The MrsAdventures of Beki: Travel Journal

27 Jan 2011

We got to Manchester about 11:30am and it took an hour before we got our car due to some billing confusion a lack of "H class" vehicles. Leave it to me to wind up behind the rental car counter working the guy's computer to straighten out the confusion! I think I scared him. He gave us an upgrade to an automatic transmission, which made us both feel safer; however, it was a large minivan. I was terrified but determined not to sweat in front of my other four passengers...Mitch, Kelly, and Emma...and adopted Canadian Lynn Lyons. I'm sure that my hands firmly planted at 10 and 2 and my stiff back was probably a giveaway.

The Renault "people carrier" -- too big for Welsh roads!

Mitch & Kelly are brother and sister and I met them last year at the Gathering. This year, Mitch brought his daughter Emma for her 16th birthday present. They were all great traveling companions and very supportive of my driving adventures. Our mantra was "All we have to do it stay alive!" and later, after hitting the windshield wipers instead of the gear shift a number of times, "Beki is a stickler for a spotless windshield." Since I am here writing this now, I'm sure you figured out that I stayed alive.

Mitch & Kelly at Gathering 18 (2010)

After arriving in Prestatyn, we settled in at Pontins and dropped Lynn at her room, settled into our apartment and hit the town for some sausage and mash at the local pub and a trip to Aldi for some basics. Pre-Gathering at the Bells of St. Mary Pub was pretty dead for a while, but picked up later and then moved to the Queen Vic (the on site pub at Pontins), where just Kelly & I stayed on until about 12:30am.

We would have left sooner but Kelly inadvertently entered a dart contest and I met a tour guide, humorist, and travel writer named Dave, his partying stuffed moose Sven, and his Norwegian "host brother" Maurice/Marius(?) from exchange student days. Dave and I talked tour guide, and Maurice told me about his recent winter stint as a doctor to a crew of 6 in Antarctica. Since there were so few patients, he said he wound up working on a human waste disposal project...interestingly, he said he'd like to go back, but not for the winter.