A Few Great Men

Our trip is nearly over, and we are very ready to be back home.  We turned in the keys to our rental car tonight and checked in to a Holiday Inn close to the airport.  My only complaint is that we are forced to PAY EXTRA MONEY to use their internet.  Boo.  I think we will probably pay for an hour and then be off the grid until we reach a place with the decency to offer free WI-FI.  This was such a bummer to me at first.  I mean, MCDONALD’S offers free internet.  We’re spending a lot more money to stay two nights at the Holiday Inn than we pay at McDonald’s.  Oh, well.

I am so anxious to be home again with the children, though it has been nice to be on vacation and enjoy stress-free, responsibility-free time with KJ.  I’ve enjoyed it so much.

Today we drove to Bedford, where John Bunyan preached the gospel and was imprisoned and wrote Pilgrim’s Progress.  There is a museum there where they had several items belonging to him, but we weren’t allowed to take pictures inside.  The most valuable thing they have is his will, written in his own hand.  It was found in the chimney of a house that was about to be torn down in the 1800s. 

We drove from Bedford to Olney where John Newton preached and William Cowper lived.  Cowper’s house is now a museum.  They, too, had an impressive number of both Newton and Cowper’s belongings.  We were able to run our hands over Cowper’s desk and walk through his garden, looking inside the small building he called his “Poetry Factory,” where he wrote.

John Newton died and was buried in London, but his body was moved to Olney in the 1800s so we were able to visit his grave and walk inside the church where he preached.  It was beautiful, of course, built in the same style as so many of the churches we’ve been inside during our time here.

We have a pretty full day planned in London tomorrow, and then it’s time to come home.  I can hardly wait to be with my children again.