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May 26, 1999
Day 11
Our first stop today was in Betws-y-Coed. Nothing special as far as I can remember about the place, it seems to be just a tourist town. I looked for a jumper (wool sweater) from Scotland and found one made right in Scotland and nicer than anything that I had seen in Scotland and on sale to. Can you believe that and in the middle of Welsh country. From there we moved on closer to one of our excursions which was a Welsh Mountain train ride. On the way we went through an old slate mining town. Since the day was overcast it didn't help this town a bit. This town is the grayest town that I have ever been through it was like the drizzle had washed all the color away. Our train ride was interesting. The view was practically zero due to all the mist that had set in and it made you feel like you were sneaking through the mountains. Definitely a classic English day.
After our train ride which ended at the coast we went north to Caernarforn and the Caernarforn Castle. We had lunch in this town and than went to explore this Castle that Edward I Longshanks built to try and control the people of Wales. This was an incredible castle. That was one thing that Longshanks was good at. We didn't get to stay there long since we had to get all the way from the western coast back inland to Liverpool. On the way back we stopped at a town that I will have to tell you about later. Its name I bet had 40 letters in it. I couldn't pronounce it if I tried.
Once back at the hotel and dinner was done we started on another adventure. Keith was in need of a second bag to get things home in. At that time of night it is hard to find a place open. We got this cab driver named Owen and he called around and found a grocery store of sorts that might have duffel bags in them. Owen was great he was taking all these back roads and going by places he use to live and telling his old neighbors kids to not play in the street etc. Before we found the place with the bag Owen was calling friends to see if they might have a bag to sell to Keith. Once we got the bag we asked Owen to show us some sights on the way back to the hotel. We were having such a fun time with him that we let the meter run up a bit and really got the personal tour of Liverpool. At one point he was looking for a particular place to give us a view overlooking the city and found the spot at the end of a very wide sidewalk on the edge of this park. Instead of sending us up on foot to were the view was at and leave the meter going he just hoped the curve and drove up the sidewalk. Once we got up there we encountered security for a local cop show which is the equivalent to NYPD Blues back home. They were doing part of the show up there and here we were crashing it. The Security man was great. No one was in trouble we just had to be quite. On the way down we were talking about getting him in trouble and he said no worries this is my city mates, I was born here. This man loves Liverpool. He took us to see the Cavern which is were it all started with the Beatles plus tons of other places. Owen was great. What a great way to end the day.
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