Saturday we visited the Catalyst science museum here in Widnes. It started off great, with some great interactive exhibits for the kids. Made it through the first floor, onto the glass elevator all the way to the top. This gave a nice view of Widnes, Runcorn, the Mersey River, etc. There are no tall buildings in Widnes, so this 5 story view is about good as it gets. To our dismay, we found that this science museum only had 1 more floor to explore, and the place isn't exactly sprawling like COSI.
So by 1pm we were finished there and looking for more to do. Decided to head down to Wales and take Megan and the kids to a place I had already been... Conwy. We didn't go inside the castle there, but we spent some time walking the town. You can't go very far without being harshly reminded that this is a medieval town from the 13th century! I didn't really know where I was going, but headed back towards the bay. We slowly drove past 4 people riding these huge beautiful horses. The road started narrowing, and sloping, and winding. We rounded a corner that went steeply down to an old wall section of the city. The road lines followed right on through an opening in the wall, but it looked only to be 6 feet wide and 5 feet deep. No way I'm getting my van through there. So here I am in my 6 speed Zafira (that I'm in love with), burning up the clutch in reverse trying to find an area to turn around. More people are coming down this road (albeit in tiny cars). I managed to turn around and take a different tunnel back into the town (easy, we had at least a foot of space on either side of the van). The streets of town are very tight, winding, and confusing. Down one street I met a huge bus face to face. The driver just stopped, and motioned that I must turn around. Once again, I find myself backing this thing up and turning around. We found that there was a small blue arrow indicating that section of road as one-way, but very easy to miss. Normally here you would see "No Entry" written on the street where you are not supposed to turn in. I decided to give up driving and found a parking spot. We walked the town center, bought some pastries, saw a creepy old church, browsed some shops, had some ice cream (ask the boy about the dungeon), and then were on the road again.
Next we stopped in Llandudno, a great seaside town right next to the Great Orme Head. This town would be a great place to stay at a bed and breakfast for a relaxing time. There is a long pier that you can walk out on the bay with some midway style amusements. There is a cafe, bar, and arcade at the end. It is very scenic.
At the end of the day, near sunset, we drove around the one-way marine drive (in the proper direction). It was so beautiful. Some mountain goats were trotting up the road, when they saw our car, they hopped onto the stone wall out of site. We assume they knew what they were doing (not committing suicide?).
On Sunday we went on a smoothie making adventure in Lymm. My friend Bob has lived in Lymm Hall for the last 6 years. He made this great little map and 30 point plan for my son to follow. It included things totally unrelated to smoothie making but the kids didn't take notice. In the end we finally arrived at a field with wild black berries, a plum tree, and an apple tree. The formerly majestic estate of Lymm Hall is in "gentile decay" as Bob puts it.
1 comment:
Sounds wonderful Aaron..
:-)
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