Well, I do owe you all a bit of an update, now, don’t I?
Thursday morning, we picked up our rental car, a Vauxhall Meriva, then parked it at Molly’s while we once again traveled down to “Merry Olde London-town” by train. The post from Thursday explains what happened that day, and the quite bizarre and wondrous happenstance of encountering my brother, Bob, and his wife Marcy, at St. Paul’s Cathedral.
Friday morning, Scott and I rose early, about 6:20 am. We wanted to be on the road as early as possible. As it turned out, we encountered very little traffic as we were going pretty much against the flow. Most traffic in this area of England (Mill Hill is north, and we were driving North-East) is coming INTO London.
We had a nice peaceful drive, though admittedly it took me a great deal of time, even as only a passenger, getting used to traffic circles. I have to say, though, that now that I AM used to them, it’s amazing we don’t use them more in the US. Each turn seemed to take us on to a smaller road. It’s amazing that there is so much traffic on roads that, in the US, would be one way only due to the width… simply a single or single and a half lane. And the roads often come right up to the edge of a house or building. As in to within mere inches!
The purpose of our drive to Ipswich was to see Scott’s old stomping grounds around RAF Bentwaters, a joint US/RAF base (RAF for those who may not know, stands for Royal Air Force). There’s not a lot left, however, if you hop on over to our photos, you’ll see a picture of Scott standing next to a sign for the base. The Air Base was shut down in 1989.
After that, we drove over to the North Sea where we saw the fishing boats come in. Then we headed to Sutton Hoo, It is a fascinating archaeological site dating back to around 620 AD. We had a good wander around, then it was off, once again to Colchester the oldest city in England, dating back to the time of the Romans. However, because our GPS deposited us in the middle of a field well outside the city, by the time we had found our way into the city and to the museum we wanted to visit… we got there just as it closed.
So, from there, we made our way home. We needed to get to bed early so that once again we could get on our way early.
On The Road II 