Abbey, Whalley, Preston & Nate

Tuesday, August 8th.

We started the day at Krispy Kreme. Nate doesn't get them in Munich, so he and I bought donuts.

Then we went to the Trafford Center - one of the biggest malls we'd ever seen!  It felt like we were on a cruise ship, in Disneyland and Las Vegas all at the same time. 

Nate was being a goof-ball with his Krispy Kreme hat on.

After that we drove to Whalley and saw the ruins of an old abbey. 

There were a lot of great picture spots at the old abbey.

Suzy was testing the picture spots by taking pictures with me standing in.

This ended up being a great spot.

This old house reminded me of the house on "The Holiday".

This tree was the place where Elder Holland received inspiration on where the Preston Temple should be built.

Then it was off to Downham where we had a nice lunch.

We ate lunch at the Assheton Arms restaurant in Downham.

This meal ended up being my least and most favorite meal.  It was cold that day, so I was in the mood for something warm.  I was eyeing a lemon chicken salad, but a salad didn't sound cozy.  Then the waiter explained the specials and talked about a beef and noodle dish with peanut sauce and peanuts.  It sounded yummy, like a Thai dish, so I went with that.  When he brought me my meal, it was nothing like I expected.    

It was a bowl of cold, hard noodles, with big meatballs, no sauce (that I could taste) and cashews, not peanuts!  It was not my favorite, plus I'm allergic to cashews.  So when the waiter came back and asked me how I liked my meal, I asked about the cashews and explained I was allergic to them.  He insisted on taking my dish and bringing me a cashew-less one.  I was not super excited about wasting a whole bowl of food just to get another one, when I didn't really like it.  But the waiter came back and said the cashews were pre-mixed in and they couldn't take them out.  So I asked if I could order something else and got the lemon chicken instead.  I wish I had a picture of that dish, because it was my favorite meal of the whole trip!  It ended up being a warm salad with a small, flavorful chicken, sauce, artichoke hearts, spinach, pomegranates, potatoes, peppers and mushrooms.  It was so good and a perfect portion size! (I'd been filling up on Dad's chips and some bread while waiting for my second dish.)  

 Then a visit to Chatburn, Clitheroe (stopped at a market), Chipping, and Ribchester.  It got to be quite cold and rainy as the day went on.  As Suzy said, we were experiencing real Northern England weather.

We have some ancestors who lived in these little towns and villages. We grabbed some food at a supermarket and then went to the British Pageant by the Preston Temple. 

While we were waiting for the pageant to start, Nate, Aimee and I found an empty clerks office inside the nearby church building (the church was packed with pre-pageant events, actors, missionaries, etc.).  I had noticed a charge on my credit card for almost $500 for a place in California that was pending from a few days before.  I wanted to get the mystery charge resolved, but I needed wifi to access my credit union account and time to contact them during their hours of operation in Utah.  The church was perfect because we had the time, wifi and it wad daytime back home.   I couldn't call them, it wouldn't connect through, so Aimee had the idea to message them via
Facebook.  So my credit union and I messaged back and forth trying to resolve the issue.  I ended up cancelling my card, just to be safe, and they'd mail me a new one to my home.  Meanwhile, I used the few Pounds I had and borrowed money from Aimee the rest of the trip.  We shredded my old card in the clerk's office shredder and then headed out to the pageant events. 

The pageant was fantastic!  We were so grateful we were able to see it!

At the end, all the missionaries went down on the stage.  Suzy had gone to the temple, but Dad was with us and went down.  It was funny watching him though, because he was ad-libbing the songs and dances.

Although this day had a few low points, we had a great time and some good laughs as well!