Day 12: Yorkshire Dales, a broken bridge, and late night London.

First of all, can you believe that this picture is real and I actually took it? Even 12 days in, I still can't believe I'm here! Needless to say, the Yorkshire Dales are breathtaking...and also not surprising, I almost missed the bus. Not my fault this time. I had scheduled my taxi the night before for an early pick up and I got a notice just before that they were canceling my request. So I call another taxi and they say there are no cars in my area. I decide to try Uber which hasn't been available in all areas but, it worked and they arrived in 2 minutes. Uber to the rescue! I made it to the meeting point for my bus tour by the skin of my teeth, again. BTW, just like trains, bus tours don't wait... AT ALL. They will leave your ass and watch you crying in their rearview mirror.

One of our stops was Hardraw Force, the single largest single drop waterfall in England. This also was the waterfall used in Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves... where Robin Hood was taking a bath, just like Lady Marion asked him to. This was the awesome version from 1990 with Kevin Costner. I happened to have watched that movie QUITE a few times, and have most of it memorized. Apparently no one else on the bus was very familiar, so I was answering all the bus driver's trivia questions. At one point, he asked, "Anyone else? Does ANYONE else know anything about the movie?" Bwahahaha. 😆

I got my comeuppance though. We were stopped in Haworth, where all the Bronte sisters and their family were from (very cool!) and I stopped at an old Sweetie Shop in the village where I bit down on a candy and my bridge broke and came off. Stupid candy. Stupid bridge. Stupid me. I put it in my fanny pack, now known as my crossbody bag cuz those things are expensive and I'm gonna try to have the dentist glue that bitch back on when I get home!

Anyway, Malham Cove, a rock formation leftover from an Ice Age glacier, was cool. Apparently, that was in one of the Harry Potter movies but I don't know shite about those.

The tour ended and I raced back to my hotel to grab my luggage and raced to the train station (all Uber) to catch my train to London. I got in at midnight and for some reason the taxi pickup area was a LONG way from where I disembarked. Remind you, I am lugging all my luggage and I now have an extra bag that's full of souvenirs. By the time I reach the taxis, there's a stupid gate in between us and I have to walk all the way around. It's after midnight, I'm exhausted, my knees are still messed up, and I'm almost in tears by the time I get in a taxi. We arrive in a really seedy area for my lodging and a police chase is going by. Thankfully the taxi driver didn't leave until I was in safely. My room was up 3 flights of stairs (no lift) and I'm pretty sure I did shed a few tears by the time I got there and literally crawled into bed. The room was quite nice, just in not a good neighborhood. Definitely not what I foresaw as my first taste of London. AND London didn't smell any different to me. Maybe I was just too tired to notice.