We got off our train in Cambridge and began to look for the bus to Duxford. Unfortunately, we learned that those particular busses don’t run on weekdays. We asked at the information desk what the best way was to get to the Imperial War Museum in Duxford. She told us the taxi was our best bet. We thanked her, and after checking prices, we caught an Über there. We enjoyed our conversation with the local lady who drove us there. She had lived in Cambridge for about nine years, and highly recommended the air show that we had chosen not to do. Maybe some other time. She says her son really likes it.
On the way, her GPS stopped working and she had to pull over and hook up her TomTom. It was funny riding along on the left side of the street. We haven’t taken a bus or ridden in a car until this. In any case, Über was convenient and provided an opportunity to talk a bit with a local, which was fun.
When we got to the museum, it did not disappoint. Bryan pointed out the different types of planes, what they were built to do, and some oddities or limitations of each one. I found it interesting and Bryan seemed to be impressed by the collection. There was a hanger full of functional historic aircraft. We got to see a couple of them fly on the airstrip outside. Then there was a hanger full of U.S. planes. I saw the marks on the side of one of the bombers showing how many bombs it had dropped, and I began to feel sad. While the engineering of the aircraft is interesting, I don’t like the idea of people dropping bombs on other people.
I know that there will likely not be peace on earth until after Christ’s return, but as I walked through this museum of war, I wished there could be.
The final hanger that we explored was one full of tanks. There were British tanks, of course, but also American, German and Russian. Out back there was a dirt area where the working tanks drive around and do demonstrations, but none was going on at the moment. We went to the restaurant and had half a BBQ chicken and some “burnt ends.” It was nice to sit and have something to eat and drink.
Next we pulled up our Über app to get a ride back to Cambridge. Hmmm... no cars available. That was unexpected. We sat about for a bit and waited to see if one would become available. None did. Hmmm. We could walk to a bus stop, but we were tired, and had hoped to spend some time poking about in Cambridge before our train departed for London. (We had chosen to buy tickets for a fixed time of return, because that was more economical.) So we asked the gentleman at the bag check how we could hail a taxi.
He provided us with a phone number, and we did just that.
The taxi took a while to arrive. When the man did pick us up, he had a thick accent which made him difficult to understand. The car was hot. And the engine died occasionally. When we did get to Cambridge he quoted our bill and expected cash. Oops! We had run out of cash and not gotten more since everywhere was taking both card and contactless pay. And to be fair, riding a taxi had not been our first or even second plan. Still, we felt foolish sitting there with no way to pay for our ride. He handed us a card of paper and had us ring the office and pay with our card over the phone. We apologized to him for the inconvenience, and were on our way.
By this time we still didn’t have much time in Cambridge. But we walked around a bit and got ourselves gelato. We will have to come back at some point.
We had one more bit of trouble with transportation today. On our train ride back to London, an announcement was made that our driver was going off shift and that there wasn’t another driver. So everyone was asked to get off the train and if you were heading to this list of places, the train coming along behind presently would do just fine to get you there. If you were so unfortunate as to be holding a ticket to one of these other stations, you should have a word with a staff member. Thankfully, our destination was among those that the substitute train was stopping at. So we got off, waited a few minutes for them to get our previous train out of the way, and hopped on the new train and were back on our way. But it was a new experience for both of us to have a train that we were on get canceled. Ah, the joys of travel.
2025-02-16