Ahhhhhhghghghghghghghghghg! Or, How to Drive in the UK

Our trip to the UK is in the books and I think the first day of driving aged Katie about 10 years. She and I can both attest that driving on the other side of the road is not half as strange as riding passenger for some reason.  Lucky for me, she was usually the passenger.

We specifically booked a flight landing late at night so we could get some sleep and start running on a new time zone in the morning. Therefore, I had made sure to book a rental car from a company that listed itself as open 24 hours.

They lied.

Of course we only figure this out after waiting 45 min for the shuttle. Unlike the 8 other furious customers, we cut bait and made it over to another rental car facility right before closing. This is a classic way to be gouged on a rental fee - never do this if it's on your own dime. This is also how we met "Mo."

Out of the 4-5 people still milling around behind the counter we are helped by a very friendly guy of Indian descent (Mo) whose mode and manner leave you wondering if he's being sincere or mocking you. After bleeding me dry on the rental fee he then says that adding a 2nd driver will cost an extra 10 quid a day. Yeah, right buddy. Katie and I turn to each other as if on cue and have a very loud, very American conversation we call "The Scene."

This move requires two people and goes something like this: one person loudly states the baseline argument against the fee, the second person angrily states the supporting evidence as if arguing with the first person. This further angers the first person who spits out the next build of the argument, etc. In this way you build the case against the third person (Mo) without actually given him a chance to counter and while creating a feeling of anxiety. Miraculously, Mo lasted 45 seconds before somehow figuring out that he didn't have to charge us for a second driver.

Mo finishes up the paper work and directs us outside where he says another agent will assist in getting our car. We walk outside and talk to... Mo. Where did he come from? Out of the handful of people "working" he apparently has two jobs. He pulls a car around and we check it for damage. He whips out a card the size of a tablet and says, "We only care about anything larger than this card." And then proceeds to inspect the car as if with a magnifying glass a couple inches away from the surface. I thought he was trying to be funny, but he took 5 min and went over the entire surface of the car that way!

So, we hop in the car, pull up to the exit booth, and out pops... Mo! The guy is ubiquitous. "It's me again!" he says cheerfully as he takes our papers. Great, one last challenge: drive 6 miles in a nearly straight shot to our hotel.

I'd printed out directions and maps for our entire trip before hand. I hand Katie the directions, designate her navigator and we are off! In England the road signs don't normally tell you the name of the road so much as the place the road takes you to. This sounds perfectly logical if you know where you're going. In practice, it sucks.

Couple that with the fact that arrows here don't always point the direction you should go and are color coded. Also, 3 out of 4 approaches to our hotel were blocked off by road construction. Want to guess how long it took to get to our hotel? 1 hour 15 minutes. 6 miles. No traffic. We're rocking this drive-in-the-UK thing.

After the first road block, we went down a side road and almost accidentally made it to the hotel. We ended up back at the roadblock in time to see another lone car. Follow him! Well, we lost him, but we did find road block number 2.

Then we entered a Bermuda Triangle-like vortex of driving. No matter what road we turned down we kept ending up back at the same spot. It turns out the map I'd printed for Katie had no road names on it. She attempted to correct for it by telling me the direction her phone said we were heading. Magically, we were somehow always headed west. Even when I made a U-turn.

Eventually, we stopped (after much pleading from Katie) at a Holiday Inn where we were able to get directions from the night auditor and make it to our hotel. We had been within a mile of the hotel most of the time driving around.

The next morning we were confident that we could make it out of Windsor and on our way toward Salisbury. We drove out of the hotel and straight into the Bermuda Triangle-like vortex. After passing the same mall twice by driving in different directions, we bought a sim card and put our faith in Google Maps.

Google successfully got us out into the country where roads are 1.5 lanes wide, lined by hedgerows, and sport opposing traffic at 60 mph. I'm pretty sure that Katie had an actual heart attack at one point, but was defibrillated by a pair of pot holes I was forced to hit.

Oh, and don't hug the hedge rows, sometimes they give way to brick buildings. Also, park anywhere you like, facing any direction. Turns out rear view mirrors are considered dispensable parts of the car in the UK.

In the end , the car suffered no visible damage and I'm sold on roundabouts. Even Katie worked up some significant time behind the wheel. We're in good shape now for doing it in a minivan next year...

When we picked up the car Katie said it was so "tiny".  After the first day she changed her mind and said this car was too big for UK roads. 

Of course Katie made me take a picture when I finally relented and bought a SIM card at the mall.  

Fun at the Children’s Museum with Friends

Just a boy….

and his adorable ferret….

Erickson

Christopher and I are pretty sassy with each other.  If you know us, you already know that.  There are times when we call the other “Erickson”.  Example, “Put the phone down Erickson!”  “Engage Erickson!” “Put a move on it Erickson.”  “Let’s go Erickson.”  To Christopher and I it’s just something fun we do with each other.

This morning as we were trying to get ready to church, Christopher called Zack in to take his shower.  He comes running down the hall yelling, “I’m COMING ERICKSON!”

Apparently our kids do listen to us….

Peaks and Pits

Sometimes at dinner we go around the table and everybody can tell about their peak and pit for that day. This refers to your favorite moment and your worse moment of everyday.

Well, tonight we sat down and Zack could not wait to start the peak and pit discussion. In fact, he led it. He asked everybody sequentially around the table about theirs.

Then, when he was sure he had the finale, he announced, "I know mine! My peak was when Eli came over to play, and my pit was when he had to go home!"

He loved playing with his friend so much that he couldn't help but to share it at dinner. I was really surprised, it's the first time that any of the kids have acted excited for that family moment. Maybe we should keep such things up...

Time Lords of the Waffle House

What's better than staying home and getting to sleep-in and relax over a holiday weekend while still getting some important stuff done?

Well, spending forever on the road and getting up early every day and bouncing off the walls of the the car and hotel rooms of course!

Some factions of our family don't find that very funny, so careful who you talk to about our misadventures, I mean "awesome adventures," right now...

Today we took off from Ohio for the greener pastures of Tennessee for the Labor Day weekend. It was going to be perfect. And it was. Right up until people didn't listen to me. So from the start, it pretty much crashed right from the start.

I had it planned. We were going to pull the kids out of school early and hit the road and have half a day at the hotel to swim and relax. All Katie had to do was get up early, pack everybody, deliver our two pets to different people to care for them, wrap up her own business activities, and look like a model while supporting everything I said.

It was so simple.

Over the years of our many road trips, I have developed simple rules for a quick and painless trip. We have yet to follow them, but they are: 1. Get out the door and on the road - don't dally. 2. No stops, or stop as little as possible. 3. Drive when everybody is likely to be sleeping (see rule 2).

So, when everybody decided we needed to have lunch AT HOME before hitting the road we were off to a great start. A great start that was 1 hour later than the original great start, but fine.

Then we had to drop off the ferret at the home of another ferret. So, of course we had to play with the other ferret.

Then we had to drop off the dog at the home of another dog. So, of course we had to play with the other dog.

Then we were finally able to hit the road!

Except we were low on gas. So then we had to stop and get gas and use the restroom. By that time we were too late to beat the construction induced nightmare people refer to as Cincinnati. Somewhere around this time Katie and I decided that we should take the kids to a Waffle House for the very first time ever on this trip. We had been passing one VERY SLOWLY. This lets you know how quickly our state of mind was devolving.

Once we were in the clear, it was time to use the bathroom again. And all of a sudden we are still only 1/4 of the way along by the time we should have been there...

And that's when a serious bout of silliness hit. It was like a bomb of self expression went off in the car.

Ben started playing the alphabet game by himself - except he thought it was with everybody. He was loudly and excitedly finding letters (mostly in order.) Meanwhile, Andrew was trying to rub his sock in Kallie's face. She was screaming bloody murder and occasionally picking off letters for Ben.

Zack kept freaking out because he's deathly afraid of flies and very good at imagining one is near him. So I had to keep rolling down his window (whub, whub, whub, whub, ahhhhh! open the window again!) Zack was also yelling out every new thing he saw on the road and Katie kept taking pictures of the clock in our car (more on this to come.)

If I hadn't been driving and singing Queen at the top of my lungs I would have recorded this rolling loony bin for posterity's sake.

Memorable moments included when Kallie found the 'i.' In between screams of terror she yelled, "'i' in the back of that truck!" I responded "no, 'u' in the back of this van!" Squeals of laughter lasted long enough to forget what comes after 'i.' So, about 10 seconds. Also, we witnessed Katie doing math in public.

Not just any math - time math. See for the first time ever we were about to cross a time zone by driving south. Katie REALLY wanted the actual time to read AFTER the arrival time listed by the car's GPS.

She kept running scenarios: "if we go forward... no if we stop and wait..." When she figured it out, she was so excited she blurted, "I tame the time zone!" To this hour I still have no idea what she was trying to say, but it became the catch phrase of the day.

And she got her wish... the time kept rolling on and past our arrival time. She took a picture every minute to get the best difference before the time zone changed over. I won't disclose how many minutes past the time zone border we were when she realized the car's clock was NOT set to update by GPS...

Eventually, we had to go potty again. And what luck - a Waffle House! Dinner! This was when Katie started to think that maybe deciding to eat at a Waffle House was a bad idea. I don't think she'd every REALLY looked at one until we pulled into the parking lot at that moment. We used the bathroom at Taco Bell.

Back on the freeway, she discovered that the highest rated Waffle House in Kentucky was 20 min straight ahead of us. It was now or never.

When we pulled into the parking lot trepidation was still high. We took a vote. Waffle House won because Zack was too busy watching a cartoon to participate in the democratic process. I blame him.

I ordered a breakfast plate that came with a bowl of grits and a individual tub of "spread." I dumped the very soft spread onto my very hot grits. However, 5 minutes later it was apparent that the spread was not going to melt.... even when I manually whipped it into the grits. I think that's all you need to know about eating at Waffle House.

By the way, the tub of spread had a "refrigerate" notice printed on the lid. I'm pretty sure that's an inside joke at the manufacturer.

In the end, we lived to survive another day. After all, we tamed the time zone.