Lancaster and beyond 4/16

After getting most everything ready to go last night, it was a leisurely morning of making pancakes, loading the car and taking care of things around the house before our departure. We got out of town around 10 – nearly an hour and a half later than what we were aiming for, but since we didn’t have a plan for the day, it didn’t matter much.

Going was pretty smooth although there was a healthy jam due to an overturned caravan. We saw another flipped car on the other side of the expressway - pretty horrifying stuff, but it didn't look like anyone was injured in either case as there the only emergency personnel on site were clean up crews and police, no ambulances.

The city of Lancaster was on our way and Andrea was really keen to stop there to see what was going on. The approach to Lancaster is very rural and the city quite charming. The older buildings look to be in good shape and the newer additions tastefully blend with the historic bits. We walked around the old castle (part of it is a jail) and visited the church. The church is beautiful, a really special place. The photo above is of them hanging out there. From there we walked along the pedestrian streets and checked out the open-air market. It was happening. There was tons of activity and a wide variety of things on offer. Overall we were really impressed with the town - wonderful spot.

We continued into Scotland and eventually landed at our final destination, Kirkcudbright. It is an old port town with tons of really crazily painted old stone buildings. They use a lot of pastel around here and aren't afraid to clash with the neighbors.

The place where we are staying is a sheep farm four miles outside of town and our room is called The Barn. If you don't count the separate kitchen and bathroom off of this, the living/dining/sleeping areas are all one room. At this very moment, an hour and a half after they went to bed, Xyla is making some type of strange noise. Actually, it is the same noise that Jimmy John Hisatomi was made to perform for 5 minutes in Mrs. Minich's third grade class after he was discovered making it during a spelling test. Anyway, let's just say that it is not an ideal situation. We will all sleep eventually, I'm sure.

The grounds here are beautiful and we walked them this afternoon after our arrival. There are iron age sites dotted around it, or so they say as you cant really tell there is anything there other than some hills and humps which could just as well be incidental. Standing on the high points, you have views of the water - the Isle of Man is in the distance and Cumbria to the south. The whole place is super green and the landscape reminds me of the biggest golf course you can imagine. I guess that sort of makes sense, doesn't it.

Full moon this evening, and it looks really good over the hills.

More tomorrow if we can find a connection. Cheers!

Damn! The connection timed out before I could post this. We’ll put it up tomorrow. (Actually posted some days later.)