The first time we got lost, we went straight on B725 instead of turning left at some point. After a few miles, we happened upon a little lookout point, and decided to check it out. It turned out to be a part of the Caerlaverock Nature Reserve. Bordering the small gravel parking lot were vines with yellow flowers, and beyond those was a large sandy beach which, in turn bordered the River Nith. In the distance, we could see a mountain that could easily have been called a hill, the top of which was covered by low, white clouds. After we took a couple pictures, a red minivan drove up, and the person inside waived to me. I waived back. She got out, and I saw that she was an older woman, likely about 70 years old. She rested arms on the wooden fence that separated the road from the lot, and said, "Do either of you boys know where the Animal Rescue Center is?" I responded no, and she said, "Alright. Where are you heading?" I said Carlisle, and briefly explained our trip, and she responded, "I hope the weather stays nice like this. I don't recommend you go out onto that sand, though. A few years back, some people--Chinese, I think--went out onto the sand, looking for cockles [a food like mussels], and the tide came in and they got stranded out there. Twenty of them died, I think, and only one survived." "Oh my god," I responded, "Well, fortunately we'll be sticking to paved roads, and stay away from the beaches. Best of luck in finding the animal shelter!" I said as I bid her fairwell. She hopped into her car, buckled her seatbelt, and was off.
.jpg)
.jpg)
The second time we got lost was even less bad than the first time. We simply missed a turn, and went an extra few hundred feet on our way into Annan. When we got to Annan, we decided to sit down and have some lunch at a little cafe called The Lounge. We both decided to treat ourselves to sundaes: Jacob got Rocky Road, and I got Chocolate Heaven. It was delicious, the waiters were fantastic, and overall, Annan was a good experience.
The third time we got lost was on the way from Gretna to Carlisle, the last stretch of our ride today. We made some poor decisions, made plenty of wrong turns, and Jacob was convinced that Google Maps was trying to take us on the full-fledged highway M6. (I looked up later; in fact, we would've gone on a frontage road.) I wanted to just get there, and do whatever it took, but he insisted that we circumvent M6 and take the alternative route: go up to Longtown, and then down to Carlisle. I agreed just because I didn't feel like arguing with him, and we took the Longtown route. (Again, I looked it up, and that added 4 miles to our ride.) At this point, I just wanted to get there, so I hunkered down and got to work, pedalling about as hard as I could, within reason. I didn't notice the road leading to the right. I didn't notice Jacob stopping behind me. I didn't notice if Jacob yelled at me to stop. By the time I got to the next road, A7, I turned around and saw Jacob a long ways away. When he reached me, he said, "Micah! There was a road that you missed a half-mile back." I responded, "I didn't see any road..." "Well you should've looked behind you to see I wasn't there." I said, "Well, we're here now. Let's just take this road and get going." The road was horrible; just like the A713 from yesterday, only less hilly. Fortunately, it took us right into Carlisle, where we managed to get lost one more time looking for the hostel. We finally settled in around 5.
In Carlisle, I decided to take my dad's advice and look for old people with whom I could talk. I walked around for a bit, seaching for wrinkly faces. The first one I found was this woman with white hair and baggy cheeks, and she was waiting in a store front with a grocery bag and a cain. "Excuse me," I said, "I don't mean to be forward or rude, but were you alive in 1939?" She replied in a Scottish accent after turning on her hearing aid and I repeated myself, "Yes, the war." A man got into a cab on the road next to us. "Can you tell me about it? Before and during the war?" "I don't remember anything at all from before the war, and only little bits from after it started." Dismayed, I thanked her and started to leave, but she said, "Where are you from?" "America." "I got that much." "The Great Lakes region. It's in the middle." "Is that near Seattle?" "No, it's east of there." "My son works in Seattle, as a ski instructor." "Oh really?" [this is genuine interest, not sarcasm] "Yeah, he goes up to Vancouver to teach there. I've gone up to visit him there. Canada's a beautiful place. Haven't been to America myself, though." We talk a little bit more, and then I leave.
The next person I find is a bald man in a motorized wheelchair. "Excuse me," I say, "I don't mean to be forward or rude, but were you alive in 1939?" "No," he replies with a smile in a drawled english accent, "I was born in 1953." I thanked him and left.
By that time, it was almost 6, and I couldn't exactly find any more old people to talk to, so I found Jacob outside the Carlisle Cathedral. "I tried going to the Castle, but they were closed already. You'd better go into the Cathedral now; it's closing in a couple minutes." I walk inside and hear the service going on at the time through the speaker system. There was a chapel dedicated to those who died while guarding the border. Which border, I'm not so sure; but there was a plaque of some sort with the names of everybody who died doing their duty. It reminded me of Park Synagogue, where we have the names next to the lit wall, only this seemed more extravagent. The service sounded kind of like the silent part of the Amida, only instead of asking God or ourselves to perform miracles, the priest asked Jesus: that the lord Jesus Christ bring health to the sick, joy to the poor, guard over the happy, etc. There was even a stained-glass window that looked like the star of David. I left the Cathedral after the service ended, noting both that all the attendees were tourists and that the gift shop right next to the entrance was closed.
As Jacob and I walked back to the hostel, I jokingly said, "Do you think that the Carlisle Cathedral gift shop existed when Mary and George were here?" He replied, "No, they've learned to exploit history much more efficiently over the past 70 years." Moments later, he added, "Yeah, the castle closed quite early, but it costs five pounds to get in." "Talk about exploiting history." "Nah," he said, "I get it. Upkeeping a castle costs a lot of money. Think about how hard it is to maintain a house. A castle is so much larger than a house, you'll need more than donations." Later, when we walked around the castle on a seemingly illegal path that was probably fine (we hid from policemen on a lower street), we tried to figure out which parts of the outer wall were new, which were old, and which were part of the original. His guess was as good as mine.
When Mary and George came to Carlisle, Mary and her friend Marge apparently went up to the front door of either the castle or the cathedral after visiting hours and knocked. First, the maid answered, who called down the Duke that was living there at the time. The Duke's son arrived first, and was apparently very rude. Then the Duke himself showed up and turned out to be quite kind, and decided to give them a private tour.
We didn't quite match that story, but in celebration of it, we went to see a different Duke. A skinny one, who was very pale. Alright, it was a restaurant called "The Thin White Duke," which turned out to be the right choice, seeing as it was the best meal either of us had had in all of the UK ever.
Full and happy, we then got a little dessert at a nearby restaurant, and went back to the hostel.
In our dorm room, we found a girl named Julie, who happened to be visiting Carlisle for a couple days. She is taking a gap year to travel throughout Europe. She asked what there is to do here, and we say to visit the cathedral and castle, but she replies, "Oh, I've seen plenty of those for a lifetime."
No comments:
Post a Comment