1st time driving in England

---

Picked up the rental car today after doing a tour of Euston station. BTW, if you're renting a car from Avis and the address says Euston station, it's NOT in Euston station. It's down the road next to a sex shop. Obviously!

Robb was somewhat worried to drive on the wrong side but managed to figure out how to make car move forward. An amazing feat considering gear shift only has three settings - R, N and A.

He mastered the roundabout and was officialy inaugurated as a driver in England by getting honked at three times within an hour span.

We decided to do day trip into Staffordshire which is 225 km north of London. We drove through Birmingham ... it's very much like Cleveland we all thought - working town, not much going on
on a Saturday.

Finally arrived in Stafford and was surprised to find that it is the home of the soup kitchen. We were so proud. It's actually a quaint little town but it took us a while to find a restaurant. When we finally did find a place, it was scary! Lots of freaky clocks on the wall, old men and a barperson who we weren't quite sure was male or female. We ended up down the street at another pub where Robb had the best beef pie he's ever had.

We tried to find the Stafford castle. You'd think finding a castle built on a hill would be easy. Apparently not. We never did find it. We saw a few signs when we were searching for a restaurant but couldn't find our way back after we had eaten. We did look up the castle on Ann's blackberry - cool castle, at least what's left of it.

The ride home took twice as long because of an accident on the M1. The police shut it down. We've never seen cars actually park and drivers get out before on a major highway. Another first! The detour took us through Watford, close to where we'll be next Saturday (Hemel). Not a lot of pictures to share since we were stuck in the car for over 5 hours getting back. Kids were great - having fun in the backseat.

Tomorrow we officially start our roadtrip by heading into Bath with a stop at Stonehenge en route. There may be a photo op or two there.

---

Photos

The horror!
Driving on the other side of the road.

Heading to Staffordshire
On the M6

Sophie hamming it up in the backseat
Jonathan taking pics to pass the time