When I was 17 — roughly the same age as Max is now — I spent a semester of my senior year of H.S. in a small village called Marske-by-the-Sea, along the N.E. coast of England. It was a transformative period of my life, as it was my first extended trip and time away from home. I was with extended family — the lovely parents of my brother-in-law, Robert Bentley — but it was still a liberating experience to be away from everything I knew and the comfort of an environment I knew well.
When planning this trip, we wanted to visit Robert’s mom, Jean, who was my mom-away-from-mom, and is one of the sweetest and warmest people I’ve ever encountered, and my niece Sarah, who is living with her. I also wanted to catch up with an old friend from my time in Marske, Tom Iddison, who still lives nearby and who (thanks to Facebook) I reconnected with a few years ago. So the trip to the northeast of England was something of a homecoming for me, but Jackie and the kids also fell in love with the area: Saltburn, the village where we stayed about 5 miles from Marske, was great. We visited the nearby, but larger, towns of Whitby and York, about an hour away. The few days spent up here has been great.
Saltburn: Below are pics of the lovely home we rented via Airbnb and the nearby “downtown” leading up to the beach — in all our travels, this house was the first truly “homey” experience we had. We also took in the North Sea coastline and various restaurants and pubs the town has to offer:
From Saltbrun pier looking back at the town
Whitby: Apparently, the author of Dracula, Bram Stoker, lived and worked in Whitby for a time and wrote into the Dracula story the Whitby Bay (where Dracula first came ashore), and the 199 steps up to the church and abby at the top. The landscape and ruins are beautiful, but there is a bustling (if a bit overrun-by-tourists) town along the shore as well.
Taking the environment as invitation
York, the Moors, and the Lion Inn: About an hour and a half from Saltburn — and a lovely drive through the North York Moors — is the old medieval city of York. It still has much of its charm from that period and before, including York Minster, the old street markets, and intact portions of the wall that once surrounded the city. After seeing the sights and doing some shopping in York, we visited the Lion Inn, a wonderful pub seemingly in the middle of nowhere. It has great food, fantastic beer (including the Old Peculiar, an indigenous brew from this part of England).
The grand York Minster cathedral 
Catching up with old friends & family: While it was truly lovely to revisit places I last saw 30+ years ago, for me, the best part was catching up with distant family and an old friend I haven’t seen in 32+ years. It was wonderful to visit Jean, who took such great care of me when I went to school here, and to introduce my now-teenage kids to her. She looked great, like she hadn’t aged a day, and she is just as sweet and kind as ever. It was also great to hang out with my niece Sarah, who played tour guide and driver, taking us to all the great places we visited.
It was also really fun to reconnect with my old friend, Tom, whose academic career I’m pretty sure I wrecked by distracting him from studies and going to the local pub most nights over those four months I was here in 1986. Tom was — and is — a bit larger than life in some respects: very animated, very irreverent, very funny, and very kind. As Zoe might say, he’s just “extra.” We met up at the Saltburn pubs both nights we were there, and my kids loved meeting him. They were also shocked that I — their “boring” lawyer dad with similarly boring “dad” friends — would have a friend with piercings, tattoos, and such a care-free manner. Anyway, it was great fun to catch up and remind ourselves of some of the fun and trouble we got into all those years ago.
In the home stretch! As of this writing, it is day 74 of our adventure. We have left Saltburn and made our way down to London, where we will stay for 7 nights — the last 7 nights of our 80-day adventure! The family is really starting to “count the days” until we go home — to see family, friends, Buddy (our dog, and Jackie’s favorite creature in the universe) and to sleep in our own beds. Here’s hoping the team holds it together long enough to actually enjoy these last 7 days!
