Bristol Blue

Wednesday, Sept 6th,  was our last day to play tourist!

And even then it was only 1/2 a day. We had a flight to catch early that afternoon from Bristol back to Edinburgh. Then tomorrow morning at 8 am we checked in at the airport to begin our long flight home! Yippee! We had been gone for 17 days. We were both ready to go home. 

Neither one of us was interested in seeing another castle or cathedral or museum. We wanted to see something different. The night before Kory discovered the perfect place. It was called Bristol Blue Glass. A manufacturer who allows people into his shop to watch the process. Best part was that it was free and we were able to park right in front of the shop for free too! 

Watching their process was so cool to see. This woman was working on an order of glass Christmas bulbs. She probably made 5 keepers from start to finish in the 1 1/2 hours we were there. One of her bulbs burst in the oven, another one of them came out with a hole on the side and it seems like another one was just lopsided and wasn't cooperating so she threw the hardening glass back into the fire. .  

This young man was making fluted glasses/goblets.  

This young man was helping with the ornaments and the fluted glasses. When he gets the round shape he likes he blows into the end of his stick which blows air into the center of the hot glass creating a glass bubble. Then he shapes the bubble again working back and forth until he gets the size and shaped wanted. When it's the size wanted they use a sharp knife to "pop" the end of the bubble. Thus making it a goblet or an ornament.   

The top part of the goblet is done. Now another worker brings him a hot glob of clear glass. They touch and the hot glass just kind of sticks to the red glass.  He molds it to be part of the future flute of the goblet. 

Now he's adding the bottom of the fluted piece, the stand for the goblet. This goblet had a total of 3 different pieces of hot glass . Once it's all put together then it goes into the fire. 

Bristol Blue Glass several years ago was contracted to make some of the goblets in the Harry Potter movies. Their store shows the "extras" that were made for the order and pictures of the Harry Potter scenes that used the goblets. Kind of cool!  

After our fun visit we headed back to our hotel and packed our things. Drove to the airport, dropped off our rental car and began our long journey home!

Good Bye car!

After an 11+ hour flight home the next day, followed by the drive home. 

We finally made it home!

This sweet girl was so excited to have her mom back.  

She even talked her Dad into walking her into her class room. Best picture ever! Taken with a crappy 

cell phone camera through the windshield while raining outside. 

But it's one of my favorites!

We had fun! 

We saw amazing things. Saw. read and learned amazing history. It gave me the "bug" to travel more and see our world.  I am so glad we were able to take this trip, to learn a little more about where I come from.  

Now it's time to spend some time at home making our own little history.