It's another photo dump - and today I'm jumping all over the place on the calendar! On Monday, May 1st, we visited my sister at her "office" - the cockpit of a KC-135. And on Wednesday, after walking over nine miles in London on Tuesday - we laid low, explored Bury and the nearby Lavenham. So, this is a photo dump of Monday and Wednesday - enjoy!
In case you weren't aware - No one kicks ass without tanker gas - NKAWTG! My wee little sister (she's quite short) flies gigantic airplanes for a living and passes gas to all the other airplanes in the sky! So on Monday the 1st, we headed to her current base to take a tour of her squadron, the airplane she flies and more!
I've been in a KC-135 before, so that wasn't especially new but it was fun to see my sister showing off her plane to everyone. It was also really neat to see the squadron and all the things that make it up; including the massage chairs that I absolutely took advantage of, ha-ha! We were even able to get lunch from a food truck that visits the base and is one of Lindsey's favorites - it's called Spudz and has every kind of delicious potato combination you could think of!
We perused the shops on base - unfortunately the base exchange didn't have much to choose from but that was okay! I did find a souvenir that might be my favorite from this trip, an awesome mug that has a map of London all the way around it! So neat! Once we headed home, we stopped in Icklingham to show my MIL a really old church that is open to visitors to stop in any time and look around! The church was damaged during the reign of Henry 8th - and it dates back even farther than that! So cool!
We poked around the town of Bury St. Edmunds and the delightful coronation celebratory items continued to absolutely tickle me! The chocolate shop in Bury had giant chocolate rabbits decorated with the coronation symbolism - and when I say giant, the picture above doesn't do it justice at all! It was a massive bunny! I also became overcome with giggles when I saw the garland of Charles' at a house across from Lindsey's - I christened it a "charland" and was pretty pleased with myself. We had dinner at Giggling Squid on Monday night and while it wasn't a hit with everyone - I enjoyed it!
Wednesday was a chill day - after walking nine+ miles in London on Tuesday, we all needed it, ha-ha! We slept in and Ryan and I took a walk through town and over to Waitrose to get some things for the final few days of our trip. Shortly after we returned, Lindsey joined us for a walk into town and we grabbed lunch at Peck and bubble tea from a restaurant across the street - Peck was delicious! It started as a food truck and recently expanded to a physical location and I can see why!
After our lunch was tucked away, we decided to take the drive to the nearby town of Lavenham, which I tend to think is essentially the perfect little English countryside town! The little houses are topsy and turvy and perfectly, quintessentially, English! My little sister had read where the old Guildhall was open until 4:00 for tours and we arrived at 3:08... even though they said the last entry was 3:00, my MIL state our case and they happily let us in! It was such a neat tour and a way to see a little more of Lavenham!
The guildhall had numerous purposes throughout the centuries and they were outlined in each room - Lindsey especially enjoyed testing the thumb screws in the portion of the hall that talked about housing prisoners, ha-ha! We were able to see everything with plenty of time and even take in the gorgeous gardens in the back of the guildhall - it was wonderful! We then rambled down the streets, marveling at the houses as we worked our way to the Harry Potter house - used in the the final film as Harry's house in Godric's Hollow.
Our second-to-last stop in the town was St. Peter and St. Paul's Cathedral - which is a stunning cathedral! It's quite large for such a small town, but Lavenham was a pretty wealthy wool town and therefore - they could afford to build a massive church! We enjoyed perusing the church and it's store; they had an honesty system and we picked out a book or two and a puzzle and paid our monies into the little box!
Our final stop before we headed back to Bury was the CockHorse and I honestly have to say that I think our meal there was the best one we had the entire week! The service was excellent and the food was divine - not to mention the atmosphere was beautiful. We had such a great dinner and I cannot recommend this spot enough if you're ever in Lavenham!
So - I've managed to get us through Wednesday the 3rd on our delightful English vacation! What will I share tomorrow?
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