Guess what came in the middle of the night?

That's right, rain. Lots and lots of rain.

We woke up in the morning to grey skies and sheets of rain pounding the boat.

It wasn't going to ease-up anytime soon.

We headed to the St. Ives Lock, where we found ourselves in a queue. I went on the deck and looped a rope around a cleat, to hold our spot in the line. Even though I was wearing a rain jacket, it was so windy that the rain was blowing sideways and I was soaked through to my underwear as I was stood holding the rope.

It was miserable.

After speaking with other boaters, we found out that the river was flooded and that it would be dangerous to continue.

It was without a doubt, the best news that I received on the entire trip.

Dan called the weekend emergency line for the Bridge Shipyard in Ely and explained our situation. It took a few hours to sort out, but we were directed to bring the boat to a shipyard in St. Ives.

The owner of the boat company drove over and picked Dan up, so that Dan could get our car from Ely. Zoe and I gleefully packed up our luggage. The owner was going to be driving the boat back to Ely, so we left him all of our unused groceries. This was another piece of good news, as packing up the groceries would have been a huge hassle and we would have likely thrown much of it out. I hope that he used it, but even if he didn't, at least we didn't have to bother with the clean up.

I was so happy to get out of spending a third night on the boat. The whole time that we were packing up, I was thinking about the warm shower that I was going to take and how were were going to be sleeping in a comfortable hotel bed, that was dry and didn't have spiders or mold. Heaven.

Boating holidays are not for everyone. They are certainly not for me. Truthfully, I can't imagine who would like them. If you're reading this and you're a fan of boating holidays, please leave a comment and let me know what you like about them. I'm genuinely curious!

Here is the apocalyptic sky as we were leaving St. Ives.

It rained off and on during our drive back to Newbury.

On a previous trip to England, we ate at a Little Chef, which is kind of like a English version of Denny's. It was terrible. Maybe I was still basking in my post-boat glow, but our lunch at Little Chef wasn't too bad this time. They even gave us a whole handful of complimentary lollipops when we paid our bill. Score.

The rain had stopped when we were passing the legendary Silverstone Circuit. It was late in the afternoon, but since my stepson, Felix, is such a huge fan of race cars, we thought that it couldn't hurt to try to see the track.

We went to the gift shop and a nice employee told us that there was a race going on and that if we asked the guard, he might let us watch. We went to the guard, prepared with a story of a little kid and his dreams of racing, but the guard just waved us through without a hassle. We arrived in time to see the last race of the day and we were the only visitors in the stands. The whole stadium was empty, except for those people directly involved in the race. We couldn't believe our luck!

The track is enormous and when the cars whizzed by us, it was deafening. The best part was watching how excited Felix was to see his first race. He was transfixed.

We continued to the Hilton Newbury, where we traded in our last night on the boat, for an extra night in a family suite.

We set-off in the rain towards our first stop, a pub about two hours from the boatyard. Here was our lovely view.

In part one, I mentioned the green plants, called Duckweed, that clogged up the filters. It's thick and covers much of the river. Here's a look at it.

We passed this boat and liked the name.

When we reached the pub, there were boats everywhere. We were struggling to find a place to moor, when a woman shouted out and offered her help. She tied us to a boat, which was tied at the mooring. We had to climb over the other boat, to get to the dock. It turns out, the woman was the owner of the pub and not the owner of the other boat. The owners of the other boat were sitting inside, watching us, totally clueless as to what was happening. Luckily, they were very nice and just found the whole situation to be amusing. We watched the pub owner organize all of the boats and get a good crowd into her restaurant. Smart woman.

The rain had slowed down to a light sprinkle by the time we were eating dinner at The Lazy Otter, but everything was sopping wet as we walked up to the pub.

Even though we had only been on the boat for a couple of hours, I still felt scruffy coming to dine at The Lazy Otter. Despite the stuffed otter on the wall, it's an upscale-casual pub with an eclectic menu. I would have liked to have shown up looking a little more presentable. It's hard to get rid of the moldy boat smell!

I took the servers suggestion for a particular cider and ended up with the weakest, most water-downed cider that I've ever consumed. Elephant piss. Ick. Undrinkable. I had to send it back. The food was marvelous. I started with a summer pear salad and had a citrus salmon over couscous for my main. Delicious. Dan ordered a pate to start and fish n' chips for his main. The kids had mac and cheese. Felix liked his so much, that he ordered a second bowl!

On vacation or on days that end in "Y", desserts are mandatory. We ordered an assortment, but the Death by Chocolate Cup was to die for!

With two potentially noisy kids and not wanting to bother the neighbors, we untied our boat and headed away from The Lazy Otter to find a spot to moor for the night. We ended up placing stakes on the riverbank, next to a busy bridge and this beautiful piece of local art.

We had to turn the lights out early to conserve energy and as soon as we turned them off and got settled into bed, the rain started up again. I fell asleep listening to the rain and the cars crossing the bridge, the car headlights flashing bursts of brightness into my room. Occasionally, a spider or a fly would land on my skin or a drop of water would hit me from the condensation building on the window over my head. It was a restless first night and we made an unfortunate discovery in the morning.

What could possibly go wrong?

Europe 2014- Vacation Disaster (Part Five)

Europe 2014- Vacation Disaster (Part Two)