  We'll see. 

We then headed back to Glasgow to our hotel.  We did not realize that Germany and Scotland we're hosting the European Summer Games.  And Glasgow was the city for Scotland.  No wonder hotels were few and expensive.  It ends on Sunday.  We arrived at our hotel and upon checking in I asked if we got the Queen Bed that I had requested.  Oh she said we had the 'King Size' bed.  I said yahoo...until I got to my room to find something to the tune of a 'double' bed.  I'm sure the front desk girl laughed as we left her station.

After a bit, we headed out to get some dinner.  The young lady at the front desk told us to drive up the street about 5 minutes (or it would take 10 to walk).  I think we drove for a good 10 minutes...seemed and we still had to pull over and use the GPS to figure out where all the eateries were that she described.  If we had walked this...well...we'd still be walking!  We ended up at a burger place called the The Counter Burger.  It was yummy.  We split a burger as we are kind of fooded out!

One thing about driving over here is that they use the yellow traffic light for going and stopping.  For going, it alerts you that the light is about to turn green to go.  People start moving when it is yellow.  I've found that interesting.

Well, time for bed.  Big day tomorrow as we make our way back to the motherland.  Wish us luck!

Pictures:

The little village of Luss...

The pier leading out to where we would catch our boat...

What do you do while waiting for the boat...you take selfies!  :-). Obviously it has not started to rain yet.  We needed a picture of that!

Loch Lomond....

One of the many islands we passed....

Coming back to the pier...

Looking down from the pier, you could see a lot of fish.  But you could also see ducks, swans and so on.  On some of the islands, they claim there are Wallabies...Kangaroo.  Who would have known.

At one point in our drive to Troon, we had to take a detour.  I think we missed some turn and ended up on this tiny road.  But, we found our way back to the highway at the right point.  All was well...

Lots of the new age windmills....

Loving the Irish Sea....

Coming into Glasgow.  It is only 45 miles from Edinburgh.  Pretty close!

Our hotel....

The river behind where we ate our dinner tonight.  In the distance, you can see a building that kind of looks like the Sydney Opera House.  Where we ate had a big casino, bowling alley and movie theater.  It was pretty busy there.

Our yummy hamburger and sweet potatoe fries!  Last dinner in the UK for a while...we hope.

2018 August Great Britain Day 8 - Edinburgh City

Last night was a nice night's sleep.  We didn't need to get up early but we did in order to catch a bus into city center to pay for a Hop on, Hop Off bus that we would used through out the day.  So we were up at 7 AM and then walking down the road to catch a bus.  Thank goodness for the Movit app.  What a great tool that is for travelers wanting to use public transportation to get around a city.  It shows you a path to the bus, then alerts you when the bus is arriving, when your stop comes up and then how to walk to your destination.  We've used in Uruguay, Argentina and now Scotland.  It has worked great every time.

Edinburgh is quite amazing.  There is an old part and a new part. We spent most of our time in the old part.  The Hop on, Hop off bus worked well for us.  We were able to see many parts of the old city that we wanted to see.  We spent a number of hours in the Edinburgh castle that towers over the city.  The view up there was amazing.  It really is a beautiful port city.  Unfortunately, that means that cruise ships come into port and many end up at the Edinburgh Castle as their expedition.  But, the biggest deal here is the fact that the month of August is Festival...they claim it to be the biggest festival in the world when running.  Boy, I believe it.  By noon, all the streets around the castle were packed with people.  Talking to the locals, which I do often to ask questions like where to eat and stuff, they said we've picked the worst time to be here if you do not like big crowds.  We were pretty stunned to see so many people on a Thursday in this area.  And I guess the evenings get even worse with lots of concerts and things going on.   Nonetheless, we rubbed shoulders and behinds with many people as we navigated many of the streets.  Also, the bus narrators were quite funny in telling stories of things that had gone on in these areas.  The Scots are pretty funny.  But they are also very well educated and they are devoted to their country and country men.

We started our bus tour at 9 AM and I think we headed back to our flat at about 5 PM.  We were beat with very sore feet.   After getting off the bus, I stopped a young girl and asked if there were any restaurants around.  She told me no...not really.  She then said...but there are 'take aways'.  I guess that is their version of a fast food type joint.  But not really, it just means that they don't have many places for you to sit.  Anyway, she described how to get to a Fish and Chip joint.  So after landing at our flat, we just dropped our stuff and got into the car and drove down the road to Jarvits...the Fish and Chip place.  It was quite good with large portions of Fish and large portions of Chips.  We should have shared chips and each had on piece of fish.  But no, we got full orders.  I think we threw half the chips away...just too much.

Well, I have been creating plans A & B with Denise.  Tomorrow is decision day as to where we might try to come home from.  Edinburgh has 3 flights to the US each day (to EWR, ORD and IAD).  Glasgow (1.5 hours a way) has 1 flight (to EWR).  Manchester (3.5 hours a way) has 1 flight and lastly Heathrow (6.5 hours away) has a ton of flights each day.  Looking at seat availability, there is no obvious choice today.  But, we both kind of think we will try to get out via Glasgow.  But we'll see.  It has 10 open seats, 7 are Business Class which Denise would like to get.  No standby's in line yet and no upgrades thus far.  So it looks fairly good.  But you never know.  Check back tomorrow to see where we end up for the night and which airport we will pursue!

Pictures...

Don't ask...I can't recall what this was named.  But it was right by where we purchased the On\Off bus tickets....lots of gothic looking stuff in this city.

On the On\Off bus...full of energy...ready to go!

This is called the Military Tatoo.  It is a grandstand where during this festival they have big military bands come and perform.  Obviously, at other times, they have other concerts and things here.  But you pass through this to get to the gate of the Edinburgh Castle.

Some stairs leading up to the upper portion of the Castle.  The grounds of this Castle is quite large with many, many buildings dedicated to those who have served in the military in Scotland.

Denise took this picture and I just couldn't have it...so I made here take it over (see next photo).

Sometimes you just have to minister to those who struggle.... :-)

An inner hall in one of the buildings.  Mary, Queen of Scots, occupied this place.  As a matter of fact, we got to see the Crown Jewels used in those days.  They say they are priceless.

Just a guy wanting his picture taken with someone....

Views from the castle....

Another lonely guy wanting attention...so he made some 'noise' with those darn pipes he blew into.  Actually, you heard bag pipes being played in many locations...as you might imagine.  I always wonder if these guys have knickers under those kilts.  It was a windy day and that could be uncomfortable!

Their really small version of the 'eye of London'.

There is quite the story behind this statue.  Too long to write here.  But...the story did prompt the phrases, "Georgy, Porgy, pudding and pie..kissed the girls and made them cry....'  And so on....

This is the small home that the Queen of England uses when she comes for 2 weeks each year mandatorily.  I think she comes in the last week of June, first week of July.

This is the outside of their Parliament.  We went inside and walked around.  The patterns over the windows were jokingly referred to has hair dryers, radar guns, etc..  One guy from the US said they look like Elvis' sideburns!  It doesn't look like a Parliament building though...

Still hanging in there...

Our bus...

Crowded streets everywhere....

Dolly the first cloned sheep...done right here in Edinburgh.  Actually there were two of them.

Buddy the dog...the most famous dog in Scotland.  Long tale about Buddy.  But people come here to rub his nose and leave tons of stuff on his gravesite just across the street.  People are so odd...aren't they!?!?

A great view looking over a park back at the old part of the city.

Wilting....

We went up one street as the guide said it inspired J.K. Rowlings to describe Diagon Alley in Harry Potter.  She is Scottish, apparently, and many stories were told about rooms and things where she spent time to right.  But the picture below shows about 1/10th of a crowd, both above (as seen in the picture) and below by us that were signing a large variety of songs from Queen, Mama Mia and so on.  It was pretty fun to watch.  It was a HUGE crowd singing.

Too much fish and way too much chips!!!

Another day completed....

2018 August Great Britain Day 7 - Alnwick Castle and Welcome to Scotland!

Well, last night was the best rest we had.  Maybe because we ere not all hot, sweaty and tired.  The further north we drove, the cooler it became.  Such a welcome change.  We woke up to some traffic on the road next to the house.  But we never heard it through the night.  Our place was really clean and comfortable.  Sometimes with AirBNB you get some fairly good deals.  This one cost us $70 and it was on the road to our next destination.

After getting showered, I quickly used Google Maps to find a bakery, somewhere close by where we could get some fresh goodies.  I found a place that was supposedly .25 miles away...real close.  So I convinced Denise that we can just walk to it.  I had looked on the map to determine which direction to walk.  So off we go in the direction to the bakery.  But as we walk, the sidewalk comes to an end and we are just staring at fields.  But I was convinced we were going the right.  Due to the busy traffic, we decided to quickly return, gather our stuff and get in the car and leave.  Which we did.  However, I turned the opposite direction this time and low and behold, going the OTHER direction, we could have thrown a rock and hit Sally's...a cute little bakery\sandwich shop.  So we went in.  We both had hot chocolates with freshly baked chocolate\raspberry scones.  They were SOOOO good!

After our breakfast stint, we headed east to Newcastle and then turned north to Alnwick...pronounced 'Annick'.  That would be one of our favorite stops on the trip...the Alnwick Castle.  This is a famous castle where movies and shows have used many times for many scenes.  It is also the winter home of the Duke and Duchess of Northumberland.  They are royal descendants from the Percy family who originated from France and somehow claimed this region of the world to be theirs and then built this castle.  But the royals now close it down in the fall and come and live here during the winter...which is odd because it gets really cold here.  Downton Abbey, Robin Hood Prince of Thieves, Transformers and many other shows have used the castle as backdrops to scenes in their shows or movies.  But the biggest show to adopt this castle for quite a lot is Harry Potter movies.  And for that reason, they had lots of interaction stuff like shooting arrows, flying on brooms and so on for young and old to try out.  But the castle itself was pretty amazing on such a beautiful setting.  We spent about 3.5 hours there...which was really surprising to me.

Once we left the castle we turned north and headed to Edinburg.  One thing I wanted to mention was about the radio stations.  They love old, soft, rock music around these parts.  And we were in heaven listening to all the golden oldie tunes of our era on many different radio stations.  It was pretty cool.

The trip to Edinburgh was a real pretty drive up the east coast of England.  It sits on the North Sea.  And it is pretty cool here.  I think the lows will be in the 40's...high tomorrow will be mid 60's.  Glad I packed some long pants.  We found the AirBNB apartment fine.  We always wonder because getting the address that they send into the GPS of the car is challenge.  We usually end up using our phones' GPS because you can touch the address link and it will take you to a map.  And that is how we ended up getting here.  This place is in a big apartment complex.  It is quite nice.  

For dinner, we walked over to a marketplace and bought a bunch of stuff.  Denise bought some BBQ Pork Mac-n-Cheese that needed to be heated in the oven.  But...the oven would not get hot.  It would get warm...but not hot.  We tried everything to get that thing to heat up.  No luck.  So we gave up and just nuked it in the microwave.  It was good nonetheless.  I also bought some 'Sweet Chili' chicken...that was in a bag at a sales price.  I did not know what I was actually getting inside the bag.  It turned out to be 5 or 6 chicken legs.  They were pretty tasty.

Tomorrow is a big Edinburgh city tour day.  I think we will do a Hop on, Hop off bus just to be fairly efficient.  We do plan to use city transportation as we hear that you just cannot park in the downtown area.  More to come tomorrow on all this.

Another day in the books, we're in Scotland and we're still alive....

Some pictures....

We stayed in the building in front of our car here.  The hosts house is the the right and ours to the left.  You enter through the little breeze way that has the little roof over it.

My breakfast.  Now I want you to compare my hot chocolate to Denise's!

Here is a better shot of the differences....she paid 30 pence more.  I think it was worth it!  The stick coming out is a chocolate stick with a mountain of yummy cream.  I missed that boat!!!

The green scenery that we've seen all over this large island....

Alnwick....you can kind of see a castle wall at the end of the road here.  We found free parking within 50 yards of the entrance gate...our lucky day.

The castle entrance...

One of the many castle grounds.  They actually had a big garden that you could pay a ton of money to walk through.  But we passed on that.  And in the end, we were glad as we spent way more time inside this castle than we though we would.

It was one of the better castles that I've been to.

This young lady was a tour guide.  It was all about how movies and TV had used the castle.  She was quite funny and charming...

They had a little walk through part called Dragon Quest...little kids thought it scary.  It was pretty tame.  Anyway, this was the dragon found inside only he was all lit up in red like he was breathing fire.

Our lunch that we shared...meat pie and chips!

It took a while of yelling 'Up'...but finally my broom responded and levitated up to my hands.  I think I did better than Denise.

This is me starting my take off on my broom.  I had to hurry so I could coach Denise on how to get her broom to levitate and eventually fly her broom.

It took a bit, but finally Denise was successful on getting her broom to come 'Up'.

I was a bit worried that once Denise got her broom to take off with her on board that she would fly into the wall as her hair was always in her face.

Starting to climb...it was pretty impressive seeing her fly around the castle.  The witch thing just comes out naturally for some.  :-)  She loved it.  It was fun.

The castle from a distance...pretty impressive I thought.

After a week of driving...or so it feels...we finally crossed into Scotland.  Another country to our list.  I'm sad we will short sheet it a bit.  Not enough time to see all that we'd like to see.  But we can always come back someday.

Views of the North Sea....

Lots of modern day windmills....

Lots of green fields like this on our drive...

Finally in Edinburgh, close to our apartments, a Morrisons SuperMarket.  It is kind of like a Target or Walmart.  We bought stuff for dinner tonight and breakfast tomorrow.  We started eating the 'chewey' onion rings immediately.  

One chicken leg down the trap...

Another good day..