England Trip

For those who haven't heard yet, Alan and I went to England!! It was so much fun!! We flew out of SLC (an hour late) and enjoyed a 6 hour delay (compliments of Delta) at the fabulous JFK airport! We arrived at the London Heathrow airport about lunch time monday the 8th. After picking up a really cute little chevy from Avis Car Rentals, we drove to Brighton! It took a little getting used to driving a stick from the wrong side of the car on the wrong side of the road. Once I got the hang of it though I had a really good time driving! Alan just kinda took a week off from all driving. It was great!
Monday night and Tuesday morning was spent in Brighton. We went to the Royal Pavillion and went to the Museum to see if we could find anything for family history. Unfortunatly the Parish Church there was closed so we weren't able to go in. Come lunch time Tuesday, we were back on the road trying to book it into South Wales before everything closed (at 5pm)! It was a long drive, but very pretty.
Tuesday evening we found the Parish Church (it was locked for the night) and enjoyed looking at the headstones trying to find relatives. Alan had forgotten all the paperwork that he was supposed to bring to help in the search for James Crane's family so we weren't able to find much. After a lot of driving around in Tenby, the town just down the road (almost literally) trying to find an inexpensive place to stay for the night, we ended up back in Penally at a wonderful little Bed and Breakfast. It was a home that had been converted over.
Wednesday we spent in the Tenby Library tring to find more and then ended up going to the Pembrokshire Records Office in Haverfordwest to find more. There we found gold! We found a little leaflet that was put out that talked about the work house where James Crane grew up! He was mentioned in it by name twice!! It's now a senior center and they were celebrating 150 years when the leaflet was published. We spent the night there in Haverfordwest at a nice little guest house. We also went to see Termantor while we were there.
Thursday morning we were off to Taunton, England! They have another castle there and we ate at a nice little pub called the Moat House. It sits where the moat used to flow. It's cool. The food was really yummy everywhere we went. Friday though we drove into Lydeard St. Lawerence and Tolland to visit some Wolcott Family sites. It was amazing to see these churches that our ancesters worshiped at all those years ago. In Penally it was in the 1800's, but in Lydeard and Tolland it goes all the way back to 1575 and 1600's!
Later on Friday, after the churches, we drove on over to where Cadbury Castle once stood. The path up the hill was very muddy though, so we didn't make the climb. This is where Camelot once stood (or so we were told). All that is left up there are cows grazing. Then we headed on over to Stonehenge! That was amazing!! The feeling there is quite surreal. I can't explain it very well. We went on an audio guided tour and got to hear all kinds of interesting things and myths surrounding the place. We left there for Windsor. We were sad that it had already closed so decided to head back first thing in the morning. We ended up staying at the Shariton Hotel in Heathrow that night.
Saturday morning we returned our rental car and took the bus back to Windsor. Most of the cool stuff was closed at the castle, so we spent a lot of time getting there and back to London, but didn't feel we saw enough for it to have been worth it. Mostly cause it took a lot of time from London. It was nice to get to see it though. Alan was bummed that he didn't get to see a real suit of armor! Getting to London was fun though. We took the underground and got off near Picadilly Circus. We took a bus tour so that we could see all the fun stuff without having to walk and figure things out ourselves. It was the best! We could have gotten off and on the bus to really see more, but didn't have the time. We also could have taken a river cruise, but again were worried about not getting back to the hotel. All in all though, we had a fabulous time and would love to go back again sometime! I hope that you enjoy the pictures.