Learn to program that GPS thing next time buddy

Well the cooking adventures that I and RG end up in aren’t the only interesting situations that would end up in the movies. Though I have to admit the others are generally my fault. The same weekend that we had fun in the kitchen, I had driven ½ way across England and back. Though we did plan to end up on the other side of the island things certainly didn’t go to the plan I had laid out. However at the very least I think I did learn a couple of valuable lessons from the day. I probably should have learned them before, but I do have kind of a think skull about some things.

So I had planned to drive out to see Leeds Castle, one of the more famous castles because of its nice shape and picturesque setting. Built on a small island in the middle of a lake its owner in the late 1700 was one of George Washington’s mentors believe it or not. After the castle I had planned to drive out to Dover to see the famous white cliffs and take a stroll along the English Channel. I also wanted to take a route that would let us trace the southern shore line until we reached Brighton then head north from there. I didn’t really look at the maps, or read much about traveling such a route, I also didn’t take some warnings from my coworkers about the traffic in England (having already driven for a month I new it was a little busier than in the states but not really that bad outside of London).

So the night before I spent ½ hour programming my fancy TomTom with the route. To get it to work I had to tell it avoid a lot road and to plan the route through Brighton. I also put Leeds Castle in as part of the drive finally ending in Brighton. The TomTom said it would take about 2.5 hours and I have always beaten TomTom’s time by 15-30 minutes so I figured it would be an easy drive.

We left the apartment mid-morning. Not too late, not too early (well anything is too early for RG but you can’t sleep away every Saturday). The first thing we hit was a little que due road construction. ‘No worries’ I thought to myself, this won’t last long. Then we hit a que at a round-a-bout. After another .8 miles we hit yet another round-a-bout with a que. I think the first and biggest flaw in my plans is already showing itself. The route I picked went through to many towns; each one had a couple of round about-a-bouts with decent sized ques. I think I was ok at this point. I didn’t get to angry and we chatted, looked at the country, and kept moving. As usual I was committed to my mistake like a sea captain going down with his ship.

After slugging it out through at least 20 round-a-bouts we did finally come to the sea shore for our scenic drive. And it was scenic. The ocean was pretty wild with some good sized waves, the weather was clear (though very cold), and you could see for miles. The problem was that we only moved 10 feet per minute. Again the culprit was construction. But this time it took the better part of an hour to get through. Now I was getting a little hot under the collar. I tried not to show it but I bet my wife knew. And she was actually being very understanding. When we finally did reach Brighton, a city only like 50 miles from my apartment, we had already spent 2 hours or so in the car.

Once out of Brighton we moved much faster, even if we were driving through cow and sheep fields. No joke, my routing put us right into the country, no highways to be found. But eventually we did hit a major road and started to cruise. The next thing you knew we were in Dover, with 15 minutes before the last entry to the Castle in Leeds. What-What? I had programmed the TomTom wrong. Instead of directing us to the Castle, having us stop, then having us continue to Dover, we simply drove by the exit for the castle (a little out of way if we were going straight to Dover) and continued to Dover. At this point I decided I still wanted to see a castle so we went up the hill to Dover Castle. Only because it was raining half the touring area was closed, and because it was so late all of the other tour spots were sold out. So no Castle for me. 

We drove down to see the cliffs. Unfortunately it was so cold, and I didn’t bring hats and Gloves that we couldn’t make the mile or so walk to get in front of the cliffs to get a great look. We only got glimpses from the side. So we found a pub, ate dinner, and headed home. Just to add injury to insult we got snowed on, on the way home. I felt like such an idiot. We drove 5 and ½ hours to eat at a pub in Dover. It wasn’t bad, but it certainly wasn’t worth 5 hours! Surprisingly RG didn’t get to upset by all this. I may have been, but she just came along for the ride. Next time I will know to trust TomTom’s routes and to plan that for stops we actually stop at them not just plan the route to go by them!