English countryside day two - Schedules

Up to today, we've been blessed with beautiful weather, for England that is. I only had one rainy day while I was in London. We woke up to rain and it never let up the whole morning. It didn't really put too much of a damper on things though. And before the day was over, the sun was shining.

Tony had bought a track phone of sorts for work on his first trip over. After playing with it I figured out it had a GPS. It made my day! But I still did screen shots of the directions for today's travel. I tried to use those to begin with hoping to save the phone battery for an emergency if we happened off the beaten path.

Well, it didn't take long to have to pull it out. Street signs are at a minimum here and I missed a street where we needed to turn early on. We went 30 minutes out of the way before I gave in. We got an hour and a half later start than we wanted to, so we were two hours behind schedule.

Schedule, you ask? Yes, schedule. At our first stop yesterday, the lovely lady at the ticket desk told us about an English Heritage pass you can buy to see over 100 castles throughout England. She gave us a wonderful book of information about each and a map! That would be one of the three I've been using in my navigational duties. My anal retentive type A did a back flip once we had our "guide" for the rest of our trip.

Anyway, last night before we hit the sack, we plotted our course for the day. We figured hitting two a day made sense. Those we picked are about two hours away from each other and the first one is two hours from our stay last night. If we allocate two hours at each, it would make a total of eight hours for a full day of sight seeing.

Those plans are perfect in theory. Reality always seems to dictate a little different outcome. By the time we got to the first castle we were two hours behind. The phone Tony has was about to die and he doesn't have a car charger. We had to make a pit stop to find one.

We saw Kenilworth Castle today which was HEAVEN for me. I love Elizabeth I. This is the castle she gave to Robert Dudley which was her suitor for many years that she never married. To know that she had walked through these building and grounds was a cool feeling. They had a demonstration of the process women of her time went through in getting dressed. It was a lengthy process said to have taken upwards of five hours. But the lady said she can do it in 20 minutes so someone is off somewhere. Nonetheless, it was cool to learn about.

We spent over three hours wandering through the grounds. We gave up on trying to get to the next castle by closing time. When we got back in the car, we found the GPS had stopped working. It only had 2 pounds left on it. We're going to have to figure out how to add more money so it will work again. Or maybe I should just take this as the sign that we're supposed to stay lost on this trip. Jennifer says being lost  equals exploring. I need to remember my pursuit of type A-.

We did a few circles and spent the mandatory 15 minutes or so looking for the route we needed. I found a motorway (read highway) that pointed in the direction we needed. So far we've been taking small back road kinds of routes. At home, I'm usually passed out in the car because Tony's driving only makes me scream. Being the navigator and the token person to ask for directions even though I don't have a freaking clue hasn't allowed me to catch any shut eye. But with a straight road ahead of us, I immediately fell asleep.

He woke me up just as we were passing the exit we needed for the next castle town. Fortunately the next exit also worked. We wound around the roads until we drove into the little town of Balsover. The castle sits on top of a hill overlooking the valley. It appears like this one is fully intact. I look forward to exploring it tomorrow.

We had to come to the next town over to find a hotel. It's a chain versus the wonderful cottage we stayed in last night. But we're so tired we don't care one way or another. We just need a place to lay horizontal for a few hours and take a shower in the morning.

I'm about to map out our course for tomorrow. This trip has been a lot like our visit to Disney World a few years back. We wake up at dawn and go until we can't move anymore. There is so much to see and do. The driving is a lot like being on a roller coaster from the perspective of being lost and stressed out to knowing our way and being calm.

Four more days of exploration, and then it's back to London. Tony will head back to work, and I'll do more London exploring. I can only imagine how long it will take me to get back to "normal" when I get back home. It will be nice to plant my feet and spend more than one night in a place. But I'm getting pretty used to the hectic schedule. Tony says I should just stay. I'm wondering what my girls and clients would think about that?!