If you’re anything like me, the first time I had to pack for a big European trip, I was like a deer staring into headlights.

I’m going to give you all the tips I’ve learned the hard way for packing light on an overseas trip.

Where do you even begin? What kind of luggage is best? How many outfits should I pack? Will I be able to wash clothes? What is the weather? Are clothing standards different there? What can be both comfortable and nice looking for all my photos?

***I do collect advertising fees from Amazon for all Amazon links that you may purchase through. I 100% stand behind each of these products.***

There are so many questions to consider! I’m going to do my best to answer all of these.

Let’s start with the why for packing lightly.

First off, it is $75 to check one bag per person on a U.S. to London flight. You also have to return home, so that is $150. Now times that by a family of five. Your total is $750, which you just saved by packing light!!

Any time you check luggage, you are risking your bag not making it to your destination when you do, especially if you have any connections whatsoever.

In the U.S. if your bag is late, no biggie. They will drive it to your hotel for you. Overseas, you may not be planning on even staying in the same country the next day. There may be a language barrier. Lost luggage is the last thing you want to deal with.

Also, chances are you are going to be using a mix of trains or taxis to get to your destinations multiple times during your European vacation. Toting a giant suitcase around is a giant pain. You want luggage that feels portable to you. It’s important for you to be able to handle all of your bags yourself at any given time or place on your vacation. You can load get it all on and off trains with ease, it fits into cab trunks, and it isn’t too heavy for you to manage.

Trains are bound to be a part of your European vacation. Walking will be too.

My favorite luggage to use:

A small carry-on size roller bag + a shoulder bag + a light crossbody purse tucked into your shoulder bag = travel perfection.

I’ve tried several different things over the years. For our Italy trip, I took nothing but a giant backpack and a purse. That worked, but I didn’t love my lack of clothing options. Also, the backpack was a little too heavy on my shoulders for long at a time. Plus, I was in Italy. In the big cities of Italy, where we were, pick-pockets are a concern. Backpacks are probably the least secure type of luggage you can use. Even a clumsy thief might successfully swipe something from bookbag without you noticing.

But mostly, I just hated carrying that backpack around. Sometimes my poor husband carried it for me. He’d have his on his back and mine strapped to his front, if we needed to get through a train station especially quickly.

So this is my absolute favorite way to travel. This works when you are going anywhere at all.

I especially like a roller bag with four wheels, but any carry-on size roller bag will do.

Then I choose a purse that is both lightweight and crossbody. My shoulders tire easily, so I put very little in my purse. In fact, for our last big trip I ordered a light weight wallet too. In my purse, I place only the little wallet, sunglasses, phone, hand sanitizer, and chapstick. Carrying a thermos around is too heavy, so unless I’m going somewhere like Pompeii, I buy drinks when I get thirsty and order free water with meals.

Every passenger on an airplane is entitled to two carry-on bags. This is important to remember.

You may place one under the seat in front of you and one in the overhead bins. (Many U.S. airlines now charge you extra for carry-on bags, so make sure you choose the right fare.)

To get around this “one personal bag and one suitcase” rule, I pack my purse into a larger shoulder bag that I will call my personal bag and place under the seat in front of me.

What kind of purse should you take?

I personally prefer a lightweight cross-body. It is harder to snatch your purse or anything in it if you wear it cross-body. You will probably be standing and walking more than usual, so keep it as light as you possibly can.

Now for What to Pack!

Most of us travel during the summer or at Christmas, and the weather does make it different. Either way, I try to limit myself to five basic outfits. You want a couple of pairs of your favorite pants/shorts/skirts that will go with all of the shirts you pack, or at least most of the shirts you pack.

Pick four or five casual tops and one top for dressing nice to go out at night. Or you can pack a dress to go out at night. Many dresses will work for day or night.

Don’t skimp on underwear! Pack five to seven pairs of those just in case. Summer vacations get sweaty, and you may want extra changes. When we were in Israel, I had to go to a store and buy more underwear because I was changing twice a day with the heat.

You want socks that will go with your outfits or at least to wear if your feet get cold at the hotel.

Even in the summer, I pack some kind of sweater or sweatshirt. The airplane ride across the ocean is always cold.

Please learn from my flip-flop lesson, unless you don’t care. Europeans do not approve of flip-flops for everyday wear. They are for the pool or the beach. Ha! Thankfully, I was too ignorant of the fashion rules to feel self-conscious.

They do dress better than us, in most of Europe.

I quickly felt out of place in Rome. It was obvious to me that I was under-dressed. Alan was fine, but I’d packed moisture wicking work out tops and flip-flops. Some of my shirts were okay, but I never felt well dressed when surrounded by so many pretty dresses!

For our UK trip, I was more experienced.

I packed two dresses, a blue shirt, a pink sweater, a teal shirt, a dark blue sleeveless shirt, a pair of jeans, and a pair of hiking capri-length pants. Plus, I wore a pink shirt and a pair of versatile breathable black pants on the plane. I also carried a warm pullover for the plane. For the hotel, I packed two t-shirts to sleep in with sleeping shorts and my cozy slides. Oh! And a hat!

I went light on make-up too, I packed the same basic stuff I wear everyday and no extras. Plus, I got travel sized toiletries.

How I make four or five outfits work for even a two-week trip:

This may sound weird, but we wash our clothes in the sink! Soap is soap. You can even buy a small container of laundry detergent if it’s important to you. I use whatever soap or shampoo I have on hand. I scrub the clothes in the sink wherever we are staying and then hang the clothes to dry.

On our England trip, we were lucky. Even though there were five of us (which is so much laundry), we had two nights where we stayed at a nice apartment. That meant there were plenty of places to hang our clothes to dry.

At the very least, do this hack for your underwear. It’s so easy to wash your underwear in the sink.

Your hotel might even have laundry facilities or service, in which case you can use that.

The most important thing about packing for a big trip like this is comfortable shoes.

I vividly remember having to shop for shoes in Atlanta when I was on vacation with Alan because I was around twenty-five and had not yet learned the comfortable shoe when traveling rule.

Now that I’m in my forties and fighting plantar fasciitis, this isn’t even negotiable. I must wear actual sneakers with everything, even dresses.

For our last trip, I wore one pair of tennis shoes on the plane, and I packed a pair of rehab slides and a backup pair of sneakers. I wasn’t sure yet which tennis shoes would be the most comfortable.

These are my favorite shoes for traveling:

Any Dr. Scholl’s tennis shoes are awesome!! Make sure you size up because they run small, but the padding in these is so perfect. They are up there with Asics and Brooks in my opinion, while looking more like an outfit shoe than just a gym shoe.

I put more tips in this video I made. In the video, I show you how to pack your roller bag in a way that you can see all of your clothes, and I show you some more handy tips.

Last but not least, this inflatable neck pillow was a lifesaver on the airplane!

I couldn’t find this exact one online. I’m not sure where Alan bought it, but they sell similar ones on Amazon. We had the overnight flight from D.C. to London, and this thing was a life saver for me!!

I hope you get to take your trip and have a wonderful time!

There are few things more exciting than embarking on a new adventure. I hope these tips will help you pack and make your time in Europe, or wherever you are going, even better.

The post How to Pack Light for Europe Using Only Carry-On Bags appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

On day *we lost count* of our English road trip, we left York, and this became a Scottish road trip!

On to Scotland we go!!!

Our family has a great deal of Scottish ancestry, and we were excited to see a small part of Scotland. Plus, the road trip days were good for recovering my poor right heel. I had (and still have) a killer case of plantar fasciitis. These long tourist days were a problem.

We only had one goal left for England. Locate Hadrian’s Wall, and take some photos of it.

That was easier said than done. I’d asked around and learned there were good places to see the ancient wall near the historic park of Vindolanda.

Hadrian’s Wall was the wall built to mark the furthest northern boundary of the Roman Empire.

For a brief time Rome tried to go even further and built the Antonine Wall (further up in Scotland). But Hadrian’s Wall was the better built and more famous one, and Alan and I were excited to see it.

Legend goes that the Romans could not beat back the unruly Scots, so they walled them off. As a person of Scottish ancestry, there is something undeniably marvelous about being possibly the only people the Romans couldn’t conquer!!

I had to see this, and Alan readily agreed with me. After twenty-three years together, we have far more shared interests than we did in the beginning I think.

As our boys grow older, they actually find our field trips more and more interesting too. So have patience if you have children who do not share your enthusiasm for a historical vacation destination! They may come around yet.

“And what is Vindolanda?” you might ask.

Vindolanda is an ancient Roman settlement smack dab in the middle of nowhere in northern England. It is believed to be a headquarters for the Roman Army while they were building Hadrian’s Wall. The village of Vindolanda predates the wall!

Vindolanda is this huge Roman fort and current archaeological study site. The community was built and re-built nine times! Nine times!? I’m no expert, but it sounds like the local Northumbrians put a fight up to the Romans the whole time.

How is it Alan and I always end up at an archaeological site on our vacations? Ha! We love this stuff. I felt like Vindolanda and the area around it had a very mythical feel. The unearthed ghost town of stone, the beautifully deep green grass all around, the sheep and cows in the background, the overall abandoned atmosphere of the area in combination with the deep gray cloudy skies constantly threatening rain, made the whole area an enchanting portal to the past.

If I had had two healthy feet, I could have walked around there all day!

However, we did not feel like we had too long to explore. It had already rained on us a little, and the clouds assured us they had more to give. Plus, we had this mission to find Hadrian’s Wall and to get to Scotland.

We still managed to cover most everything outside and only bypassed the Roman museum. In retrospect, I cannot believe we didn’t visit the museum. We would have learned so much more of the Roman history if we had taken the time to see it.

Uncovered stone was everywhere, and I feel like if they kept digging, even more and more Roman ruins lie beneath the beautiful carpet of green grass.

They have rebuilt a replica at the Vindolanda Archaeological park of a Roman fort of the time. It reminded us much of the York City Walls and the Tower of London. The stones look much cleaner though. It still looks like new construction. The shocking thing is the builders tried to use Roman methods and test out how their replica would hold up. Oddly enough, the reconstructed fort sank into the ground over the short time that it has been up. I cannot remember the exact number, but it was something like in ten years it shrank like forty feet. My numbers are off, but it was a shocking amount!

I wanted to look up information on this for you with exact information, but I could not find anything online! I wish I’d kept a brochure, but I’ve misplaced it.

The good news is there is a book about Vindolanda’s history, and this is the link to buy it on Amazon. (*Disclaimer that I do make ad money off my Amazon links) I am ordering it too.

Of course, we all enjoyed climbing on this fort replica and reading about it.

Romans and Normans alike when they would set up a tower, or fort, or castle, would always build it in timber first. In fact, some castles never made it past the timber stage. The ones that lasted through centuries are made of stone. Doesn’t it make you think of the three little pigs? Ha! I am thankful to currently be living in a house of brick!

I mean, what community doesn’t want a pool?

Don’t you love the scenery here? It was so quiet, and nature was kind of showing off with how enchanting it all was. Even with my eagerness to see Hadrian’s Wall and make it to Scotland, it felt sad to leave it.

After Vindolanda, we thought we could follow road signs and GPS and find Hadrian’s Wall fairly easily.

No. We were wrong. Turns out, Hadrian’s Wall is not commercialized at all. This was surprising to Alan and me because we both thought of it as such a big deal!

Also, I should mention that English people have plenty of stone fences. They are everywhere, so just because you see a nice long stone barrier, that does not mean it’s an ancient Roman wall.

Everywhere we drove to try to find Hadrian’s Wall turned out to look like someone’s private property full of livestock pastures and a dead end.

We constantly felt like we were trespassing on farm land. The stereotype about the fields of sheep in the UK is right on the money. Sheep everywhere! I thought that was cool though. In America, we are more likely to have fields of cows. I rarely see sheep, but then I do not live in the country either.

In our search for the famous Hadrian’s Wall, we’d pull up to an area, and look around like, “Well? Is it here? Where is it exactly? Are we allowed to drive there?”

Plus, Alan and I were up against a few challenges in addition to feeling like we were trespassing in a foreign country:

1. Complainers in the backseat: The boys did NOT care for our Hadrian’s Wall Quest. They wanted to move on.
2. It was starting to rain.
3. My feet were shot again from the Vindolanda walk, and I did not trust them to get me through a WET, grassy field in uneven terrain.

As it turns out, if you want to see the wall for real, you must do at least a little hiking.

We finally found a spot where we were sure the wall was close by, and we were able to pull off the road in a parking area where we did not feel like we were showing up on somebody’s farm uninvited.

We ended up at the part of the wall called Walltown Crags.

I say that “we” finally found the wall, and we did.

However, it was only Alan who got out of the car, crossed the grassy fields in the rain, and took the photos.

The boys stayed in the car with me, thanks to plantar fasciitis and the rain. I was still happy though. I felt like Alan got the photos for us, and I had the satisfaction of being parked there anyway. You do what you can. It’s like when we were in York, and Alan and Caleb saw York Minster for us. I felt represented, and I got the photos, so I was happy.

It was no small jog from the car to the wall in the rain. Once Alan got out, our car was swarmed by flies!

The boys sounded the alarm from the backseat. “Ewww! Mom, look at all the flies on Dad’s side! We’ve got to move the car so when Dad gets back he doesn’t let all the flies in the car!”

Hmmm. Well, let’s give it a few minutes. This should take him a while.

It took him no time at all. He did that half mile, hilly and rocky jog in the rain like it was nothing, and boom, he was back!

I maneuvered my way over the car console and sat down in the driver’s seat without exiting the vehicle. We figured I’d move the car away from the swarm. Hopefully, it wouldn’t follow us. Dad could hop in the passenger seat, and then we could drive a few yards and switch back.

That was the only time in our whole England trip that I ever drove the car.

And of course, the swarm followed us, so it was all for nothing. Somehow, none of them got in the car though! So it was a win.

We got back on the road and headed for Stirling, Scotland.

It may seem odd that we skipped Edinburgh, but we aren’t really big city people.

I mean, we live in a big city, and all the crowds do get old. It’s nice to take a vacation to smaller places instead. I picked Stirling because of all the history with Bannockburn, Sir Robert the Bruce, and William Wallace. Also, this is where the Scottish Highlands meet the lowlands. It is in the geographical center of the country, to the south. Plus, Stirling Castle looked like an excellent castle to tour. We do love a castle.

I’ll tell you all about Stirling in my next post.

Our last outing of our England to Scotland road trip was a stop at Cafe 91 in Lockerbie, Scotland.

The food was yummy, and this was a memorable stop. For one thing, the place was an hour out from closing when we arrived, though we didn’t realize it at the time. It closes at five o’clock. I guess dinner restaurants and lunch places are two different things in the U.K. We had trouble with this.

The two waitresses were beautiful young ladies with the thickest Scottish accents I’d ever heard. In fact, Scotland solidly did not disappoint with the accents!

Also, our family fooled absolutely no one. Everyone automatically knew we were an American family. I guess our cultural camouflage wasn’t good.

Alan ordered a Scottish meat with his meal called “black pudding.” We asked them what black pudding is, and they said it’s really best to eat it first and then ask. Ha! Alan was a good sport and did just that. I tasted it too. We never did ask them about the ingredients. We could tell they wanted to go home.

Instead, I looked it up online. Black pudding is also called blood sausage, and it is made with pig’s blood, oatmeal, pig fat, and spices. Not exactly kosher, but that’s okay.

We were so excited to be in Scotland! After our early dinner in Lockerbie, we drove on to the Holiday Inn in Stirling. It was an excellent hotel with an outstanding breakfast.

I can’t wait to tell you all about Stirling Castle in the next post.

It was the best day, and the Scottish people were by far our favorite. I’m telling you the Scots are like American Southerners! They were so welcoming. We had the best time.

The post Ancient Roman Vindolanda & the Hunt for Hadrian’s Wall appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

With only a few days in England, I chose York for several reasons:

1. Rick Steeves said I should, and he would know.
2. They say it’s the most Medieval looking city in England, and that is perfection.
3. It is located between London and Scotland, and I was determined to experience Scotland, so it was on the way!

We were staying at Goodramgate Apartments, which we enjoyed. That meant we were on our own for breakfast though.

By the time we all took our turns in the bathroom, Wheldrakes was finished serving breakfast and we had to order from the lunch menu. It was was around 10:30am. We never could match our vacation eating clock to the normal schedule of an English person!

The boys wanted to protest and revolt at the idea of ordering sandwiches instead of scones or pancakes, so we had to maintain the peace with the boys. Apparently, I have not fed this family enough sandwiches. They act as though it’s a second rate meal. I personally think sandwiches are delicious!

In the end, everyone enjoyed their food. There were many gluten free options. The waitress said they are even careful not to cross-contaminate. AND! And, and, and…..THEY HAD GLUTEN FREE CAKE!!!

We learned what a “toastie” is, and after all the complaining, I think everyone had a delicious lunch after all.

I cannot believe I did not take a picture of the gluten free cake slice I ordered and took back to our room. It was my breakfast the next day. When you are gluten free, and you get to have cake at a restaurant, it’s a very big deal. I think it was lemon poppyseed, or something like that. So yummy!

We were so close to our apartment, we were able to run my cake back to our fridge before starting out on our big day in York.

We had exactly two goals as we started out: Shambles and Jorvik Viking Center.

The Shambles is one of the streets York is most famous for. There’s an open air market during the day. This place still has original medieval buildings standing and in use. According to the website, the cobblestone street with the overhanging buildings was originally created that way to block the sun from ruining the meat that was for sale.

People believe the Shambles inspired Diagon Alley in the Harry Potter films, though it was not filmed here.

When we set out on our day, we thought we were headed towards the Jorvik Viking Center first.

But, like all good tourists, we got a little turned around and ended up at Clifford’s Tower first instead.

And yes, I did a great deal of this trip in dresses. I packed these two and did a laundry day at the apartments, since we were not about to pay for checked luggage for five people. I may do a whole blog post about travel clothes because it’s kind of a big deal.

To make a long story short, people dress better in Europe. It wasn’t as drastic in the U.K. as it was in Italy, but they are less casual. I saw no one touring in full workout gear, like we do here in America. Plus, if you wear a little pair of thin shorts under your dress, it’s crazy comfy.

This was the moldiest building I’ve ever seen. The mold makes it look ancient. I forgave it because I figured it was five hundred years old, but no. It is only two hundred years old. Not that anyone asked me, but I think they need to tear it down and start over. Compared, to half of York, it’s not all that historical.

Clifford’s Tower is a historical gem!

We learned all we needed to know about York’s back story from this one stop.

Every crevice of this castle tower held a history lesson with multiple first-person accounts of past events. It took us from the Norman invasion of Jorvik and building the original wooden tower.

There were years of Jewish persecution. In 1190, when the Jews of the town were trapped in the tower, hiding from a local mob that surrounded the tower, wanting to kill them. These Jewish people baricaded into the tower and ultimately killed themselves and each other to escape being killed by the mob of angry citizens. That wooden tower burned down, and the current Clifford’s Tower was built in the same spot sixty years later. (For more on that story, go here.)

There were years of soldiers stationed in the tower. In Clifford’s Tower, there is an audio and written story of the great Clifford’s Tower explosion, resulting in the pink bricks and the soldiers no longer having to live in the tower.

The castle histories also take us all the way up through years of desertion when the castle was overgrown with nature and a tree in the center! It was fascinating!!!

The gray bench you see in the big doorway window there is one of the information benches. You can sit on these and listen to a York historical account, involving the Tower, told in the first person perspective of a past resident.

I loved this. We all headed up the stairs, but I got whoozy headed up on the upstairs landing and made my way right back down. I’m not good with open-air heights. I wish I were!

The boys headed on up and out to the roof deck where you can look over the city. I spent my time downstairs listening to all the histories.

You can see Alan and two of the boys looking down on me from the roof. That was cool.

Clifford’s Tower is the closest thing York has to an actual medieval castle now.

And it is well worth visiting! I’m so thankful we didn’t miss it. This is a hard city to make a call on because I couldn’t cut out any of the things we saw from any agenda. We saw the Shambles, Clifford’s Tower, York’s City Walls, ate at a couple of local restaurants, toured the Jorvik Viking Center, and played mini-golf at A Hole in Wand, and I wouldn’t skip any of it!

We left the tower, bought a few drinks from a food truck, and set back out on our quest to find the Jorvik Viking Center.

It was close by. In the city center of York, it isn’t very far to walk anywhere, which is so convenient. Of course, my poor arthritic feet were killing me anyway.

Upon arrival, we learned that the Jorvik Viking Center requires timed tickets.

Half of me was ready to just chunk the activity. What if it’s just a cheesy, kiddie type deal? It could be a total waste. Alan went online and found times we could sign up for just a couple of hours away. Plus, if this place has such a long line that you need timed tickets, maybe it is valuable after all.

I do travel in a man-pack, so things with the work “Viking” are usually well received.

Once Alan secured our tickets, we decided to use our small window of free time to go back and see the Shambles.

We’d passed by a little of it earlier, but we didn’t realize it. It was a charming, and genuinely unique.

Then it was time for our Viking Tour!!

Before it was called York, it was Jorvik, pronounced Yorvik.

At the Jorvik Viking Center, you learn a great deal about the Viking history of the city. They have found so much archaeological evidence of the Viking settlement. It was fascinating to learn about.

The center has a ride where you learn about the Viking settlement and how they lived. This ride is worthy of Disney World! It is that impressive. It has the animatronic type people, and some of the people are designed to look exactly as Viking skeletons they have dug up at this very site.

This was splendid.

After the ride, there is a museum. This area of the museum had Viking-like weapons and such you can try on. The boys enjoyed that, of course.

From what I read while in York, when the Normans invaded, they cleared out Jorvik, threw the Viking inhabitants out of their homes, and moved in themselves. The Anglo Saxons were there in York as well. They were there before the Vikings. I think it would be so interesting to dive in and read all about the history of the people of York.

After the Jorvik Viking Center we decided to try out the cool looking “Hole in Wand” we’d found across the street.

The younger two boys agreed on one thing: they enjoyed the destinations. They hated the constant, walking and looking, walking and looking.

This has been a problem everywhere we have taken them. There seems to be a certain age you need to reach before you appreciate simply walking around a noteworthy city. Caleb was old enough to enjoy the walks. The others, not so much.

Again, when you travel in a pack of boys, you cater to the pack.

If the chosen activity is a mini-golf place, fully themed out Harry Potter style, I can easily get on board with that. We all had a great time, though some of us were a little extra competitive.

We now all know which family member to be afraid of when playing mini-golf, and no, it isn’t me. Don’t worry, no one whacked their club on the ground Happy Gilmore style. There was whining though.

The entire family was on board with trying this out, which is rare indeed.

At the end of your golf game, you show your scorecard to the front desk, as everyone will receive a potion prize.

The potion is a soda. They come in different colors and flavors, depending on your prize.

Alan won, the boys all got odd number prizes, and then mine was the funniest. I was last place. The man looked at my score card and said, “Oh! Not a wizard!” So I got a different ‘potion’.

I got a kick out of that.

After golf, we searched for a place to eat and ended up settling on Pizza Hut.

They had a family deal and gluten free pizza, so were please as punch.

Alan and Caleb wanted to keep exploring York after dinner, but my feet were beyond pain.

I could barely walk, so the younger two boys and I headed back to our apartment to rest a while.

Alan and Caleb found all sorts of things to include York Minster and this Constanstine statue.

York Minster is truly a must see, with its enormous stained glass windows. I mean technically, I only saw it from a distance, but somehow I still feel satisfied since Alan and Caleb saw it. Ha! They represented us and they took nice photos, so I’m happy.

York Minster has seen a royal wedding, several fires, wars, and many renovations. This is an active church and the seat of the Archbishop of York.

York Minster is open for tours as well as worship services. You can buy tour tickets on their website. None of us took a tour though. Maybe next time.

“It is a Yorkshire habit to say what you think with blunt frankness.” Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

I find it so incredible how much of a mark the Romans made on the world!

After strolling around York, Alan and Caleb rejoined us, and we walked the York walls again.

We wanted to walk a new area of the walls, but they were closed off for renovations, so we settled for walking the same walls as we walked the night before. Everyone still had fun.

York is the place to be!

We would have been happy to stay there another couple of days! The next morning we packed up and drove up to Stirling, Scotland, with one detour on the way to visit Vindolanda and Hadrian’s Wall. I’ll tell you all about that next time

If you missed our other adventures in England, see those posts below!

London Day 1: Buckingham Palace, Kensington Gardens, etc.

London Day 2: The Tower of London and Prime Meridian

Stonehenge

Road Trip Through England to York’s City Walls

The post Adventures in Historical York: Vikings, a Castle, and Wizard Golf appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

This family vacation to the United Kingdom was extra special to me because I feel like it was a once in a lifetime kind of trip.

Our time together with our children is short. The preciousness of this time became so apparent to me once our oldest went away to college. Plus, he insisted on skipping this trip. It was impossible for him to obtain summer employment if he was constantly leaving town on all my family adventures.

He was right about that. I fully understand. When you have several children, there are not infinite resources. The kids need to make their own money and build their own work experiences.

But we still have three boys at home. One is barely a kid. He graduates this year! I feel like we need to squeeze in and enjoy all of the family adventures we can get.

Our road trip to York was a huge blessing because it brought us to York, and we loved York!

We even got there in time to walk the ancient, well preserved walls of York that night! I want to tell you all about it!! We had the best time in this city.

We woke up early that morning in our hot Stonehenge hotel.

I think it was John David’s birthday. Or was that the day before? He was such a good sport about not having a birthday party because of this trip. There was no cake even. I think he received a birthday brownie at a to-go shop instead.

The hotel did provide a small grab-and-go breakfast that morning. I’ve never enjoyed a bowl of oatmeal so much. It was oddly delicious that day.

We packed up and headed out bright and early. For our road trip, we rented a Mercedes SUV. Our three youngest boys were all crammed in the backseat. They found the most comfortable seating arrangement and stuck to it the whole trip. There were many complaints on the lack of space from our six-foot-two seventeen-year-old.

About twenty minutes up the road, I realized I did not have my phone.

What’s a road trip without a problem to solve? I am notorious about leaving things behind as well as never knowing where my phone is, so this should come as a surprise to no one.

Alan was a good sport and whipped the car around and headed back to the Stonehenge Inn.

Phone obtained, we headed out for real this time.

Before our trip, we’d talked to our friends Roger and Christine about traveling through England. They’d told us England has many rest stop areas on their interstate-like highways. These rest areas are much like the ones in the Mid-Atlantic/New England areas of the USA. They have gas stations and fast food grouped together.

These rest areas are much better than most of the USA’s interstate exits, where you have to drive through many traffic lights and fight traffic to find gas and food.

Some of these rest areas were extra nifty and built the food court right over the highway. I enjoyed that.

Another English oddity we discovered was that all of the self-serve soft drinks at every single place we ate only served diet drinks. There is an up-charge for beverages with real sugar, as the country is trying to discourage everyone from drinking sugar. As an American, it was puzzling when my choices were Pepsi Zero, Pibb Extra Zero, or Fanta Zero (or something like that).

I kept thinking, “Where are the real cokes and Sprites?”

Also, they love Starbucks in England. It was everywhere.

I never saw a Dunkin’, but Starbucks was at every rest area. In fact, at the first stop, you could buy Starbucks in three different ways in one giant parking lot. There was a free standing Starbucks. Then the gas station had a mini Starbucks inside, as well as grab-and-go iced Starbucks coffees in a refrigerator.

This was a major win in my book. I do love an iced sugar-free vanilla latte.

It became apparent that if we wanted to make it to York in time to check in, we had no time for side quests.

We only stopped for lunch. Then we did a little exit off our path to drive through Warwick. We were hoping to catch a glimpse of Warwick Castle.

Though we never made it to the castle, we did drive through a small part of the town. It was still fun to look at. Towns in England look much different than towns in America. They are ever so much more ancient.

Goodramgate Apartments in York

I knew we needed to get to York and check in to the apartment I’d reserved for us before six o’clock. Goodramgate Apartments has an office, but they close early. In fact, it seemed like everything in England closed earlier than we wanted. If you don’t eat before six, good luck eating!

These apartments are super cool. It is run like a hotel, but they are all real apartments that have been renovated to serve guests hotel-style. It was much like renting a condo or beach house.

In York, you park in a car park and then walk where you want to go, for the most part.

There is also public transportation, but we stayed so close to everything we never needed it. We were able to literally walk every where. I loved this.

All day, the boys looked forward to having air-conditioning again.

Thankfully, our car was air-conditioned. I had to break it gently to the boys that I was pretty sure our apartment would not be. The English do not seem to think they need air-conditioning. Their country is much cooler than the American south. It is more like Massachusetts. However, even Massachusetts and London alike get hot enough in the summer.

Thankfully, the boys liked having our own three-story Victorian townhouse with privacy and a full kitchen so much, they actually forgave the lack of cool air.

Goodramgate Apartments has several different types of rooms to rent. We stayed at Ebor Mews, which is one hundred fifty years old. It felt like we were getting a truly local experience. Our apartment was across the street from the gate to York City Walls. I loved it because we were in the middle of everything we wanted to see.

When we first arrived, the place was every bit as hot as the Stonehenge Inn, especially on the top floor, where the bedrooms are.

Once we pulled down all the blinds, cracked all the windows, and strategically moved all the fans, it was a little better. Outside, it was nice and cool by seven o’clock each night. We stayed in York for two nights.

This was a nice place to stay. The only people who had a hot night were Alan and me. Our window, on the third floor, did not open. We had to rely on a small standing fan.

The youngest boys slept in the living room, with the biggest window, down on the second floor. They said they actually got cold at night! There was such a good breeze going in their room.

Finding food that night in York at seven o’clock was not easy.

After the long road trip, we wanted to stay close to our town house. Most places on our street were closed or converted to bars for the evening. Drinks you could find easily, but food was another story.

Thankfully, we found this American themed restaurant, Fancy Hank’s, where we were able to order delicious food for everyone.

They even had their gluten free items marked on the menu!! I was so happy. Their kitchen is not always open that late, so don’t go expecting it to be open at seven. They had a larger party with reservations that night, so we were lucky.

I ordered the BBQ pulled pork loaded tater tots. It was delicious!!!

That was such a happy night. After we ate our Fancy Hank’s take-away food, we walked across the street to explore the York City Wall.

Our townhouse was literally connected to the Monk Bar (a huge gate on the wall). The walls of York are one of the main attractions of the city, and it was right outside our door.

We loved this. If your group includes energetic boys and parents who love history, walking walls and castles is the perfect vacation.

I think it was after nine o’clock before it got dark, and the weather was perfection. We walked until we ran out of wall and then walked back.

The boys of course had to sit on top of the walls and windows in different places. There are parts where the wall is narrow and parts where it widens to look-out points and turrets. It was everything you’d want it to be.

And it was not crowded at all! Both nights there was hardly anyone out there!! How is this possible??

I think this was our whole family’s favorite two nights in the UK. We loved it. We goofed off, ran around, climbed where we could climb, read the information, and had ourselves a jolly good time.

I wish we could do this everyday!

Touring York was right up there with the Tower of London. We loved it so much. The walls were our favorite part, so we did that both nights. These photos are all from the first night.

We did so many things in York! I will tell you all about York day two in my next post.

Just know that I wholeheartedly encourage everyone to visit York if you ever get a chance. It was a blast.

The post Once in a Lifetime Family Road Trip to York, Our Favorite English City appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

On our third day in England, we enjoyed one last free breakfast at the Doubletree in Chelsea, picked up a rental car, and drove from London to the famous Stonehenge.

Stonehenge is only an hour and sixteen to thirty minutes from Heathrow Airport (where we got our rental car).

This turned out to be a fairly relaxing day for me personally. My feet were rejoicing for sure! All of the difficulties fell on Alan, as he’s the one who had to drive a car on the left side of the road, the English way.

I honestly did not even attempt English driving.

We arrived to Stonehenge to discover that while it is a long walk from the visitor’s center to the actual Stonehenge structure, it is no trial at all, as they offer a free shuttle bus!

Hurray!!!

My plantar fasciitis has rarely been so happy. I pitied the sweaty travelers who chose to walk the long path, as we flew past them on our free shuttle.

England is not normally that hot, but this was mid June, and it was scorching. There were no clouds at all. I was so grateful that I brought my blue hat.

This is the same hat I bought as I walked into Pompeii in 2023. It saved me that day, and it saved me at Stonehenge too!

Now I have noticed that many people disparage Stonehenge online. They say it isn’t worth visiting. There’s “too many tourists, and you don’t even get that close.”

These people are incredibly wrong. Stonehenge is well worth visiting!

My first thought upon seeing this was much like seeing the Grand Canyon in person for the first time. “Wow! This is way larger than I was expecting it to be!”

Before visiting, I pictured it maybe my height, tops. But no. These stones tower over even my six foot three husband.

Also, why do they say you don’t get to come close to the stones?

That isn’t true. There are places where you get plenty close. You do not get to touch them, but I was fine with that.

Were there many tourists?

Eh. Yes, but it wasn’t overwhelming. There was plenty of room for everyone. The only thing that was over-crowded was the shuttle bus, but that was well worth it.

They have several photo ideas stationed around Stonehenge. The viewing trail makes an entire circle around Stonehenge.

We tried out several of the photo ideas. My middle boys were the best at it. Caleb is a talented photographer. I’m a quick point-and-clicker with the photos. I rarely take more than a second making a photograph. Caleb takes his time and gets it just right.

By the time we finished walking around Stonehenge, we were all scorching enough to be in a hurry to get back to the visitor’s center.

The visitor’s center has an entire museum dedicated to the history of Stonehenge. We were able to slowly enjoy all of that, and then walk outside to see the Stonehenge huts.

Archaeologists discovered the dwelling places of the people who lived in the area in ancient days. I think they were the people of the time of the building of Stonehenge, though I’m not sure.

The Stonehenge Huts

There were informative displays about all we know about the people, their culture, and speculation on how the stones were transported and erected in their spots.

There are many other Stonehenge-type structures all over that area of England. We did not make time to go see the others. Once we finished at Stonehenge, we were looking forward to resting at our local hotel.

We stayed at the Stonehenge Inn. It is now one month later, and that particular night is our most referenced night in England.

It is the benchmark by which we measure how hot a room is.

“Was it just warm, or was it Stonehenge Inn level hot?” I asked JD about his camp cabin. (It was only warm.)

“Shooo! It’s like the Stonehenge Inn in here!”

Bless their hearts. It’s not all their fault. In England, most buildings do not have air conditioning. It’s very common to simply open your windows.

In a major heatwave, open windows are completely insufficient though. I promise you our second story room at the Stonehenge Inn was every bit of ninety degrees Farenheit.

It was not a bad hotel. They were well themed out. Grab-and-go breakfast items were available for free. Plus, it was really a pub. Downstairs, the pub was a busy place for people to come and drink and maybe have a burger. We even ate lunch there. It was a perfectly good deal. This is an affordable place to stay.

I can assure you my children would never stay there again though. Poor JD had to sleep on the top bunk.

Thankfully, we were whooped from jet lag, two days of walking all over London, and the hot day out at Stonehenge. We slept with no difficulty, in spite of the heat.

No covers were needed.

We all went in and lay flat on our backs on our respective beds. Mercifully, there was a fan, but it couldn’t reach everyone. Our room had a queen bed, a bunk bed, and a twin bed. Alan and Caleb ran out and got McDonald’s cold drinks and chicken nuggets for us that night. That means I had Diet Coke and a grab-and-go breakfast item for dinner.

For the first three nights in England, we watched the same stuff on t.v.

There was always a Simpson episode or two, followed by a documentary on British public television about President George H.W. Bush (the first Bush). The kids definitely learned a lot about President Bush and Homer Simpson on this trip.

Our room’s window was right over the outside tables and chairs for the pub, which resulted in another challenge.

There was one table of men, around age thirty, at the table directly under our window, They were having such a jolly evening all catching up with each other. I mean this in a good way. These men were not drunk and rowdy. They were sitting around the table talking and laughing, in a perfectly respectable way.

The thing was they were right under our very open window, and by ten o’clock, we were more than ready to be asleep.

We were in the middle of talking about this when Alan chimed in, “Well, we will all go to sleep when those guys at the table go home.”

Alan didn’t mean to say it loudly. He wasn’t trying to make them hear him. But Alan’s voice is deep, and it carries. I guess they could hear us as well as we could hear them.

These poor, polite fellows. They got quiet for a minute. There was a moment of embarrassed silence for all of us. Then the men all said their good-byes to one another and headed out. They were gone in mere minutes.

Would I stay at the Stonehenge Inn again?

Sure, actually. I would, just not in June-August. Twenty minutes away from Stonehenge, there are several international chain hotels where you can stay, and those usually do have air conditioning.

Have you had any crazy hot hotel stays like this? I told the boys this is exactly the kind of thing you need to experience when you travel. It can’t be all Hilton hotels. Sometimes you need to dig in and live like a local with no air conditioning!

Without an experience like this, one might laugh at English people who complain about their heat. After all, their country is twenty degrees cooler in their hottest areas than the hottest areas of the U.S.A. However, once you have experienced an unbearably hot second story in an eighty degree heat wave, you understand. Eighty degrees with no a/c is just as bad as one hundred degrees with a/c.

There was so much to learn here! I highly recommend a good Stonehenge excursion, if you are ever in England! I love that we got to take our boys to see Stonehenge. This was such a surreal trip!

To read about our London days, click here and here.

The post Stonehenge & the Night We May Never Forget appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

On day two in London, after we’d thoroughly toured the Tower of London, we rode a train down to Greenwich.

Once in Greenwich, we walked like a mile over to this park and then literally hoofed up the steepest hill I have ever climbed in my life. It was basically a curved walk upwards that must have covered twenty stories, walking almost straight upwards, but without stairs.

At the top of this grassy mountain sits the Royal Observatory, home of the Greenwich Prime Meridian.

That’s right. We took a little science field trip while in London. I didn’t get the appeal, but I live in a family of males, and our likes and dislikes do differ…

Alan visited Greenwich about eight years ago. On that trip he visited the Prime Meridian at the Royal Observatory as well as the National Maritime Museum. That was long ago, so he had forgotten they were two separate buildings. The Royal Observatory is at the tip top of what felt like the highest hill in London. The Navy museum is way down at the bottom near the water.

With me and my plantar fasciitis and one of our sons and his blisters, there was no way we were making it to both that evening, even if we had known where the Navy museum was, which we didn’t, at the time.

My best advice is if you do go to Greenwich, go see the National Maritime Museum first. It is apparently a fascinating place. I heard several other confused tourists at the observatory asking about it. They have ancient ships and such on display. People seem to love it.

When you reach the top of the hill, the first order of business is the incredible view.

Then you head around the building. There are several displays both indoors and outdoors.

The first thing we came across was the remains of Herschel’s Telescope.

The guys who mapped out the prime meridian were all astronomers. If you are interested in astronomy, you will love the Royal Observatory with its Prime Meridian and museum.

This excursion was highly educational.

What stood out to me most was actually a question:

If the Prime Meridian was slightly changed several times, as astronomers gained better and better tools and experience, what does the prime meridian even mean exactly?

It turns out, this location has nothing to do with the magnetic field of the earth or the positions of the stars. It is an internationally agreed upon location from which to begin with the designation of 0 degrees longitude. It separates the eastern and western hemispheres.

Additionally, our GPS (which we get from satellites) assigns 0 degrees longitude, to a whole other spot, over three hundred feet from Prime Meridian spot where we take photographs. Another tourist pointed that out to us, so Alan went and found the GPS spot. It isn’t marked at all, yet it is the Prime Meridian all modern instruments use.

By the way, even as we stood there, the GPS app on Alan’s phone changed the exact location of 0 degrees. It only changed by inches, but it was enough for me to find it annoying. I feel like if you mark a spot, and call it zero, that’s it. It’s done. ha! I guess scientists disagree.

I can see why GPS might change it, since calculating it from space involves ignoring gravity and cutting through the earth as a globe rather than measuring across terrain. You can learn more about that here.

But I’m still wondering who is to say which one is right? If it’s only zero because people picked it as zero, who is technology to change it?

Maybe it’s my bias against the computer takeover, or maybe I just have a bad attitude when I don’t understand something. Plus, my feet hurt so badly by the end of London day two. Alan was lucky I was standing at all. My feet were better for so long, but then my right heel decided to make some new heel spurs (arthritis), and basically I’m adjusting to it.

Like all good tourists, everyone in our family took photos standing on the official Prime Meridian.

After one last sit break, we headed back out on our mile hike to the train station. We hoped to find a good restaurant on our way, as we passed through town. The problem was no one in Greenwich had anything marked gluten free on their menu.

We ended up stopping at another train connection in central London to look for food, which of course involved yet more walking. I settled for a bun-less burger and a Diet Coke, and we rode the train back to our hotel. Honestly, I needed an Uber that day too, but our hotel was too far from Greenwich.

Day two we logged over 18,000 steps, and I was a pool of pathetic when we finally made it back to our hotel room. I managed to shower, and then I crashed pretty hard.

I love walking, absolutely love it, and I have walked for fun and exercise my whole life. This plantar fasciitis problem is such a killjoy.

The pain was worth it for the Tower of London, but nowhere near worth it for the Prime Meridian. I’m grateful we got to go to England, but next summer we are going to the beach.

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London, baby!

This year my husband, Alan, starts a fancy new job that we expect will keep him busier than he has been for the last couple of years. Therefore, we decided to give our family an all-out overseas vacation.

This was the boys’ first time overseas, so we figured a United Kingdom trip would break them in the most gently to international travel. After all, everyone speaks English there. Ha.

London day #1

Day one took us from the airport, to our hotel for a long nap, and then down to Central London to see Buckingham Palace and Westminster Abby. Plus, I had this need, thanks to my time watching Downton Abbey and such shows, to go for a walk in Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens.

You can fly nonstop Washington, D.C. to Heathrow Airport near London, so we did just that.

Hotels in London are insanely expensive, and there were five of us going. Maybe a single room in the heart of London would not be too bad, but two doubles? Yikes. We had to find a happy medium between staying out of town and staying downtown.

I opted for a good deal I found near Chelsea, and Chelsea is fairly close to Kensington. I knew I wanted to walk through Kensington Gardens and get a glimpse of Kensington Palace, so I figured Chelsea was good enough.

We stayed at the Hilton Doubletree Chelsea, and thankfully it was right next to a train stop.

I checked when I booked it. Unfortunately, I didn’t bank on that very train line being shut down for one of our trip days, but you just cannot know that sort of thing.

It was okay though. London is eaten up with train stops, so we just walked to the next closest one, which was in easy walking distance for us. Well…. honestly it was in good distance for us for the first part of our day. We couldn’t hack it at the end of our day, but I’ll save that story for later in this post.

By the way, we took the red eye flight.

….Because let’s just go ahead and deal with the jet lag head on. Plus, red eye flights were cheaper.

We left D.C. at 5pm, and we arrived in London at 6am. We probably each slept two hours on the plane. Daniel did not sleep at all. Gracious, Daniel and JD. Those two! I sat beside them, and they were giddy happy trouble all night long.

I thought we’d manage.

My delusional brain figured we’d ditch our suitcases at our hotel and go sight seeing right away. We knew our rooms wouldn’t be ready yet.

Miracle of miracles, the Doubletree managed to get us into one of our rooms at around 9am London time. The other room would be ready later. We were thrilled.

No one had any choice. There was a twin bed and a double bed and four people. All of us, except poor Alan, crashed onto a bed and couldn’t wake ourselves until probably 2pm London time.

Poor Alan. He tried to sleep on the double bed with two of us. He couldn’t do it successfully. I think he may have only gotten an hour of sleep in the hotel compared to our four or five. He kept trying to wake us up to head into town. It was not happening. We couldn’t wake up even if we wanted to.

Around two or three in the afternoon, Alan finally got us all awake and herded out of our hotel.

We were ready to hit the town. I’d known this day would be the weird day that never ends, so I had booked us for nothing at all. We were free to roam.

First order of business, we were starving. We began our hike to the second-closest overground train stop, with our eyes constantly scanning for restaurants we could all agree on.

We hit the jackpot. There was this Italian pizzeria, super close by. The place was empty too, because who eats at three o’clock?

I never did figure out exactly what time Londoners do eat because it seems like we were always off their schedule.

This pizzeria offered gluten free options. I had a delicious salad, and I could have had pizza if I’d wanted it. They offer a cauliflower crust.

We were all happy, happy, happy.

Our trip from the airport had already involved half a dozen train changes, so we felt pretty comfortable on the train, but we were also tired of it and ready to get out and see London!

By the way, London trains are easy to use. You do not have to buy a special ticket. You can use your credit card as your ticket, to just scan right in and out. However, we needed older child tickets. For those you do have to buy a ticket, as it saves you money. Kids ten and under ride free. Older kids have reduced fares.

We decided to begin in Kensington, since it was the closest tourist area to our hotel.

Kensington Gardens surrounds Kensington Palace. We entered Kensington Gardens at the part which is actually an Embassy Row. Enormous embassies lined the streets. I asked later where the U.S. embassy is, as it wasn’t on this row. Apparently, the U.S. Embassy has its whole own compound in London, south of the Thames River.

I took zero photos of the embassies because there was a sign at the entrance to the street saying that no photos were allowed, so I was afraid to. Alan later said that just meant at the checkpoint. Drat. I should have known that.

It felt like we walked constantly from four o’clock until around seven o’clock.

My feet were killing me. Daniel’s orthopedic shoe insoles were giving him blisters, and everyone was dead exhausted by the end of it. I have to hand it to Daniel though. He never complained about the blisters. I didn’t realize he had them until the end of the night.

We walked from Kensington Gardens, past the small pond with beautiful swans, past the Prince Albert Memorial, and found ourselves a double decker London bus. Riding the bus for just a few stops gave our feet a short break.

We got off near the Hyde Park tunnel and still had so much walking to do, on the edges of Hyde Park, to get to Buckingham Palace. Maybe it wasn’t that far, but thanks to our feet problems and general exhaustion, we began sitting on benches every time we came to an open bench.

We had a surprisingly fun time sitting on benches on the outskirts of Hyde Park.

Finally, we came upon Buckingham Palace. I was excited, but I was equally excited to spot a snack stand. Joy of joys. Everyone but Alan had an ice cream. Alan bought a few waters. The rest of us felt that ice cream was most certainly a need. London was in a heat wave, and we were getting a work out, even with all of our bench sitting breaks.

Did you know that King Charles does not actually live at Buckingham Palace?

He lives primarily at Clarence House, which is next to St. James Palace. Buckingham Palace is still the administrative headquarters for the monarchy though.

The palace is so much bigger than it appears from the front. That building makes an entire square with a large courtyard in the middle. We only saw the front and one side.

After Buckingham Palace, we hoofed it over to the Parliament area.

We were determined to see Big Ben and Westminster Abbey before calling it quits on day one, and so we did. There were no sitting breaks at this point, and we got it allll in.

Once we’d hit all these must-sees, we basically just kept walking to see what we would happen upon.

We kept on trooping along, passing several interesting buildings and statues. We ended up at the Horse Guards parade ground.

Somewhere right past here (the above photo) we walked right by Downing Street without realizing it.

There were several memorials there too, and that is where we spotted the London Eye for the first time in our trip. Actually, I think that’s the only time I noticed it.

Then we kept on walking, until we hit the Boer War Memorial. It had steps, and the boys were drawn to those like a magnet. Once again, we were all sitting down.

At this point we were on a delightfully decorated street, which I’d never heard of. It is called The Mall. It is lined with UK flags. I thought it was one of the most splendid sights in London. We’d basically made a circle, walking around St. James Park. The Mall ends at Buckingham Palace. We were on the end closer to Trafalgar Square and Scotland Yard, but I certainly didn’t know any of that.

The thing was, we were all completely done with that day. Our four hour nap was nice and all, but it wasn’t quite enough. Plus, there was the blisters and the plantar fasciitis, and so much sweat. Ha!

At this point, the idea of finding a train station, walking to it, changing trains several times, and then walking a mile to our hotel, because the Mildmay line was down for repairs, was far too much for any of us.

Thankfully, Alan understood just how broken and out of juice our entire group was, and he ordered an Uber. Moments like these, when Alan rescues us in central London with an Uber, are moments when I love him the very most. He was a knight with shining iPhone, taking us for a ride on an Uber XL.

Our Uber ride was the most relaxing part of our day.

We drove past many of the same things we had seen earlier, plus so many beautiful store fronts! The car ride from central London to Chelsea was delightful.

No one really had dinner that night. I went straight to bed. Some of the boys ate some little crackers or junk in the hotel, I think. We all knocked out hard that night.

Caleb and JD shared a room for our two London nights, and those two got along better than anything I’ve ever seen. They are quite a happy duo. Being five years apart, JD calmly accepts Caleb’s leadership. Plus, they both prefer to live in peace. There are no sibling issues with these two. It’s funny how many different relationship dynamics you find in a big family.

Day one was an exhausting success. I was far more excited for day two!

For day two, I booked us tours at the Tower of London (castle) and the Prime Meridian Naval Observatory. I figured it’d be a day of less painful feet. (Wrong.)

Come back next week for my post on the Tower of London! It was one of my personal top two things we saw in England. I have read so many things and watched documentaries involving the Tower, and I’m so excited we got to go there! Plus the whole area around it is a vibrant place to visit.

For more travel inspiration, check out my vacation page.

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