Tuesday April 4, 2001-clear skies and COLD! Woke up at 9am, showered and went down to breakfast. We get a free full breakfast every day that we are in the hotel. It was a huge breakfast and afterwards we went back to the room to phone the Blackpool Zoo to make sure they were open, and luckily they were! We drove the 2 miles to the Zoo and had to walk over disinfectant mats in order to enter the zoo. There were very few people there and that made it feel like we had our own private tour. The zoo was a LOT better than I was imagining. It was very open and the animals had very large enclosures. I was expecting very small cages and sad looking animals. I was pleasantly surprised. We finished at the zoo about 3 hours later, around 1:30pm, and decided to drive up to the Lakes District. It was a 2 hour drive but well worth it. First we drove through Kendal which was very picturesque with rolling green hills and cute little houses and farms. Then we drove the short distance to Lake Windermere. We ate lunch at a pub right on the lake then walked around taking pictures for a little bit. After that it was back to Blackpool. We stopped off at our hotel to drop off the video camera, them we took the tram up to the Italian restaurant that we ate at last night and had dinner there again. After dinner we went into another large arcade center and played the various games. I won 3 toys very quickly on one of those claw machines, then Wayne won a cute squirrel from another one. Unfortunately he just could not get the adorable teddy bear that he wanted because it was too heavy for the claw to pick up. We took the tram back to the hotel and went to bed. Back to Coventry tomorrow where we are staying with Craig & Frank.

Wednesday April 4, 2001-cloudy, raining off and on I woke up this morning with a sore throat, hopefully I'm not getting sick. Left Blackpool and drove down to Coventry. Dropped out stuff off at Craig & Frank's house then the four of us took the bus into Central Coventry. We then took a train to Birmingham (the second largest city in England) which was only 30 minutes away. We ate at a place called Mr. Egg. You get a TON of food for hardly any money. After eating we went to three different bars each for about an hour, then went back to the train station and took the train back to Coventry. We got back to Craig & Frank's house and we were all a bit hungry so Craig made us a midnight snack. After that it was off to bed.

Thursday April 5, 2001-raining I slept very well for the first time on this trip. I woke up this morning with a sore throat still, along with a cough. I'm getting a cold on my vacation... Craig (Frank had to work), Dad, Wayne & I went to Drayton Manor (a smallish theme park) and it was pouring rain and freezing cold all day long, not very good for my cold. The rides weren't that great, more like state fair or carnival kinds of rides. Hardly anyone was there due to all the rain so we were on all the rides very quickly. We came back about 3-4pm completely soaked and frozen. We all changed our clothes and rested for a few hours. Then Wayne, Craig, & I went to a pub for dinner. The food there was very good, especially the soup. It made my throat feel better and cleared up my now stuffy nose. After dinner we went to a club for an hour then to the Hospital Club to pick Frank up from work. We all went home and watched TV for a bit then went to bed.

. Friday April 6, 2001-raining off and on I slept like crap last night, my nose kept stuffing up or dripping like a faucet. I got up about 10am and had a hot shower. That made me feel a bit better. We were supposed to go to Stratford-Upon-Avon today with Dad (we missed it our last trip here 2 years ago) but I just don't feel up to it. We called Dad and told him we weren't going because I was sick. We just hung around the house for a few hours then went over to Mum & Dad's to repack our small bags. We stayed there for about an hour then headed up to Dean & Cheryl's house in Stafford (about 50 miles north of Coventry). Dean was the best man at our wedding and he and his wife Cheryl are letting us stay with them for the next few days. They have a brand new house and its huge. Its so beautiful, they did a wonderful job decorating the different rooms as well. Wayne & I have yet to do ours. Our walls are all still white for now. We dropped off our bags, had the delicious dinner that Cheryl made, then went into downtown Stafford and into a few pubs. We went into one that used to be a one-screen movie theater. it was so cool inside. The floor sloped down like in a movie theater and they still had the screen, which they used to project the logo of one of the beers they had on tap. After staying there for about an hour we headed back to Dean & Cheryl's where we watched some TV and then went to bed.

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