Day One (Thursday)
Indy to DC was uneventful, except that I saw one of the most incredible rainbows of all time and couldn’t get my phone camera to turn on quick enough. I slept hard on the flight from DC to London and was okay to drive the 3 hours to Exeter (160 miles) to have lunch with Bruce. Then only 1.5 hours from Exeter to Weymouth (61 miles). And then another hour to park after we unloaded at the Airbnb. The hour to park was mostly our vault, but all good in the end. We would make a great team for that traveling show but might have been the last to complete the task of parking.
Weymouth is 100% a beach town, but there is a lot of character here. I can see this place packed during the summer – you have the promenade, but you have all the other shops and pubs along the bay as well. But with COVID, I think we were the only American’s here. The people were great, and we had many great conversations. It’s a long day and time to crash hard tonight.
COVID – the lines to get through Custom was at a record low. We were at the bus stand to pick up our rental car in about 15 minutes – and that included the 10-minute walk from the plane to the Customs area and hitting the ATM to gets some pounds. Though our plane was packed (from what I could see), the number of arriving planes was way down. The guy at the rental car said it is picking up, but they usually run about 500 rentals a day but are only at about 100 / day now.
The hardest part about going was the hour it took to upload all of the documentation the night before – COVID test result and passenger location (a long-form) but that way, they can track where you sat if they find someone is positive. So we didn’t have to show anything even though we printed off our vaccination cards, test results, and passenger location forms. And sort of felt cheated because they didn’t stamp our passports. But our Custom Agent was excited that we were going to Islay – she said that her family is from there.
Driving here isn’t any different than driving at home – except you are on the right side. Just remember, the driver is always in the center of the road. And get an automatic, not a manual. We made that mistake back in 1993 on our second trip over. Also, you now have to focus on the lines on the right. The final nuance is that you need to watch your left side when pulling into parking stops – twice I freaked out Katy as I was about swipe the parked car on the left – always stopped in time to make adjustments, but only have some excitement from Katy.
Saying this, the drive from London to Exeter was pretty easy – M (Interstate) for about the first 40 miles and then a four-lane divided highway for most of the rest and then the last 30 miles two-lane roads. We were surprised that we drove right past Stonehenge. We have been there as a family several years ago and knew that a highway ran close by – I have some of those pictures but wasn’t expecting to that we were on that road. The drive from Exeter to Weymouth was easy, but mainly two lanes and going up and down through rolling, beautiful countryside.
www.tsallenphotos.com 