DAY 9: Nottingham to Swanage

Off early armed with maps and Google directions, set for a very long day of driving. First stop is Warwick Castle, which we visited a year and a half ago with my parents. This time the sun is shining and it is a beautiful day. We have brought along a yummy picnic from the Marks and Spencer convenience store downstairs at the TravelLodge, (I’m a big fan! What a great store!) and we arrive just in time to see the trebuchet demonstration – then the Eagles and Birds of Prey. They have a Bald Eagle (born in England, they point out) and a Snow Eagle, one of which Todd had seen on the fjord in Norway. The boys want to climb on the walls and Katie of course wants to see princesses. Warwick is a perfect castle, really, with thick walls, dungeons and nicely appointed interiors. It is all you ever imagined a castle should be and I am glad for the chance to revisit it.

Then we head off down the back roads and country lanes retracing our steps from our previous trip and find ourselves at the farm where Todd, Christopher and I stayed before. No one was home but we said hello to the dogs and chickens, then moved on for a quick peek at Rose Cottage where Katie and Andrew stayed with Grandma and Grandpa. It doesn’t seem right not to have grandparents with us for this part, somehow. All the same, it is nice to have some familiar touch points along the way.

Now, for the hardest part of our trip: the drive from Chipping Camden to Salisbury. There are no direct roads and the Google directions remind me of the guy who says “you want to turn right where the old barn used to be until they tore it down ten years ago.” – completely mystifying. That and there is about a six inch shoulder between the road and a stone wall on my side of the car – throw in the local wildlife: numerous bunnies, a pheasant, and a vine-entangled deer that insist on taking the right-of-way and three restless kids in the back seat and I am pretty close to a nervous breakdown. Todd is (rightfully) terrified of dinging or scraping the exterior of the car and I am hoping that the Avis people won’t notice the deep gouges left by my fingernails in the dash or the deep compression in the floor where I have sympathetically braked on every turn.

We do arrive safely, if not serenely at Stonehenge. Like the Mona Lisa, it is much smaller than it looks in the photos and one of the few highways that we have seen today runs right by it. The kids, though, are more innocent and so are duly impressed with the site and I refrain from asking “Where is the real Stonehenge? You know—the BIG one?”

The kids especially enjoy the audio commentary. Katie listened in stereo.

Then back into the car and another couple of nerve-wracking driving hours before we arrive in the charming town of Swanage on the Jurassic Coast (no dinosaurs in evidence, but real white cliffs) where the Yates, whose son was in Todd’s Cub Scout Den in Moscow, have loaned us their summer house. More on that tomorrow, as I am still trying to recover from the PTSD-inducing drive.