Europe 2014- Vacation Disaster (Part Five)

Guess what came in the middle of the night?

That's right, rain. Lots and lots of rain.

We woke up in the morning to grey skies and sheets of rain pounding the boat.

It wasn't going to ease-up anytime soon.

We headed to the St. Ives Lock, where we found ourselves in a queue. I went on the deck and looped a rope around a cleat, to hold our spot in the line. Even though I was wearing a rain jacket, it was so windy that the rain was blowing sideways and I was soaked through to my underwear as I was stood holding the rope.

It was miserable.

After speaking with other boaters, we found out that the river was flooded and that it would be dangerous to continue.

It was without a doubt, the best news that I received on the entire trip.

Dan called the weekend emergency line for the Bridge Shipyard in Ely and explained our situation. It took a few hours to sort out, but we were directed to bring the boat to a shipyard in St. Ives.

The owner of the boat company drove over and picked Dan up, so that Dan could get our car from Ely. Zoe and I gleefully packed up our luggage. The owner was going to be driving the boat back to Ely, so we left him all of our unused groceries. This was another piece of good news, as packing up the groceries would have been a huge hassle and we would have likely thrown much of it out. I hope that he used it, but even if he didn't, at least we didn't have to bother with the clean up.

I was so happy to get out of spending a third night on the boat. The whole time that we were packing up, I was thinking about the warm shower that I was going to take and how were were going to be sleeping in a comfortable hotel bed, that was dry and didn't have spiders or mold. Heaven.

Boating holidays are not for everyone. They are certainly not for me. Truthfully, I can't imagine who would like them. If you're reading this and you're a fan of boating holidays, please leave a comment and let me know what you like about them. I'm genuinely curious!

Here is the apocalyptic sky as we were leaving St. Ives.

It rained off and on during our drive back to Newbury.

On a previous trip to England, we ate at a Little Chef, which is kind of like a English version of Denny's. It was terrible. Maybe I was still basking in my post-boat glow, but our lunch at Little Chef wasn't too bad this time. They even gave us a whole handful of complimentary lollipops when we paid our bill. Score.

The rain had stopped when we were passing the legendary Silverstone Circuit. It was late in the afternoon, but since my stepson, Felix, is such a huge fan of race cars, we thought that it couldn't hurt to try to see the track.

We went to the gift shop and a nice employee told us that there was a race going on and that if we asked the guard, he might let us watch. We went to the guard, prepared with a story of a little kid and his dreams of racing, but the guard just waved us through without a hassle. We arrived in time to see the last race of the day and we were the only visitors in the stands. The whole stadium was empty, except for those people directly involved in the race. We couldn't believe our luck!

The track is enormous and when the cars whizzed by us, it was deafening. The best part was watching how excited Felix was to see his first race. He was transfixed.

We continued to the Hilton Newbury, where we traded in our last night on the boat, for an extra night in a family suite.

Europe 2014- Vacation Disaster (Part Four)

This is the only decent picture that I have of the boat. It was taken right before we went through our first lock, located in the town of Earith.

Admittedly, the boat doesn't look so terrible in this picture. If only pictures could capture the smell of mold! Maybe a scratch and sniff boat sticker?

We went through three locks, each a completely different experience. The lock at Earith was manned and could only hold one boat at a time. We didn't need to do much, except pass the ropes to the man at the top of the lock. He did all of the work. We just slowly floated up and when we were at the top, he untied us and opened the gates.

The only scary part was the size of the lock. It was narrow and being it in made me feel trapped.

We didn't take pictures of the other two locks, mainly because they were unmanned. We had to do all of the work ourselves and since this was my first experience with locks, I was little or more realistically, no help to Dan. There was a lot of frantic running around and confusion. It was frustrating, but we made it through. The other two locks were a lot bigger and could hold more than one boat at a time. One part of the boating experience that I liked was the camaraderie of fellow boaters. People were always happy to help out and give advice.

Here is a picture of the Riverview Tea Room in Earith from the canal side. If we had gone through the lock first, we could have moored here for lunch.

Our journey from Earith to St. Ives was the best part of our time spent on the river. The sun was shining and the scenery was beautiful.

I even took the wheel for a bit. This picture also demonstrates my haggard, "river" look. This is what I look like when the spiders keep me up and I'm too afraid to go into the shower.

Mostly, I hid behind my book.

I found a great spot to enjoy the view.

St. Ives was our night stop. It also marked our turn-around point. We would head back towards the shipyard the next morning.

As we pulled into St. Ives, we found a mooring spot right in town and a nice family helped us slide in the tight space. The town was absolutely beautiful and swans immediately gathered around our docked boat. It was Idyllic.

When I think of St. Ives, I think of soap or lotion. What I didn't realize, is that there are many towns named St. Ives in England. We visited St. Ives in Cambridgeshire. Historically, it was a large market town and it contains a large number of pubs. Fun fact, the word Tawdry was created in St. Ives and originally was used to describe fabric that is inexpensive and colorful.

A notable citizen of St. Ives is Oliver Cromwell. Here is his statue in the town center. It's a rather menacing statue!

We walked around and explored the beautiful town of St. Ives. There were so many wonderful restaurants and shops, that I wish we had just booked an entire weekend here, minus the boat!

Our dinner in St. Ives was one of the few times that we managed to eat somewhere cheap, that also ended with the entire family happy with their meal. Seriously, this was a rarity on our vacation. We found food happiness at Local Fish & Chips.

It was a bit of a dive, but the food was great. Dan stuck with the safe bet and ordered battered sausages and chips.

I ordered the chicken kabob meal. It was so flavorful and delicious. Just looking at this picture is making me crave the meal.

We returned to the boat and ate chocolate for dessert while playing Uno. As I settled into bed, I could see swans swimming right outside of my room with the setting sunlight reflecting in the water. It was beautiful and for once, being on the boat didn't seem too awful.

Europe 2014- Vacation Disaster (Part Three)

After a night of pouring rain and falling spiders, we awoke to discover that a neighbor had moored behind us.

We both had the same problem, our stakes that we had pounded into the dirt the previous evening, were now underwater. The neighbor was able to pull his out without jumping off of his boat.

Ours were not loose enough and Dan had to jump into the mud. What you can't see in this picture are the cow patties floating in the water. I think Dan successfully avoided them, but it was a gross way to kick off our morning.

At least it wasn't raining. It was just bitterly cold. Icy and windy.

We had two choices. We could either deal with the smell or the cold. The mold was the bigger problem, so we opened up the retractable roof in the main cabin and aired out the boat. All bundled up, we continued down the river.

The clouds were amazing.

Thank goodness it wasn't raining, as we had to go under a very low bridge that we wouldn't have cleared with our roof up.

When we reached our first lock and there was a line. Only one boat can go into this lock at a time and the lock operator was on his break.

Rather than waiting to go through, we moored the boat and jumped off in search of lunch. We received directions from the oldest man on the river. This wasn't a vacation boater. He lived on his boat and by the looks of it, that boat had been moored there for a long time. He was the real deal. Helpful, but crabby and weather-worn.

His directions were roughly...

1. Walk up the steep metal bridge.

2. Go under a hole in the rusted gate.

3. Walk down a hill filled with stinging nettles.

4. You'll find the town after a half-mile walk on an unpaved busy road.

We are an adventurous family! We like a little danger and discomfort thrown into our holidays!

Here is a picture of the old guy with Dan and the kids. He asked for our help with his boat after we returned from our lunch. Although a scary walk, his directions had been solid, so the favor was repaid.

The small town of Earith ending up being a great place to stop for lunch. Although, I'd recommend going through the lock first and finding a proper place to moor on the other side.

In Earith, we ate lunch at the Old Riverview Tea Rooms & Country Kitchen.

The Old Riverview was a real find. It was clean and modern, with a wonderful afternoon tea spread. The scones were enormous and fresh. They even whipped up pasta with butter for the kids. We were seated right next to the cakes. Mouthwatering!

With bellies full of yummy cake, we set out on the treacherous walk back to our boat. On our walk back, I saw this on a house in Earith. I love the cute foxes, but not so much the spider at the top.

This boat was parked near us when we got back. Great boat name!

Next post, our first lock!