How this all came to be was my dad was saying he wanted to meet Daniel and I in Paris for the weekend. Daniel had started his new job and there was no way he could go, and I just mentioned that I need to go to Bradford England to do some family research. My dad was all over that idea because he just wanted to get away and it he was his family I was researching and my father loves England (served his mission in London and hadn't been up North).
 |
| My first map which worked great for the Motorways(Freeways) |
I choose the time in September so I knew we could get on a flight to Manchester. It ended up a little rough, but we did get on and in first class! I will admit that I packed to a Salt Lake City fall leaning more to Atlanta weather. It came as quite a surprise when we landed and it was 40ish degrees. I ended up buying a great jacket.
 |
| I am so easily amused. My name was on the TV in my room! |
 |
| Dad driving on the wrong side of the road--literally he is driving on the American side. |
We rented a car because we needed to go to Bradford. I was hoping that we could just rent a GPS and go from there, but they didn't have any left. So I navigated us with a map and then later had to buy a town map which became really useful when we searched for where the family lived and moved.
 |
| The old grocer...sort of. |
We started off driving to the moors. It really it is beautiful country and I'm sorry that I didn't get any good pictures of it. We arrived after we struggled to find the hotel, and then headed to the Bradford Central Library. The ladies there were so helpful. I was able to find out my great great great grandfather was a prominent grocer in Bradford and we found where his grocery store stood which was right next to the Bradford Cathedral. Once again my little street book helped us find this.
 |
| My fish is so hot I can barely eat it! |
For two nights we got fish and chips at this quaint little chippery near
our hotel that served locals. It was the best fish and chips I've had
in a long time.Of course it was the best since the last time I had fish
and chips was in England.
On our third day we found the graveyard where William Lee was buried. It is in the Colesly Parish. We drove out to the countryside and found the church with its graveyard. It had taken care of some of its graves while others were very scary. We couldn't find his grave, but as we were leaving to go to the Halifax library, I pointed to a mess of weeds and said it's probably dead center in that mess. We went to Halifax and found a cemetery map. We went back and it was exactly where I said it was. My dad was such a trouper because he walk into all that mess and cleared it away, so that we could stand right on top of it. It was the silliest and coolest thing ever.
 |
| This was the nice part of the cemetery that was taken care of. |
We had to go home after we found this grave. We did catch a movie at their museum of Photography and Cinema. It was so cool to see Batman in a museum it was totally designed to get the best out of the film. I'm glad we got to go there as it is one of my favorite museums. While I was trying to find this guy's parents, I unfortunately didn't, but seeing where he lived and what he did and where he was buried made this trip successful for me.
After Daniel and I moved by ourselves, okay we had one day where a friend helped us, I treated myself to a concert in Salt Lake. I went with my friend Tera to The XX. It was great the crowd was a little weird and we decided that we were too old for concerts, but overall it was worth it. Daniel was super bummed that her had to stay in Atlanta because of school, but was glad that one of us got to go to The XX.
Totally beautiful, but I feel that way every time I come to
Charlottesville and I know why he always wanted to stay on his mountain
in Monticello. It had a kickin' kitchen, the Chateau de Chenonceau (France) was
better, way better, but they had French copper pots in this kitchen and
that is always a mega bonus. I was amazed to find out that he died with
so much debt. It was worth a small house ($150,000) in today's money
and I can't imagine what it was with inflation. He also didn't free his
slaves like most people think. He only freed four; two were his
children, one he promised his freedom for becoming his french chef and
teaching others, and his butler. He had an awesome garden. I wanted to buy some seeds that he had cross bred, but they didn't sell any. They only sold harvested seeds from Monticello, but conveniently none of the species he "invented."
