Off we went, into the wild green yonder....

This really was an adventurous day. We wanted to visit the Imperial War Museum annex in Duxford, which is where this vintage Spitfire is resting, in the lovely Cambridgeshire countryside. But there isn't a train that goes directly to the town where the museum is. However, the wonderful Visit Britain website, which has never steered me wrong, indicated that the Museum is not far from the train station in Whittlesford, so we bought tickets for that worthy village and hoped for the best.

After a few false starts in Whittlesford, like trying to get on a bus going the wrong way, we finally got some very good directions from a couple of friendly Whittlesford women, and were able to walk to the next town and get to the Museum in less than 20 minutes. We spent the whole afternoon there and enjoyed it very much. They have a large collection of flyable WWII-era planes (unfortunately no B-26's, but a few P-51's) that are lovingly preserved, as well as some others in the process of being lovingly restored. Also some informative exhibits about the Battle of Britain and the Blitz.

They have a whole section of the museum, this very impressive structure (shown with tourist for scale), devoted to the American contributions to the war and post-war defense efforts. There are a lot of planes in there, plus some very well-thought out exhibits giving details. There's a great map showing where U.S. airmen were stationed during the War that I plan to incorporate into my Dad's Journal website.

A very moving tribute to the many airmen lost from British bases lines the walk to the entrance. Here is the mercifully lightly inscribed panel which included Dad's Bomb Group. Some of the panels were literally covered in planes representing losses during the war.

Thanks to the help of the friendly Museum staff, we were able to find the correct bus to take us back to Whittlesford when our sight-seeing ended. We boarded the train, right on time, soon after being treated to this gorgeous sunset over the tidy homes of Whittlesford:

But our adventures weren't completely over. We still had to either hunt or gather provisions for a dinner in the London wilderness. Which actually seemed that way when we exited the Liverpool Street train station on the side full of office buildings that were empty for the night. However, we finally found our way to the City Road, and a yummy Indian restaurant called the Curry Leaf East (Henry was in the mood for spicy, and he got it!).

Then, rather than just head home, I thought H needed to see the Houses of Parliament in the nighttime, and he must have because he took a LOT of pictures there. Here is one of mine, which I might replace with one of his better ones later.