Our Happy Days

Thursday, Nov. 5th was our second day in York. We couldn't get a hold of Aunt Marian, so unfortunately we didn't see her until the evening. We started our day with a visit to the York Minster. It's another amazing cathedral. It's humungous. It's the largest gothic style cathedral in northern Europe. It's beautiful in many ways. It dates back to AD 629! Although the building has been re-built and improved since then, the first building was completed and worship has continued uninterrupted for over 1300 years.

Beautiful medieval stained glass window. 3 great kids.

Looking into a mirror to see the ceiling.

Under the cathedral some Roman ruins were discovered when they went under to try to stabilize the massive tower which was starting to have problems, in the 1960s. So they decided to set up this display of the Roman ruins for people to enjoy. It was really cool. It's called the Undercroft.

Sections of this Roman wall were discovered and placed back where and how they would have been. It was neat to see these with the color still intact!

The boys dressing up, 'cause why not!

On our way to our next attraction, we stopped at this fun little spot for lunch. It's called Croque-Monsieur. It's built into the medieval city wall, and underneath it they discovered more Roman wall foundations, so they put this glass over it for people to be able to see it. Cool.

After lunch we went to the Railway Museum. It's a great one! We all had a good time there. My dad, Grandpa Dave Penn would have loved it! He loved trains.

A model train set up.

Eating treats at the railway museum cafe.

In a mock up of a first class train car.

Some dancing music came on and suddenly Josh just grabbed me and started dancing. I love my kids! :)

The train car made for Queen Victoria

Written by Dave:

On July 3rd 1938 an attempt was made to break the world record speed for a steam locomotive. At the time, world records were being pursued in everything from planes, cars, motorcycles, and anything else with a motor.

It was so competitive that people often kept their record attempts secret so as not to alert the competition.

So the attempt to set the steam locomotive record wasn't announced to the public until the morning of the event, and even the passengers, who had only bought tickets for a routine journey. Once they were all on, it was announced that the train would attempt to break the current German world record of 125 miles per hour, and that if they would prefer the company would provide a taxi to anybody who wished. Nobody got off.

Once they were on a long enough straight, they did break the record, getting to 126 MPH, a record that still stands today, set by the Mallard, this blue locomotive.

The rest of the museum was cool too, especially since there is so much railway history in Britain, being the home of the industrial revolution n'all.

This record still stands!

John & Elaine invited us over for dinner on Thursday night. Elaine is actually Dave's mom's dad's cousin! FYI. :) John and Elaine are such nice people. We had a wonderful evening with them. Elaine made a delicious meal for all of us, and wouldn't accept any help in the kitchen! They have a great house, some of it built in the 1600s! Josh slept over at their house with Aunt Marian on Thursday night. Elaine wanted to keep him! :)