Arlington Court

The drive from Bath to Combe Martin was our longest scheduled drive - google put it at 2 hours and 21 minutes. We planned to make a stop at Arlington Court, which was just slightly off the path and should have taken a similar amount of time. It took us at least 3 hours, perhaps closer to 4 hours.

Our hope in visiting Arlington Court was to find a better information about a couple graveyards I had found in my ancestry research. I had found 3 graves in 2 different graveyards, which we hoped to visit. But the address information I had was not very helpful with modern GPS or google. As a historical site, I thought Arlington Court might have staff familiar with the area (a bit like the museum in Burlingame) or better local maps.

Ann and I at Arlington Court

We arrived at Arlington Court too late to tour any of the buildings, but mom and I were able to talk to staff in the gift shop. They didn’t know the area, but they did know the type of map we needed - a special map made for walking, biking and hiking that provides far more detail than google. Of course, they didn’t have this type of map for this area. It was unclear if they were sold out due to being the local area or if they carried another area that was more popular for outdoor sports or if the locals already know the best routes in their own backyard. Armed with this information, we were prepared to search gas stations along the rest of our route.

The drive from Arlington Court to Combe Martin was not particularly remarkable after the roads we had taken to get to Arlington Court. Ann did offer to drive at this point. I was exhausted and nearly took her up on the offer. But I had finally gotten comfortable with the car and where I was driving. As terrible as the roads had been coming in, it seemed a terrible place to ask her to take over. (We learned later from a map that many of the roads we had taken were “generally over 4m wide”…for two way traffic.)

Bath

Google indicated that the drive from Stonehenge to Bath would take 48 minutes. Again, I’m not certain of the exact timing, but I know it was longer than the expected time. Jerynn and I settled into a comfortable navigation pattern, but the traffic in Bath did cause me some consternation. There were a number of one way streets and unusual signs and traffic markings. We followed the GPS and Jerynn picked out cars to follow through some of the trickier intersections.

We arrived at our BnB, Aquas Sulis, which we had packed primarily based on the availability of overnight parking. It had a tiny lot in front and with a five point turn, I was able to park the van in the only open spot. Once parked, I announced that I wasn’t sure what we were doing for the afternoon, but I wouldn’t be driving. Perhaps having seen the harrowing drive in Bath, noticing the very limited street parking, or not being comfortable with the wrong side driving, Ann didn’t offer to drive into town. Instead, we got checked in and carted our bags inside. Mom and I shared a room on the top floor, while Ann and the girls shared a room on the floor below.

Taking the direction of the BnB operator and the map he drew on for us, we walked into Bath. We stopped at a convenience store for water and at a sandwich stop for a very late lunch.

Standing: Jerynn, Ann
Seated: Dani, me

We cut through a park, following the instructions given to us. We walked to the Bath Crescent and travelled on to the Bath Circus (basically a roundabout). We walked down a high street and stopped in a few shops, looking for things Jerynn might take back to friends at home. We toured the Bath Abbey; Ann again making a donation for our entry. This was smaller than the Salisbury Cathedral and they were about to start evening services, so we didn’t spend long there. We wandered Bath for awhile, stopping at a tourist information shop, a gelato shop, and a shop selling hand blown glass decorations.

We eventually settled on an Indian place for dinner. It wasn’t my new favorite and didn’t deserve the high trip advisor rating it had. We ended up going to Waitrose (a grocery store) to pick up dinner for mom, Dani and I, as well as snacks for the evening. We tried to find playing cards, but were unsuccessful in that endeavor. We called an Uber to take us back to Aquas Sulis because we had walked more than two miles getting to downtown and didn’t feel like repeating the trip back.

From the left: Ann, Dani, Jerynn, me

The following morning, we took a city bus back into the downtown area to avoid the lengthy walk. We toured the Baths and picked up lunch at Pret. I think we continued our search for playing cards. I know we found them eventually, but I can’t remember where.

Dani at the Baths

Mom at the Baths

Dani with lunch from Pret

Jerynn, showing off in a shopping area in Bath

I mailed a post card from Bath to my dad, which arrived in Kansas on August 12. That card took an 86 day trip, including a stop in the Philippines (where it was postmarked, for some reason).

Stonehenge

Google said that the drive from Salisbury to Stonehenge would take 21 minutes. I’m not sure exactly how long it did take, but it certainly felt like longer than 21 minutes. This was my first time driving on the wrong side of the road. We were very lucky to have a new car (less than 100 miles), with all the features - navigation, back up camera, distance sensors, etc. Jerynn sat up front, as she is the most susceptible to carsickness.  Ann sat in the middle of the backseat, to give her the best view and reduce the likelihood that she would get carsick. Dani sat behind me and mom sat behind Jerynn.

Craig had very specific instructions for me about driving in England for the first time. He said I should have a designated navigator, to provide turn by turn direction and help determine which lane I should be in as we entered a roundabout. Another person should focus on traffic signs and signals. Another person should keep an eye on traffic, to warn me of cars coming from an unexpected direction. In this way, I could concentrate on driving the vehicle in the wrong lane in an unfamiliar place.

Ann initially offered that we should use “left turn” for making a right and “right turn” for making a left, because we were on the opposite side of the road, which reverses these turns if you think about them as the number of lanes you are crossing to make the turn. Considering that neither Ann nor I can consistently identify our right and left, this was a plan for failure at every level. Instead, she focused on keeping our spirits high, providing encouragement to me as the driver, and reassuring our more nervous passengers that, in fact, both I and the other drivers were on the appropriate sides of the roads for our location.

I had Jerynn as my navigator. With her operating the car’s GPS and providing additional instruction such as “keep tight to my side” and “ get in the lane the red car is using,” we were able to manage our first short trip. Jerynn and I quickly settled on the “your way” and “my way” method of describing each turn, with additional comments like “this is the easy turn” (a left, which is into the closest lane without crossing as much traffic) or “keep to the middle lane” (as we entered a roundabout) or “third exit, which is like going straight through” (because so many roundabouts have more than exits than you’d expect).

Dani turned out to be very good at spotting speed limit signs, as soon as we had figured out what a speed limit sign looked like. She was very good about noticing the sign and providing that information each time I asked, which was usually some distance after passing the sign because I had to take some time getting comfortable with the road before I worried that I might be speeding. She was also adept at spotting other important road signs and determining which required comment and which could be described at a later time.

Mom and Dani also tried to keep up with taking pictures as we drove. It was very difficult to get the view we could see to show up in the picture. All too often, a hedge would appear just as soon as they had a camera out or the picture would be blurred by the movement of the vehicle. Eventually, I think they worked out a better system for taking pictures on either side of the vehicle - pictures certainly improved later in the drive. But I was too busy simply driving on the wrong side to listen much to their picture communication.

Stonehenge had a large parking lot, but I wanted to park in the back with the RVs because I wasn’t entirely confident about the new vehicle. I dropped Dani and mom off at the entrance while I found a wider spot near the far end of the lot. We paid for our tickets, took a bus to Stonehenge, and walked around the path. It was good to get out of the car. Dani and Jerynn took a silly snapchat video in which they said “here we are at Stonehenge” while showing a selfie of themselves pointing at Stonehenge (which was in front of them, not visible in the video).

From the left: Mom, Dani, Ann

Salisbury

We planned to spend very little time in Salisbury. We arrived later than planned, well after everything had closed. Not that we expected to arrive before things closed, but we certainly hadn’t had time to explore the night before. We planned to walk to the Salisbury Cathedral first thing in the morning. I had hoped that Jerynn and I would walk from there to pick up the rental car and return to Qudoes for everyone and the bags. That didn’t work out.

We did walk to Salisbury Cathedral as soon as everyone was awake. Mom had tea, biscuits, and oatmeal in her room. I had tea and biscuits in my room. Dani had pop tarts. Jerynn had tea and Belvita. Ann had tea. We wanted to have everything packed before we left, so that all Ann, Dani, and mom would need to do is bring the bags down. Between getting all of us fed and packed, it got a little later than planned. Still, we made it to the Salisbury Cathedral in good time.

It was a short walk from Qudoes to the Salisbury Cathedral. Ann gave a donation for our entry. We walked around the Cathedral, stopping in the gift shop for postcards. Jerynn and I wrote post cards. We were going to stop at a house on the Cathedral grounds, but it didn’t open until well after our check out time. I wasn’t sure I would be able to find parking to return. Instead, we all walked back to Qudoes, stopping along the way for Jerynn and I to mail our post cards. (My post cards sent from this location arrived early August, about 80 days after mailing.)

We ended up all making the one and a half mile trek, hauling all our bags, to the car rental place. This jaunt provided some entertainment as members of my party struggled to look in the proper direction when crossing streets. We were stuck at one intersection for ages before I saw that there was an underpass system in place for pedestrians like us - but getting up and down the stairs for that detour, with all our bags, was a good reminder of why I had practically insisted that Ann’s family figure out how to pack everything to carry on. I had changed bags at the last minute and found myself annoyed the entire trip by my useless rolling duffle. England’s cobblestones require a different level of wheels than my throw away bag had.

We eventually arrived at the rental car place. All the rental car companies have congregated on one road in Salisbury, so we passed several others. Several places had different models of Mini’s, including my current car - Mini Countryman. I would have loved to drive a familiar sized vehicle, but I doubted that would be what we got because of the size of our party. I’m afraid, even with the carry-on limitation, we would not have had room for the five of us and all our bags.

Jerynn and I walked ahead to start the paperwork process. We got everything settled and went out to the car - a minivan. After some discussion, we returned inside to inquire about adding Ann as a second driver. It only cost £10/day to add a second driver. We were only keeping the car for three days, so we decided it was worth having the option. (Ann never drove, but it did relieve some pressure to know that she could have done.)

Our rental car for the trip
From the left: me, Jerynn, Ann, Dani

London-Heathrow

Customs in London took forever. I’ve gotten a little spoiled by Global Entry coming home. But we waited and made it through without incident. Our initial plan had been to take the London-Heathrow Express in to London, using our BritRail pass. We would then transfer from Paddington to Waterloo, where we could take another train to Salisbury.

With our bags at the airport
From the left: Jerynn, Dani, Ann, me

Ann’s neighbor, however, had offered a “faster” plan. We took a taxi to the station in Woking and took the train from there to Salisbury. The taxi to Woking cost $125 and took an hour and a half. We should have used our BritRail passes for the train from Woking to Salisbury, but we didn’t get them validated because Woking was such a small station. This may have saved us money if we had used that unused day of train travel, but our trip was pretty tightly scheduled so we didn’t get to take advantage of that. This may have been faster at a different time of day, but with the traffic we encountered, it unfortunately did not feel any faster.

We arrived at the train station in Salisbury and walked to Qudoes, where we were staying that night. It was just under a mile walk from the train station. After that walk and given the time of night, we decided to eat dinner at the pub at Qudoes. Perhaps we were hungry because it was a very good meal. That night, I shared one room with Dani, Ann and Jerynn shared another room, and mom had the third room. We were on the second floor above the pub. There was a game on when we were finishing dinner, so we worried that it would be loud. But by the time we went to bed, the game must have been finished because we couldn’t hear the shouting from below.

Our first meal in London
From the left: Jerynn, Mom, Dani, me, Ann

I woke up sometime in the middle of the night. Dani woke up shortly after and we lay in the dark talking for entirely too long. I managed to get back to sleep. I’m not sure if Dani did, but she made the best of it the following day.

Hectic Start

On May 16, the Kansas contingent would fly from MCI to LAX, arriving in LA just after 5:00 p.m. We would all be on the same 9:18 p.m. flight from LAX to LHR. To add to the adventure and challenge of coordination, we were flying Delta in the midst of “the largest relocation of its kind in US aviation history.” (footnote: https://www.wired.com/2017/05/lax-pulling-off-massive-frenzied-terminal-reshuffle/) Shifting 20 airlines between 4 terminals in LAX, without interrupting flights, requires more than a little planning.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Before I could leave town, I needed to finish a few last minute details. I needed to submit the homework that would be due while I was traveling, because I was missing two weeks in the middle of the semester. The past few days had been a mad dash of errands, homework, packing, and other preparation. I started my day with an eye doctor’s appointment, followed by dropping off my homework in Pasadena and attending another appointment there. I finished packing and got ready to go to the airport the suggested FOUR hours early (remember that little airline moving project at LAX? Delta recommended allowing at least four hours for an international flight). In all of the rush to get myself ready, I didn’t notice until after the Kansas contingent should have been in the air that not a single one of them had bothered to text me and let me know they were on their way.

I decided this was because each of them thought someone else was keeping me updated and didn’t want to overwhelm me with texts. Side note for anyone traveling with me in the future - I would rather hear six times that you’ve gotten to the airport than not hear at all. I hailed my ride-share and made my way to the airport, hopeful but uncertain that they would be joining me there. I decided to go to the terminal we would leave from instead of trying to meet them and get us all across the airport.

When they landed in LAX, I got several text messages. The Kansas contingent, unfamiliar with LAX before the Delta move, was unable to determine which terminal they were in. And the Delta employees were even less helpful. Upon boarding a bus they hoped was bound for our terminal, Jerynn asked the driver where they would be dropped off. (I had asked, by text, hoping to learn where I could most easily meet them.) The bus driver actually said that she did not know where she was taking them, she just drove where she was told. This did not inspire confidence in anyone. But as it turned out, they were able to quickly find the gate where I was waiting.

From the left: Ann, Jerynn, me, Dani

We walked around the terminal to determine our dinner options before settling on a hamburger place. The burger was good, but it was ridiculously expensive - even by LA standards. After eating, we returned to the gate. We still had some time before departure, so we decided to set up a phone charging station around a nearby pole. The new seating had built-in plugs between the seats, but the whole thing wasn’t connected to power yet, due to the move. I pulled out Craig’s travel adaptor, which allowed us to charge multiple devices on a single plug. Soon we were taking turns sitting with the devices while others sat nearby on the slightly more comfortable chairs.

From the left: Mom, Dani, Ann, Jerynn

The flight to London was largely unremarkable. The Kansas contingent was sitting together some distance from me, owing to the fact that we had purchased tickets separately. I was able to find them on the seat chat and we exchanged messages periodically through the flight. At one point, I walked back to visit. I could see that Ann, Jerynn, and Dani were asleep, but my mom was awake. They were on the other aisle, so I had to make my way back and around. By the time I returned to their row, my mom appeared to be asleep. I made my way back around to go down my aisle. I looked back and saw that my mom was awake again! I went back, determined that I would tap her on the arm even if she was pretending to be asleep by the time I got there. She was awake, so we stood back in the galley for awhile and talked before returning to our seats.

Trip Prep - Ladies Take London

I was at school when Ann texted to ask what I was doing at the end of May. My calendar was free, except for my current class which ran until mid-June, so I asked what she had in mind. She replied that she was planning a trip to celebrate the graduations - hers from grad school, Jerynn’s from college, and Dani’s from high school. We had talked ages ago about this trip, when it was still a pipe dream. So I responded, “I guess I’m going to England.”

Ann came up with a tentative list of locations she wanted to visit in England on this trip and Craig helped me come up with an itinerary that worked with the geography.  Because of the timing of the trip, I would be joining for the first part of the trip but leaving a few days before the others. I decided I most wanted to join the exploration of England outside of London, both because I’ve been to London several times and because I expect I will visit London again. I knew that searching for mom’s ancestors would require driving a car and I knew that I would not feel comfortable driving in London, so we decided we would take a train out to Salisbury and rent a car there to begin our adventures. We would drive to Stonehenge, Bath, various locations in Devon, and return the car in Taunton. From there, we would continue by train to York, Edinburgh, and return to London. We would take a short train trip up to Leavesdon, to visit the Harry Potter Studio Tour. And we would spend our remaining time (of which I had very little) in London.

The graphic I made for our shirts, which shows our planned itinerary.

We researched the price of train tickets and quickly learned that a BritRail pass was the only way to go. (This was verified later when we learned that the price of our first train trip from Taunton to York would have cost about 75% of the entire BritRail pass.) We settled on a four-day Brit Rail pass, anticipating that we would use it (1) London Heathrow Airport to Salisbury, (2) Taunton to York, (3) York to Edinburgh, (4) Edinburgh to London. I ordered the BritRail passes to be delivered to my house.

I created an online document that I could share with the others, indicating our travel plans each day (including mode of travel and length of time between each location), I listed various activities in each location (including opening and closing times, as well as admission prices), and I found a variety of accommodation options for each night.

As our trip quickly approached, I grew anxious about settling our accommodations for the trip. As I wasn’t the primary stakeholder, I didn’t feel comfortable unilatterally making decisions about where we would stay. We finally managed to set up a FaceTime call when Ann and the girls were at mom’s house, so we could hammer out some details. With several computers searching, we were able to make reservations for each night of our trip. When we had these details settled, I finalized our rental car reservation. Ann and I discussed various tours that we might prebook, but we ultimately only booked a tour called Eat, Walk, Edinburgh before we left.

I kept the online document updated throughout our planning. And I created a journal spread for my journal, including the weather predictions. I printed a condensed version of the online document for my journal. I also printed confirmations for the things I had booked and the research I had done for on mom’s ancestry.