Well as today closes (weather was back to being wonderful) I thought I’d post something quickly about motoring in England. I recall the first time I ever drove the Dragon (US 129 on the border of TN&NC) wonderful road, makes my brain hurt to drive it. I know there are those who zip and zoom around the 318 turns, but I’m enough of a novice that it just tires me out to think about it. That’s kind of what driving in England is like. Not the turn every second, but you have to think. I’ve been driving long enough that I can do some things on auto-pilot. A long stretch of Interstate and you can let your mind wander (keeping alert for changes) In England the roads are the same, but everything is backwards (75% of all MINIs made are left hand drive) I can drive with the wheel on the right, but the other side of the road still makes me have to think. Sue has caught me making a right turn and going instinctively into the right lane! Not a good idea. I have improved a great deal since I first started out, but I still feel like I’m a new driver trying not to get into trouble. Combine this with not being familiar with the roads and my brain is set to explode!
Now we have a Nuvi (Hyacinth) with the European roads on it, and I have Sue who is a great navigator. Today we headed out to see an old friend of ours who is in England for part of the summer. He sent us directions via email. So we had Hyacinth, Sue, and Bill all telling me where to go… Hyacinth took one route, Sue had her idea, and Bill had Google Maps directions- the result was getting lost and taking almost three hours to reach our destination. After turning off the GPS things got a little better (OK we had to figure out where we were first), The way home was also interesting because we decided to just follow the Nuvi’s directions- Neat roads but I don’t think I could find my way back without help. Tomorrow is another day and more adventures- the fun part is getting lost- fortunately I did mark our cottage as a waypoint.