We made it to our cottage in Cockermouth without any wrong turns, no easy feat!! We've got poor wifi service so I haven't been able to get access to my blog. We are in a small village today that offers free wifi, so I'm taking advantage. Our first day here in the Lake District was absolutely gorgeous! According to one local older man we chatted with, it was their one day of summer--and it was still on the chilly side to me. We visited the childhood home of Will...

One of my friends in Houston has a sister-in-law who lives near to where we are staying. We emailed back and forth for several months before we arrived, and we finally met on Tuesday. Stephanie and her husband, Sandy, took us all around the Cheshire area, pointing out interesting homes, pubs, churches, etc. We stopped for a pint in a pub, then went to another place for lunch. I had the best chicken pot pie, although that's not what they called it. After touring...

Rich found a castle for us to explore which was located near Snowdonia National Park. The landscape here in northern Wales is just beautiful--so lush and green, with trees and hills, all dotted with sheep and cows. So very peaceful! We made it to the castle and were wowed by how HUGE it was!! Keep in mind, this isn't our first one and they've all been pretty massive, but this one just kept going! Rich had to do a panoramic photo just to even attempt to get it al...

We got an early start and made our way toward Liverpool, which was only about 35 miles from us, but was estimated to take around an hour to get to. After three wrong turns (one my fault, two a gps glitch), we arrived at the car park only to find out it was already full! And this was at 9:15 am. Fortunately for us, there was an overflow lot not too far away and we found a spot. And the best part was that a convention was going on and they weren't charging for park...

We were a little tired of having to drive to visit places on Friday, it's so incredibly stressful--that we just decided to stay in and have a day of rest! We managed to drag ourselves out for a walk to see a movie, War for the Planet of the Apes (not much to choose from and it was better than I'd anticipated). Packed, fixed dinner and that was our day! Today we drove from Cheltenham to a castle called Powis. What an amazing place!! It was originally built in the...