06-23 You Say Goodbye, I Say Hello

Karen's turn to blog about the end of our Canal Boat adventure and our first day in Liverpool, home of The Beatles.

We are up at 7am today. We get breakfast and organized. It's not raining as we leave at 9am. No locks, no swing bridges today. As for me, I stay inside for the half hour cruise and bag up anything not done last night.

We pull into the dock at 9:30. By 9:50 we had the car loaded and called the owners. After chatting with them about the boat and the weather we hit the road to Liverpool at 10:15. Right on schedule.

We arrived in Liverpool at 11:15 and grabbed a sandwich at Subway.

We arrive at the Premier Inn at noon but the room is not ready yet and they do not have any discounts to the Beatles Story. After parking our car at the Eco Arena parking garage we went into the Beatles Story.

They had a good audio to go with all the exhibits. They told the story of how John and Paul met and then how and when they met George and Ringo. Then you entered different mockups of Mathews Street, The Cavern, the Yellow Submarine, and the white room with a piano.

They did a very good job of telling the stories including their original drummer, Peter Best, and their manager, Brian Epstein. At the end they had four circular areas, one for each of them that told about their life after the Beatles. It included family, career, and things they had done for the community. It was a great introduction to everything we would be doing tonight and tomorrow.

Next, we checked into our motel. It was in the same building as the Beatles Story. We had to go get the car at the garage to bring in our stuff then we drove down to the extra exhibit, Elvis and the Beatles.

We started with a photo exhibit. Cool candid shots of the Beatles that were just found two years ago. Then into a 4-D not-so-great motion movie where the boy needs to get to the show to play guitar. Beatle songs help get him there.

The exhibit tells about Elvis' influence on the individual Beatles and about their meeting in 1965 in Bel Air. We left when it closed at 7pm.

We had dinner at Pizza Express right by the parking garage. They had WiFi so we checked email. We hadn't had Internet for a week. This is when we found out that Pat's car was missing (it has since been recovered). We were able to get an email off to dad with the info he needed and to do a quick check with Mike and Brian to make sure they didn't have it.

Now its off to the (new) Cavern Club. Wow, the Beatles started in a place like this? They played 292 shows here. (The original Cavern Club was filled in during construction work in 1973). The new one used about 50% of the original site and recreated the room that the Beatles and others played in.

Off in a different room, off to the right of the room where the Beatles played, we heard a very good Beatles cover band. They did the early years including She Loves You Yah Yah Yah and Penny Lane. They took a 35 minute break and come back and did the later years. They played from 9:30 - midnight.

"George Harrison" & "John Lennon"

"Paul McCartney" & "George Harrison"

The band was great with really good harmony. The singers made their voices sound like each of the Beatles. The room was small, the chairs were just hassocks; four around a short table. It wasn't the area where the Beatles played, like they implied. The band did an encore that everyone wanted to hear: Twist and Shout.

When they finished we went in the recreated Cavern Club room and that band was singing Twist and Shout on the very stage that the Beatles played on.

This band wasn't as good as the band we had just heard but they were singing Beatles songs on the stage where the Beatles sang 292 times.

Names of bands that played in the Cavern Club are written on the wall behind the band.

It was a great ending to our day. We were there till just after midnight then walked home in the rain. What a fantastic evening.

06-22 RAIN RAIN RAIN

Some days it just makes more sense to write your blog during the day that life is happening because THIS is a memorable day.

This axiom comes to mind as I sit in our warm boat after 2 hours of pouring rain and very windy conditions on the canal standing on the stern of our boat piloting us along at 3 MPH.

It HAS been raining all day. Oh, it may have stopped for 5 minutes but I think I'm safe to say it rained all day today AND HARD. Not your whimpy Seattle drizzle-all-day rain but an England rain that only a farmer could love.

We started off this morning with 6 locks in a row all within a 1 mile stretch. We love doing the locks but they lose their romantic appeal the wetter things get. It was so wet and we were so wet that I think we were ready for a divorce from the locks despite the cheery looking wave from me.

With 4 locks done and both of us soaking wet (Karen's 10 year old coat is no longer waterproof like my new one she bought me for Christmas) we docked for awhile to dry out and eat lunch.

The locks can hold two boats at the same time. Sometimes you lock through with another boat and sometimes there are no other boats going your way. As we were getting ready to get wet again another boat was coming up through the lock below us. We quickly got ready again and joined them in our next lock.

The other captain and I joyfully commisurated about what a lovely day we were having as the locking duties were masterfully handled by our first mates.

We locked through the two remaining locks together sharing the load and making the difficult task in the rain half as hard. They stopped in a couple of miles for lunch at a Pub they asked us about and we motored on without locks or swing bridges for the 4 miles to the bottom of the Greenberfield trio of locks.

Once we got there in the pouring rain and very windy conditions it was time for me to dry off again. Karen had been rotating the wet clothes in the cabin but I was soaked to the skin once again.

About an hour later our new-found friends came by in their boat intending to head up the 3 locks and we quickly got ready to join in the party.

Karen got out of the boat and headed up to help the lady with the locking duties in the 1st of the locks and I got the boat ready to leave in the continously pouring and windy rain.

We locked through in tandem through all 3 locks in just 1 hour. We pulled over 100 yards past the top of the last lock to spend the night in the wind and the rain. Tomorrow we shall travel the last mile to our boat's home in Barnoldswick.

Our lock total for today is 9 locks and so much rain and wind that our 4 hours and 15 mintues seemed like twice that.

06-21 Canal Boat - Wet on Top and Bottom

It started to rain late last night before we went to bed. This was expected. 7 days in a row in England without anymore rain would be too much to expect.

Last night and then some this morning we were figuring out again how far we needed to go today and Friday so that we would have an easy day on Saturday when we had to turn the boat in.

We decided to get all of our remaining locks done in these two days. Everything's neat and pretty. On with the show.

BUT FIRST, we went on a shopping trip to the competitor. About a 10 minute walk back down the canal was Snaygill Narrow Boats and they had a gift shop. Let's see what we can find.

I come away empty handed but Karen finds a bookmark and a notepad with the Bingley Five on them to remember this cruise by. As you can see I still have my raincoat on and it is still raining outside.

Skipton (the town with the Skipton Castle) is only 20 minutes away and we find a mooring spot close to a bridge in town.

There is a side canal called Springs Canal that the hourly tourist cruisers take people up and back along. We walked back on the path for about 1/2 mile until we were around to the back of the Castle.

It was an interesting place because there used to be a mill back in this area and three ribbons of water used to run side by side - Springs Canal, the River Aire, and a mill race to turn the mill waterwheel.

We shopped in the covered area called Craven Court to escape the rain for awhile.

Lunch for today was at Hemingway's in the Court and it was delicious. Karen had a large baked potato cut length wise onto six wedges then topped with tomatoes, onions (like a home made salsa) and cheddar.

Despite trying to give the rain enough time to stop while we were in town it would not.

Since Karen couldn't sit OUT in the rain she made herself someplace that she could watch the canal on the front easy chair.

After swinging a bridge for us to pass through she'd come in and take off her coat and shoes and dry them on the heated-water register.

Here comes the boat under a bridge and entering a lock.

It actually stopped raining for awhile and when the sun came out for 30 minutes I was down to just a T-shirt.

Lock #30 is the lock where the Grace got her carpet all wet 3 weeks ago so we are very cautious as we enter. Karen gradually fills the lock with water from the side fillers first and when the boat rises high enough she lets in water from the gate paddles in front of the bow. We are patient and it pays off and the boat is only getting wet from the rain today.

We stop and have dinner (Karen gets leftovers from her wonderful lunch) after a few more locks. After another locking through we stop for the night. Today's lock and bridge total - 5 swing bridges and 6 locks in 5 1/2 hours of boating - all alone.

06-16 A (Canal) Boating We Will Go

We ate our buffet style breakfast at our hotel again this morning before heading east to Barnoldswick, England to pickup our canal boat.





We shopped for a short while in Blackpool since our boat was only 90 minutes away and we couldn't pick it up until 2pm or so.

On our way to the boat we saw typical English countryside



We are here!



We stop into the marina and look at our boat and the storage space it has for food and cold stuff and then we head off to the grocery store to stock up for the week. $75 later we head back to load the boat in the rain. OURS is the one IN the water.



As usual you get to see the bedroom for our "hotel" for the week.



The captain's view for the next week.



Hopefully this won't be the outfit of choice for the entire week! "Bring me the horizon."



The owner will ride with me a short way to instruct me on how to operate the boat correctly. Then he gets off and walks back home to get his car so he can drive to the first lock and explain the locking procedures to us. He's over on the right side there. Karen and another renter are on the left.



Here I come getting ready to enter another lock



Yes, even after the cold and rainy start we are happy renters of a canal boat as we get ready to eat leftover Pizza Hut pizza for dinner after successfully getting through 3 locks.



After dinner we go boating on our own for a few hours.



Hey, there are more of us out here!



But usually this is what we are seeing as we make our way along at 3 MPH on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal.



We stop at 7:30pm for the night after 4 hours of boating and 3 locks hoping for better weather tomorrow.