Days 10-14: Megers Trudge On
Day 10- The rest of our traveling group departed for Heathrow. We pulled off a fantastic group vacation where all the kids got along, we all had a super fun time, and [I think] we are all super happy to have attempted such a bananas scheme. It was exhausting being on the move every day for over a week, and for future planning, I for sure would rather pick one or two home bases and just do day trips out from there, rather than packing up and changing hotels every night.
So, the Megers continued on because we didn't quite want to end the fun times there. We went to Liverpool, which was almost jarring in contrast to the deep rural areas we had been in previously. Walked around down on the waterfront for a while, explored a small old timely ship that seemingly one guy is refurbishing himself (charging a few pounds for entry so he can slowly fix up the ship), got lunch, and waited until it was time to hop in a cab to get to Anfield stadium for a stadium tour. That was pretty much most of our day- we shopped in the gift shop for a while, took the tour, and that all took several hours of time. After the tour we got another cab ride back down to the waterfront and chilled out in a fun pub called Smugglers Cove. Checked into our hotel, 30 James Street, which used to house the Titanic's offices back in Titanic times. The interior is done up in Titanic style and looked amazing. The hallway on our floor was covered in black upholstery fake leather, with big gilt mirrors and gilt lion head door knockers on the suite doors. Our room was huge and looked very cool. We ventured back out for dinner at a Cuban restaurant, again on the waterfront. Liverpool reminds us a lot of Baltimore- there are lots of parts of the city that are very run-down, but the waterfront is extremely touristy and is built up from reclaimed industrial port buildings. Liverpool is also apparently one of the hen & stag party capitals of the country- every restaurant/pub/hotel is crawling with large groups of men and women out to get DRUNKS.
Day 11- Packed up and hit the road to explore Pendle Witch country. First stop was the Pendle Heritage Center, a small museum and tourist information center. Had a lovely conversation with the guy working there, he was delighted that we are from Salem, and we talked witches for a bit. He offered to email me his research on the Pendle witches, and made good on it with an email not long after we left. We were totally glad to have stopped in there. Then we made our way to the start of a walking trail that led up to a Pendle witches sculputure trail in the woods, with a great view out on Pendle Hill (which is more like a mountain, it's big and really consumes the landscape). The weather was amazing and gorgeous, we got some fantastic vista views. Vistas!
After our trudge we drove over to Samlesbury Hall, our stop for the night. Got a tasty late lunch in the hall restaurant, explored the haunted old hall itself, and checked into our lodging for the night- the gatehouse for the hall. It was so super cute and fantastic! There was a great playground with a small pirate ship, a small replica of the hall, and a bunch of great climbing bits, so we let West loose on the playground for at least an hour. He had a marvelous time and made some new little buddies with English kids that were running around. I love seeing West acclimate to a new place and jump into playing with kids, especially after such a kid-intense beginning of vacation going to a lonely-only child experience. We went out to dinner at a pub in a neighboring town that turned out to be fancier (but less tasty) than we expected, but we did end up in a great conversation with some other diners that overhead us talking about asked about our accents, then got into a convo about their upcoming trip to America. I like a good pub convo! Spent a lovely night in our little gatehouse after that.
Day 12- Continuing the Pendle witches theme with a trip up to Lancaster. Took a tour of Lancaster Castle that was really interesting, I learned some facts of which I previously unaware! After that tour, we took a canal boat cruise that was nice and leisurely (maybe too leisurely because we were tired and almost fell asleep). It was nice to finally share the canal boat experience with West, with someone else actually driving the boat. Then we drove down to Alderly Edge, our stop for the night. We stayed at a wild little thatched roof cottage called The Wizard's Thatch, in a suite called The Wizardy. It was very cool- lots of old antiques and interesting memorabilia scattered around the suite, in a building that I think was 600 years old. We got drinks and dinner at a comfy pub down the road- the town is known for being home to a lot of UK reality stars and sports celebs, and a lot of the restaurants are fancier than our tastes run, so it was nice to find a comfy pub in an old building that was the right level of non-fancy for us.
Day 13- Whew. OMG. What a long vacation! It was the rainiest day of vacation, which was a bit of a bummer. Drove through the Peak District to get to Nottingham. Went to Warhammer World so the Drew and West could get their nerd on- I got a coffee and piece of cake in the in-house restaurant and read my book while they explored the nerd stuff. We got lunch there, then headed into the city center. We trudged around lost in the rain for too long, stopped in at the National Justice Museum to look at the free portion of the museum, dry out, and get a cup of tea. Then we went to the City of Caves and took a tour of some underground caves, which was very cool. There are hundreds of caves under Nottingham, carved out over the centuries for various purposes.
Checked into our hotel (Jurys Inn Nottingham, nothing fancy at all, but utilitarian was nice for the last night), dried out a bit, then got a cab back downtown for our final stop of the night. We went to Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem (claims to be the oldest inn in England) for beers and dinner, and spent a lovely few hours there. We sat in the Haunted Snug room for a while, and ended up in a good convo with a young woman who was there holding down the fort until the rest of her D&D group got there for their D&D night, so the boys had fun talking nerd stuff, and we talked in general about the UK and US. We left the snug when the rest of her game group got there, and moved up to a room with a cursed boat model for our dinner. That was a place Drew and I have wanted to visit for years, and it was fantastic for us to finally get there.
Day 14- Last day! Packed up, started our two-ish hours drive to Heathrow. We left plenty early, so we had lots of time for a stop after we got most of the way to our destination. We stopped at the Hellfire Caves and explored the caves (the actual Hellfire Club caves that were used for all sorts of secret society shenanigans back in old timey times). Trudged up a hill, too, so we got a good final trudge in. The weather was beautiful, so we also got one last good vista. Drove on a little further and got off the highway in Beaconsfield for lunch. That turned out to be a super cute old market town, and it's on our radar for future needs of a place to stay super close to the airport in case we are fools enough to continue doing red-eye flights. Dropped off the car, got to Heathrow several hours early, had airport beers, and then boarded our plane for home. The flight ended up being delayed for an hour and a half while we were already all boarded, which was unpleasant. The flight back home is always longer time-wise than the flight over, so it felt like an extremely long time in an airplane, but I'd always rather for things to go sideways on the way home than on the way over. We finally made it home, and that's a wrap on UK Vacation 2019: The Dark is Rising Tour.