August 17, 2015 

Yesterday was a much better day than the previous one.  I got up rather early, called Avis and arranged to have our car exchanged.  It was sort of a bigger ordeal than you would expect.  But we made it back to the hotel with a new car (although exactly the same as the other car – But this one has a working clutch).

We had a quick bite to eat and went to Wadswick Country Store. One word – Awesome!  Wadswick is a two floor tack shop,with a gun room (Coltin’s favorite part).  There was tack, clothes, equipment, blankets, everything.  The staff was also outstanding.  They stayed open late to get us all checked out and they seemed to really enjoy chatting with us.  They were helpful and very approachable.  Everyone left the store with a shopping bag and a huge smile.  If you are ever in this part of England, check their store out.  You will not be disappointed.   I should also mention that some MGAGB riders kindly recommended we check out Wadswick, along with two other tack stores.

After all that fun we stopped for dinner at a Toby’s Carvery, which was also a big hit. With a good British style dinner in our Bellys we went back to the hotel and took a swim. There was some splashing, some people may have been pushed into the pool and some of them may have had their clothes still on, but it was all in good fun.  A few of us took a turn at the steam room, sauna and hot tub before we went back to our rooms for showers and packing up.  

We had an evening desert in the loby bar, worked on some blog posts and then hit the hay.  Tomorrow starts the beginning of the real reason we are here, to ride!   We plan to meet up with Chrissy in Wales and help her pick up the rest of our ponies and move to her house for the week.  Watch out Lockyers, we will see you soon!!!! 

Not so many photos today.  The car swap really ate up a big portion of our day. We plan to have more good pictures to share from day five!  Thanks for following our adventure and keep checking back for more updates! 

August 14, 2015

Today was our first full day in London.  We started off with complimentary breakfast in the pub we are staying over.  Then we headed out and took the tub to Kensington Gardens. We walked around and annoyed the lovely weather.  

Next we headed to London Bridge.  We walked around for a bit and then we did the “London Bridge Experience”.  It was dubbed “Horrifyingly Educational Fun”.  Everyone really enjoyed this.  It started theatrically educational and we learned some history about Lindon Bridge.  Super cool.  Then it because a scare house.  They instructed everyone to walk in a line with hands in the shoulders of the person in front of you.  Alicia bravely led out group. People jumped out, everyone screamed.  Two times the path led us between two blown up walls that we had to squeeze through.  Ahhhh!  

Super cool. 

Colton checked out this Naval ship, the HMF Belfast.   He really enjoyed it and was excited he could go into all the parts of the ship.   Everyone else relaxed with coffee and did a little light shopping.  

Next we took the tube over to see Big Ben.  It was rainy but still really neat.  

On our way to our pre-booked portion of the day we stopped at a market.  Unfortuney it was close to closeing but it was still amazing. Lots of cheese, meat, seafood and all kinds of awesome market stuff.  

We took a mini break for some tea and then it was time for the “Escape Room”.  

We were booked for the Pharoh Room and had an hour to get out.  It involved everyone working as a team to work out ten different puzzles.  Each puzzle opened a door with led to more clues and pieces to the puzzle. It was crazy hard.  We got majorly stuck on the hardest puzzle, and although we got it figured out eventually, it are up a lot of our time. We went about five minutes over an hour and had trouble lining up the very last puzzle just perfectly.  

Exhausted, we took the tube back to our hostel and had some social time together. 

Seriously exhausted.