Romsey to York, England

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Tuesday, June 10, 2008
York, England
We said our farewells to Pete & Hilary and headed north before nine this morning. It was sad to say goodbye to such great hosts. I made a couple of photos of Peter’s babies (collector autos) before leaving. They look great. He is a master of the automobile.
Our target for today was a small town well north of London named Bourne. Our route was developed by Pete after discussing with us what we were interested in seeing. He worked out a very detailed plan which we intend to use as our travel guide.
So, we set out. The first leg out of Romsey had a lots of turns so Peter offered to help lead us for the first 4-5 miles. As we approached the intersection where we were to break off from Peter, he pulled to a stop and rushed back to tell us something. As it turns out, Hilary had called him on his cellular to let him know that she discovered a small nylon bag in our room which was full of “electrical stuff.”
Yep, this little bag had my Ipod and camera battery chargers, camera cable, memory chips, etc. Without this little goody bag I would have been shut down in way too many ways. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before. Ha!
Our little angel, Hilary, then rushed with the bag to meet us on the road. Do we have great friends, or what?
One certain stop on our way to Edinburgh was the city of York, in Yorkshire. We had read about the ‘second city of England’ in the RS’s guide. That was to be our stop on the second night this week.
As we traveled, we reviewed the stops planned for us for the week. I realized that we would be spending more time in reaching Ireland than we would have there. I needed to find a way to cut some days in England and add to Ireland.
So, we followed Pete’s plan exactly until after we reached the A1 (M) motorway. After checking with Greta, we decided to make a run directly for York. Taking this route would double our driving time, plus we would miss out on some highlights suggested by Peter, but we needed to make up some days. So, we chose to drive on to York.
We made good time on A1, hopefully without setting off any speed cameras, and arrived in York about 2:30pm. We did not have reservations but we carry the Best Western guide book with us. With it, and Greta, we checked out the two that had free parking. The first was not satisfactory to us so we checked out the second, named the York Pavilion Hotel. It had free parking, free internet and free breakfast. Just what we wanted, so we checked in.
We spoke to Dianne during the afternoon and started examining how/when we might meet her. She may fly into Ireland and join up with us there. John may come with her or join us a few days later. We’ll keep you posted on this.
As it stands now, we will be flying back to Atlanta on Saturday, the 28th June. This means that we now have only a little more than a couple of weeks to see Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. We have to arrange to turn in our car on the prior day and then fly out early on the 28th.
After finishing our PC work and our drinks, we went for a walk through the old town of York. We had dinner on the banks of the River Ouse. Then we walked around the town. We were surprised to find the birthplace, and now pub, of Guy Fawkes. He was the guy that tried to blow up the British Parliament. He failed, was captured and was “drawn and quartered.” Each year, everyone in the British Empire celebrate his execution with a big bonfire with a Guy Fawkes effigy. We have attended many and got a big laugh when we saw his home place.
One highlight here is the famous Minster (cathedral). We walked around it and plan to visit on Wednesday morning. You will note that there are few photos today. Well, I left the camera in the room this evening. I’ll bring tomorrow to capture some of the city.
Afterwards, we will make another long drive. This time we’ll drive all the way to Edinburgh. We plan two or three days here so we’ll have another chance to rest up.

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Photos

Peter's baby
Here's his MG

Peter's baby
I think this is his Austin Healy (help, Peter, what's this one?)

Comments

[peter]

Car and stuff
The car you described as an Austin Healey is in fact a 1951 MG TD sports bought in Baton Rouge in 1987! Brantley will get a laugh anyway! We guessed that you would zoom up to York to save time. Hope the weather stays OK. Pete